MEDICI POPES 
 
 HERBERT M. VAUGHAN
 
 UCSB LIBRARY
 
 7 
 /3 /(jto 
 
 fl-V 
 
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 THE MEDICI POPES
 
 Alinari 
 
 LEO X, CARDINAL G1ULIO DE' MEDICI (CLEMENT VII) AND CARDINAL 
 
 DE' ROSSI
 
 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 (LEO X. AND CLEMENT VII.) 
 
 BY 
 
 HERBERT M. VAUGHAN, B.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE LAST OF THE ROYAL STUARTS," ETC. 
 
 WITH TWENTY ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 METHUEN & CO. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. 
 
 LONDON
 
 First Published in 1908
 
 3n dfcemoriam 
 
 PIAM ET SEMPER VIRENTEM 
 FRATRIS CARISSIMI 
 
 J. P. V. 
 
 QUI AD ALTERAM VITAM 
 
 NUPER TRANSIVIT 
 HUNC DEDICAT LIBRUM 
 AUCTOR MOESTISSIMUS 
 MCMVIII
 
 PREFACE 
 
 A' THOUGH the names of the two great 
 Popes of the House of Medici loom large 
 in the annals of the Italian Renaissance, 
 yet the private side of their lives and conduct has 
 naturally been dwelt upon with less insistence by the 
 papal historian than the leading part they took in 
 the development of Italian politics or in the course 
 of the Reformation throughout Europe. Even in 
 William Roscoe's elaborate biography of Leo X., the 
 figure of that famous pontiff is largely overshadowed 
 by the momentous episodes of his reign both within 
 and without Italy; "one cannot see the wood for 
 the intervening trees ! " In the present volume, 
 therefore, I have made the attempt of presenting to 
 the reader a purely personal study, from which I 
 have excluded, so far as was practicable, all reference 
 to the burning theological questions of the Refor- 
 mation, and have also avoided any undue amount of 
 dissertation on the tortuous and complicated policy 
 pursued by these Popes of the House of Medici. 
 For I hope that a simple account of the personal 
 career and character of Leo X. (with whom of neces- 
 
 vii
 
 viii THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 sity my work chiefly deals) will prove of some value 
 to the historical student of the Renaissance, who may 
 thereby become better able to comprehend the varying 
 part played by the former of the two Medicean 
 pontiffs in the political and religious struggles during 
 the opening decades of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The earliest, and indeed only contemporary life of 
 any importance of Giovanni de' Medici, Pope Leo X., 
 is the Vita Leonis X. of Paolo Giovio, Bishop of 
 Nocera, himself a member of Leo's own brilliant court 
 in Rome, and therefore a person well qualified to 
 undertake such a task. The work of Giovio, or 
 Jovius, which was first published at Florence in 1549, 
 is written in Latin, and though it has been rendered 
 into Italian and French, it has never, so far as I am 
 aware, been translated into English. Giovio's Life, 
 which is divided into four books, is a most meagre 
 and disappointing narrative, scarcely a biography at 
 all in the modern sense of the term, for it principally 
 consists of a long rambling account of contemporary 
 politics, albeit the Fourth Book contains a large num- 
 ber of intimate details concerning the Pope, which 
 have often been utilised by succeeding writers. Poor 
 and unsatisfactory as was Giovio's Life, this work 
 remained for over 250 years the sole biography of the 
 great Medicean pontiff until 1797, when there appeared 
 an enlarged Leonis X. Vita from the pen of the learned 
 Monsignore Angelo Fabroni of Pisa. This biography, 
 which was published in Latin and has never been 
 translated, contains a fuller account, together with a
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 copious Appendix of original Documents discovered 
 and given to the world by Fabroni himself. His work 
 was followed eight years later by the justly celebrated 
 biography from the pen of William Roscoe of Liver- 
 pool, who based his study on Fabroni's researches. 
 Roscoe's The Life and Pontificate of Leo X. was soon 
 translated into Italian, and published in 1817 by Count 
 Luigi Bossi of Milan, whose splendid edition in twelve 
 volumes constitutes the best and fullest Life of this 
 Pope in existence. Amongst more recent volumes on 
 the same subject, the carefully compiled Leo X. of 
 Professor Ludwig Pastor, published in 1906, may be 
 mentioned. Free use has been made in the ensuing 
 work of these various biographies, together with their 
 voluminous Appendices. 
 
