MORTMAIN • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Mortmain

... letters. The evil days of Spanish manners and Spanish bigotry, of exhausted revenues and insane taxation, were but dawning; and the young prince, Francesco Maria, who was destined to survive his heir and transfer a ruined duchy to the mortmain of the Church, was now a boy of eight years old. In fact, though the Court of Urbino labored already under that manifold disease of waste which drained the marrow of Italian principalities, its atrophy was not apparent to the eye. It could still boast of magnificent pageants, trains of noble ...

— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

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