 I have treated of Giulio de' Medici, Pope Clement 
 VII., in a less detailed manner, for two reasons : first, 
 because his life before obtaining the tiara is closely 
 bound up with, and consequently covered by, the 
 career of his more distinguished cousin, Leo X. ; and 
 second, because his private biography offers far less 
 of general interest. Special attention has been drawn 
 throughout the book to the various existing works of 
 art in Florence and Rome which are connected with 
 the personal history, or are due to the bountiful patron- 
 age of these two Medicean pontiffs. In accordance 
 with the title chosen for this work, I have also added 
 a brief account of the later Popes, Pius IV. and Leo 
 XL, both of whom bore the historic name of Medici,
 
 x THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 although their connection with the senior branch of the 
 great Florentine House was exceedingly remote. 
 
 In case it may be remarked that an undue propor- 
 tion of space has been bestowed on the early years ot 
 Leo X. (and thereby also on those of his near kinsman 
 and contemporary, Clement VII.), I would reply that 
 far less is generally known of the youthful struggles 
 and adventures of Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici than 
 of the pomp and power of his pontificate ; and that 
 some acquaintance with the story of Leo X.'s early 
 poverty and insignificance is essential to a clearer 
 understanding of his subsequent conduct as Supreme 
 Pontiff. The vast and ever-increasing mass of material 
 reflecting on the life, public and private, of the Medici 
 Popes has rendered my task of selection and rejection 
 peculiarly difficult ; indeed, an adequate and compre- 
 hensive account of the reign of Leo X. alone would 
 afford occupation for a lifetime, as every historian is 
 well aware. Yet I think that from the pages of this 
 book the reader will contrive to obtain a tolerably 
 accurate glimpse into the personality of those two great 
 Popes, whose deeds and influence for good or evil did 
 so much to shape the course of the political, religious, 
 intellectual and artistic development of Europe during 
 the early stages of the Reformation.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE i 
 
 Aspect of Florence under the Medici Birth of Giovanni de' Medici 
 His parents His childhood and education He is destined for the 
 Church Quarrel between Politian and Clarice de' Medici 
 Giovanni de' Medici receives the tonsure He is given preferment 
 in the Church Lorenzo de' Medici is anxious to obtain a Cardinal's 
 hat for Giovanni His efforts in Rome Condition of Italian 
 politics Accession of Pope Innocent VIII. Giovanni is nominated 
 a Cardinal Deacon He is sent to the University of Pisa Bernardo 
 Dovizi of Bibbiena Giovanni receives the scarlet hat in public 
 Rejoicings in Florence Giovanni sets out for Rome His reception 
 by Innocent VIII. Letter of Lorenzo de' Medici to his son 
 Giovanni Death of Lorenzo. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 28 
 
 Effects of Lorenzo's death upon the politics of Florence and of Italy 
 Piero de' Medici succeeds his father Lorenzo's three sons and 
 their respective characters Arrival of the Cardinal in Florence 
 State of Europe in the year 1492 Death of Innocent VIII. and 
 election of Roderigo Borgia as Alexander VI. Giovanni returns to 
 Florence Sermons and influence of Savonarola in Florence 
 Critical condition of Italian politics Ludovico Sforza invites 
 Charles VIII. of France into Italy Attitude of the Medici Piero's 
 foolish conduct The Medici are expelled from Florence Bravery 
 of the Cardinal His flight to Bologna Entry of King Charles 
 VIII. into Florence Position of the Cardinal and his brothers 
 Giulio de' Medici joins his cousin, the Cardinal Together they 
 travel in Germany and France Meeting at Savona of Giovanni 
 and Giulio de' Medici with Cardinal Delia Rovere, afterwards Pope 
 Julius II. Death of Alexander VI. and election of Pius III. Early
 
 xii THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 death of Pius III. and election of Julius II. Piero de' Medici is 
 drowned in the river Garigliano His wife and family His monu- 
 ment at Monte Cassino. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II 52 
 
 Improved position of the House of Medici Friendship of the Cardinal 
 with the Papal nephew The Cardinal's mode of life in Rome 
 Character and policy of Julius II. Contrast between the Pope and 
 the Cardinal Campaigns of Julius He is accompanied by Giovanni 
 and Giulio de' Medici Surrender of Perugia and Bologna to the 
 Pope The League of Cambrai Loss of Bologna and murder of 
 Cardinal Alidosi of Pavia Giovanni de' Medici is appointed Papal 
 Legate of Bologna Gaston de Foix The battle of Ravenna The 
 Cardinal-Legate a prisoner of the French He sends his cousin 
 Giulio de' Medici to Rome The Cardinal and Giulio de' Medici at 
 Milan Retreat of the French army Escape of the Cardinal and 
 his subsequent adventures Importance of this episode in the 
 Cardinal's career. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 RETURN OF THE MEDICI TO FLORENCE 79 
 
 The conference at Mantua Julius wishes to restore the Medici to 
 Florence Efforts of the Cardinal and opposition of the Duke of 
 Urbino to them The Cardinal with the Spanish army of Cardona 
 prepares to cross the Apennines into Tuscany Public feeling in 
 Florence The Gonfalionere Soderini and Niccolo Machiavelli urge 
 the citizens to defend their city against the Medici Advance of 
 the Cardinal towards Barberino The Florentine Republic rejects 
 Cardona's offers Siege and Sack of Prato Conduct of the 
 Cardinal thereat Giuliano de' Medici re-enters Florence Flight 
 of Soderini The Cardinal returns to the city He is practically 
 master of Florence Formation of the societies of the Diamond 
 and the Bough Death of Pope Julius II. The Cardinal sets out 
 for the conclave in Rome. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS too 
 
 Last days of Julius II. The judgment of history upon him His 
 portrait by Raphael The Conclave of March, 1513 Illness of 
 Giovanni de' Medici He is elected Pope under the title of Leo X.
 
 CONTENTS xiii 
 
 Rejoicings in Rome and Florence The personal appearance of 
 the new Pope He is crowned in St. Peter's High hopes for his 
 reign Description of Rome in the year 1513 The ceremony of 
 the Sacro Possesso, or formal occupation of the Lateran by a new 
 Pontiff Elaborate preparations for the procession Description- of 
 the pageant Decorations and laudatory verses in the city Agostino 
 Chigi Progress of Leo X. across the city Return of the procession 
 Letter of Gian-Giacomo Penni Opening of the Leonine Age in 
 Rome. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 129 
 
 Count Alberto Pio's opinion of the new Pope The private aims and 
 ambitious character of Leo X. Condition of European politics in 
 1513 Giuliano de' Medici is made Gonfalionere of the Church 
 Festival at the Roman Capitol Leo X. poses as the peacemaker of 
 Europe Accession of Francis I. to the throne of France He 
 invades Italy with a vast army He is opposed by Leo X. The 
 battle of Marignano and its results Alarm of Leo X. He decides 
 to appeal in person to Francis Leo sets out to meet the French 
 King at Bologna His reception in Florence The meeting of Leo 
 and Francis at Bologna Its unsatisfactory and indecisive results 
 Leo returns to Florence Illness and death of Giuliano de' Medici 
 Character of Giuliano The war of Urbino Lorenzo de' Medici, 
 the Pope's nephew, is declared Duke of Urbino. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 160 
 
 Rome the intellectual and artistic centre of the Christian world under 
 Leo X. Patronage of literature by the Pope His neglect of 
 Ariosto, Guicciardini, Machiavelli and Erasmus Rise of Bembo 
 and Sadoleto Musicians, buffoons and Improvvisatori at the 
 Vatican The Pope's love of music Camillo Querno, the arch- 
 poet Practical joke played upon Baraballo Unseemly conduct at 
 Leo's court Influence of Fra Mariano Fetti Beginnings of the 
 Drama Performances at the Vatican The Calandria of Cardinal 
 Bibbiena The Suppositi of Ariosto Other dramatic performances 
 at the Papal court Leo's extravagance Condition of the papal 
 finances Visit of Isabella d' Este, Marchioness of Mantua, to 
 Rome Banquets and concerts of the Italian Renaissance Festi- 
 vities in Rome during the Carnival of 1515 Departure of Isabella 
 d' Este from Rome.
 
 xiv THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LEO'S HUNTING 192 
 
 Leo's devotion to sport in his youth He continues to hunt after his 
 election The Papal villa of La Magliana The preserved zones 
 for the Pope's hunting Methods of contemporary sport in Italy 
 The Pope's head keeper, Boccamazzo Leo's chamberlain, Serapica 
 The Pope hunts with Cardinal Farnese The hunting poems of 
 Molosso and Postumo Description of a day's sport under Leo X. 
 Criticism of Leo's conduct His actual participation in sport His 
 neglect of business Sums paid for hawks for the papal mews 
 before the Pope's death. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 215 
 
 Leo X. the chief patron of Raphael of Urbino The Pope's neglect of 
 Michelangelo Reasons for this neglect Comparison of the chances 
 for the papal favour of Michelangelo and Raphael Michelangelo 
 is set to design a fagade for the church of San Lorenzo in Florence 
 Early acquaintance of the Pope with Raphael The artist 
 beautifies the basilica of Santa Maria in Domenica Raphael is 
 employed by Julius II. to decorate the official apartments of the 
 Vatican Death of Julius and election of Leo X. Leo commands 
 Raphael to complete the painting of the Stanze Portraits of 
 Julius II., Leo X. and other famous personages in the frescoes of 
 the Vatican Completion of the Halls of the Segnatura, the Eliodoro 
 and the Incendio Wood carving and heraldic ornamentation in 
 the Stanze di Raffaelo Decoration of the Loggie by Raphael and 
 Giovanni da Udine The bathroom of the Cardinal Bibbiena The 
 cartoons for the tapestries of the Sistine Chapel Raphael at Leo's 
 suggestion writes a treatise upon ancient Rome and prepares a plan 
 of the city Sudden illness and early death of the artist Grief in 
 Rome Letters of Michiel and Castiglione Raphael's portrait of 
 LeoX. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS 244 
 
 Dissatisfaction felt at Leo's policy in the Sacred College His early 
 nominations to the Cardinalate Giulio de' Medici is made Arch- 
 bishop of Florence, and later a Cardinal His unpopularity Anger 
 of Alfonso Petrucci against Leo Petrucci is supported by the 
 Cardinals Riario, Sauli, Soderini and Adrian of Corneto Petrucci 
 conspires against the Pope's life The plot discovered Arrest and
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 imprisonment of Petrucci and Sauli Leo calls the consistory, and 
 accuses Adrian and Soderini of complicity in the plot Arrest of 
 Riario The Cardinals heavily fined and punished Execution of 
 Petrucci in prison Criticism of Leo's conduct Leo creates over 
 thirty cardinals in one batch Important results of this step 
 General distrust of the Pope's policy Betrothal of Lorenzo de' 
 Medici to Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne Lorenzo's mission to 
 the French Court Lorenzo and his bride return to Florence Birth 
 of their daughter, Caterina de' Medici Death of Lorenzo and his 
 wife Tombs of the Medici in San Lorenzo Cardinal Giulio takes 
 over the government of Florence His all-powerful influence with 
 the Pope Indecision of Leo He allies himself with the Emperor 
 Charles V. Opening of the war between Charles V. and Francis 
 of France. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 DEATH AND CHARACTER OF LEO X 268 
 
 Giulio de' Medici sends news to Rome of the recapture of Parma and 
 Piacenza Leo is overjoyed at the news He is seized with a 
 sudden chill at his villa of La Magliana He returns to the Vatican, 
 where he expires on ist December, 1513 Conflicting accounts of 
 his last hours Suspicion of poison Reception of the news of the 
 Pope's death in Rome He is buried in St. Peter's His monument 
 in the Dominican Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva Analysis 
 of Leo's personal character Opinion of Guicciardini Unfounded 
 charges of immorality and impiety His inordinate craving for 
 pleasure and amusement The real failings of Leo X. Conclusion. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 CLEMENT SEPTIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 285 
 
 The Conclave of December, 1521 Election and Pontificate of Adrian VI. 
 Cardinal Giulio de' Medici retires to Florence He returns to 
 Rome later at Adrian's request Death of Adrian VI. The Con- 
 clave of October, 1523 Its delays and scandals Election of Giulio 
 de' Medici, who assumes the title of Clement VII. The choice 
 approved by the European sovereigns Appearance and character 
 of Clement VII. Renewed activity in the artistic world The Hall 
 of Constantine in the Vatican completed by Giulio Romano and 
 Penni Emblem of Clement VII. Clement's former patronage of 
 Raphael The Villa Medici on Monte Mario The painting of 
 the Transfiguration Clement gives numerous commissions to 
 Benvenuto Cellini The master-jeweller's account of the Pope
 
 xvi THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Cellini serves the Pope faithfully during the sack of Rome 
 Clement's appreciation of Michelangelo The master is com- 
 missioned by Clement to erect the New Sacristy and the Laurentian 
 Library at San Lorenzo in Florence Progress of this work inter- 
 rupted by the siege of Florence Michelangelo is forgiven by 
 Clement for his behaviour at the time of the siege The work at 
 San Lorenzo left incomplete at Clement's death and never re- 
 sumed. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 THE SACK OF ROME 307 
 
 Clement VII. pursues a fatal policy of vacillation between the Emperor 
 and the French King The battle of Pavia Clement persists 
 in his political folly and defies the Emperor Cardinal Colonna's 
 raid upon Rome The united army of German landsknechts under 
 Frundsberg and of Spanish veterans under the Constable of 
 Bourbon advances towards Rome The Spanish fleet under the 
 viceroy Lannoy reaches Gaeta Terrible position of Clement The 
 battle of Frosinone Truce between the Pope and Lannoy The 
 army of Bourbon continues to move southward It turns aside 
 from Florence It proceeds by way of Viterbo upon Rome Un- 
 prepared state of the city Abject folly of Clement Bourbon 
 attacks the walls of Rome and is killed The foreign forces enter 
 the city Clement and most of the members of the Roman Court 
 seek refuge in the Castle of Sant' Angelo Massacre and sack of 
 the city Frightful horrors committed The return of the Cardinal 
 Colonna Position of the Pope in Sant' Angelo Defence of the 
 castle under Santacroce and Benvenuto Cellini News of the 
 revolt in Florence and of the expulsion of the Medicean bastards 
 brought to the Pope Miserable plight of the Pope He surrenders 
 unconditionally to the representative of Charles V. Flight of 
 Clement to Orvieto The English Embassy at Orvieto Clement is 
 reconciled to the Emperor, whom he crowns at Bologna Siege 
 and capitulation of Florence. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 THE LAST YEARS OF CLEMENT VII. 329 
 
 The Pope's relatives, Alessandro and Ippolito de' Medici Preference 
 of Clement VII. for the former, who is created Duke of Florence 
 Ippolito is made a Cardinal against his wish Memorials of 
 Clement VII. in Florence Caterina de' Medici and Clement's 
 anxiety to arrange an important marriage for her The Emperor
 
 CONTENTS xvii 
 
 and Pope again meet at Bologna Catherine is betrothed to 
 Henry, Duke of Orleans Meeting of Francis I. and Clement at 
 Marseilles Marriage of Catherine in the Pope's presence Return 
 of Clement to Rome His last months spent in sickness and misery 
 The Pope and Benvenuto Cellini Clement's death a cause of 
 popular rejoicing Estimate of Clement VII.'s character. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 THE LATER MEDICI POPES 
 
 Gian-Angelo Medici of Milan, Pius IV. Alessandro de' Medici of 
 Florence, Leo XI. Leo's election and brief reign of one month 
 His monument in St. Peter's. 
 
 APPENDIX ............ 
 
 INDEX 
 
 353
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LEO X. ATTENDED BY THE CARDINALS GlU-LIO DE* MEDICI (AFTER- 
 WARDS CLEMENT VII.) AND LUIGI DE' Rossi . . . Frontispiece 
 From the painting by Raphael in the Pitti Palace, Florence. 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 GIOVANNI DE' MEDICI KNEELING BEFORE HIS FATHER, LORENZO IL 
 
 MAGNIFICO 18 
 
 Fresco by Vasari in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. 
 
 GlULIANO DELLA RoVERE (JULIUS II.) WITH GlOVANNI DE 1 MEDICI AND 
 
 OTHER MEMBERS OF HIS COURT 56 
 
 From the Stanze di Raffaello in the Vatican. 
 FLORENCE IN THE YEAR 1529 82 
 
 Fresco in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. 
 
 JULIUS II 103 
 
 From the cartoon by Raphael in the Corsini Palace, Florence. 
 
 LEO X. RIDING IN STATE 125 
 
 Detail from the Flight of Attila in the Stanze di Raffaello. 
 
 LEO X.'s PROCESSION IN FLORENCE 144 
 
 Fresco in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. 
 
 TOMB AND STATUE OF GIULIANO DE' MEDICI 157 
 
 By Michelangelo in the New Sacristy of Sun Lorenzo, Florence. 
 
 EMBLEMS OF LEO X. AND THE MEDICI 172 
 
 Wood carving in the Stanze di Raffaello. 
 
 CARDINAL BERNARDO DOVIZI DA BIBBIENA 185 
 
 From the painting by Raphael in the Pitti Palace, Florence. 
 PAPAL ACHIEVEMENT OF LEO X 190 
 
 By Giovanni da Udine, in the Borgia Apartments of the Vatican. 
 ALESSANDRO FARNESE (PAUL III.) 200 
 
 From the paiitiing by Paris Bordone in the Pitti Palace, Florence. 
 LA SALA DI ELIODORO 223 
 
 Stanse di Raffaello.
 
 xx THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 LOGGIA DI RAFFAELLO 233 
 
 In the Vatican. 
 LEO X.'s CREATION OF CARDINALS 257 
 
 Fresco by Vasari in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. 
 
 LORENZO DE' MEDICI, DUKE OF URBINO 263 
 
 Staftie by Michelangelo in the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo, Florence. 
 
 GIULIO DE' MEDICI (CLEMENT VII.) 289 
 
 From the painting by Bronzino in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 
 
 CLEMENT VII. AND THE EMPEROR CHARLES V 308 
 
 Fresco by Vasari in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. 
 
 CLEMENT VII. AND FRANCIS I. 326 
 
 Fresco by Vasari in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. 
 
 CATERINA DE' MEDICI, QUEEN OF FRANCE 339 
 
 From a painting in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 
 
 The illustrations are from photographs by Messrs. Alinari, Florence.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Amongst the printed works that have been consulted during the preparation 
 of this volume, some of the more important and useful are enumerated below : 
 
 Paulus Jovius [Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera]. Vita Leonis X. Florentine, 
 
 Z 549- (Quoted as Jovius.) 
 
 Angelo Fabroni. Leonis X. Vita. Pisa, 1807. (Quoted as Fabroni.) 
 William Roscoe. The Life and Pontificate of Leo X. Bohn's edition, London, 
 
 1846. (Quoted as Roscoe.) 
 Count Luigi Bossi. Vita e Pontificate di Leone X. di Guglielmo Roscoe. 
 
 Milano, 1816. (Quoted as Bossi- Roscoe.) 
 
 Francesco Nitti. Leone X. e la sua Politica. G. Barbera, Firenze, 1892. 
 Professor Ludwig Pastor. Leo X. Geschichte der Pdpste seit dem Ausgang des 
 
 Mittelalters. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1906. (Quoted as Pastor.) 
 Dr. M. Creighton, Bishop of London. A History of the Papacy from the Great 
 
 Schism to the Sack of Rome (vols. v. and vi.). Longmans, Green and 
 
 Co., London, 1904. (Quoted as Creighton.) 
 
 Ferdinand Gregorovius. History of Rome in the Middle Ages. Trans- 
 lated by Annie Hamilton. George Bell, London, 1902. (Quoted as 
 
 Gregorovius.) 
 Jacob Burckhardt. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Translated 
 
 by S. G. C. Middlemore. Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London, 1892. 
 M. Sanudo. / Diarii (1496-1533). Venezia, 1879-1902. 
 Francesco Guicciardini. Storia d' Italia. Edited by Gio. Rosini. Capolago, 
 
 1836. 
 
 Lorenzo Pignotti. Storia della Toscana. Pisa, 1813. 
 H. E. Napier. Florentine History (vol. iv.). Moxon, London, 1846. 
 J. Michelet. La Renaissance. Le'vy, Paris, 1898. 
 G. Del Badia. Diario Florentine di Luca Landucci. Sansoni, Firenze, 1883. 
 
 (Quoted as Landucci.) 
 
 E, Bacciotti. Firenze Illustrata. Firenze, 1879. 
 C. Yriarte. Florence. Sampson Lowe, London, 1882. 
 W. Roscoe. Life of Lorenzo de' Medici. London, 1796. 
 Professor E. Armstrong. Lorenzo de' Medici. Putnams, New York and 
 
 London, 1896. 
 
 zzi
 
 xxil THE MEDICI, POPES 
 
 C. Belviglieri. Tavole Sincrone e Genealogiche di Storia Italiana. Firenze, 
 
 1885. 
 
 E. Grifi. Saunterings in Florence. Bemporad e Figlio, Firenze, 1899. 
 Professor Pasquale Villari. Life and Times of Niccolb Machiavelli. Translated 
 
 by Madame Linda Villari. (Third Edition.) Fisher Unwin, London, N.D. 
 
 (Quoted as Villari.) 
 
 J. C. L. Sismondi. Histoire des Republiques Italiennes. Bruxelles, 1839. 
 Professor R. Lanciani. The Golden Days of the Renaissance in Rome. Hough- 
 ton, Mifflin and Co., Boston and New York, 1906. (Quoted as Lanciani.) 
 B. Platina. Le Vite de' Pontefici. In Venetia, 1685. 
 Raynaldus. Diario di Paridc Grasso. 
 Leopold Ranke. History of the Popes. Translated by E. Foster. Bohn's 
 
 edition, London, 1889. 
 Count Domenico Gnoli. Le Caccie di Leone X. La Nuova Antologia, vol. 
 
 cxxvii. 
 Signor Alessandro Luzio. Isabella d" Este ne 1 primordi del Papato di Leone X. 
 
 Cogliati, Milano, 1907. 
 Adolphus Trollope. The Girlhood of Catherine de Medici. Chapman & Hall, 
 
 London, 1856. 
 Scipione Ammirato. Ritratti d' huomini illustri di Casa Medici. (Opuscoli, 
 
 vol. iii.) Firenze, 1640. 
 Cesare Guasti. II Sacco di Prato e il Ritorno dei Medici in Firenze nel 1512. 
 
 Bologna, 1880. 
 
 G. Milanesi. // Sacco di Roma del 1527. G. Barbara, Firenze, 1867. 
 J. A. Symonds. Renaissance in Italy. Holt & Co., New York, 1887. 
 J. A. Symonds. Life of Michelangelo Buonarotti. Macmillan, London. 1901. 
 Benvenuto Cellini. Vita di scritta da lui medesimo. Firenze, 1842. 
 Giorgio Vasari. Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects. Bohn's 
 
 edition, London, 1850. 
 Eugene Muntz, Raphael, His Life, Works and Times. Translated by Walter 
 
 Armstrong. Chapman & Hall, London, 1896. (Quoted as Muntz.) 
 Baldassare Castiglione. // Cortigiano. Vinegia, 1556. 
 A. Braschet. Les Archives de la Serenissime Republique de Venise. Venise, 
 
 1857.
 
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 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE 
 
 From the frightful spectacle of poverty, barbarity and ignorance, 
 from the oppression of illiterate masters, and the sufferings of a degraded 
 peasantry, which the annals of England and France present to us, it is 
 delightful to turn to the opulent and enlightened states of Italy, to 
 the vast and magnificent cities, the ports, the arsenals, the villas, the 
 museums, the libraries, the marts filled with every article of comfort or 
 luxury, the factories swarming with artisans. . . . With peculiar pleasure 
 every cultivated mind must repose on the fair, the happy, the glorious 
 Florence, the halls which rang with the mirth of Pulci, the cell where 
 twinkled the midnight lamp of Politian, the statues on which the young 
 eye of Michelangelo glared with the frenzy of a kindred inspiration, 
 the gardens in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling song for the 
 May- Day dance of the Etrurian virgins (Lord Macaulay, Essay on 
 Machiavellt). 
 
 IN our efforts to realise the leading events of our own 
 history we experience no small difficulty from the 
 fact that so much of the face of England has com- 
 pletely altered its outward appearance under the stress of 
 modern development, so that we find it particularly hard 
 to picture to ourselves their original setting. Our over- 
 grown yet ever-spreading capital owns scarcely a feature 
 to-day in common with the London of the Tudors or Plan- 
 tagenets ; the relentless pushing of industrial enterprise 
 has turned whole shires from green to black, from verdant 
 countryside to smoke-grimed scenes of commerce. It is 
 therefore well-nigh impossible for us in many cases to con-
 
 2 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 jure up the old-world conditions of Merrie England. But 
 in writing of Italian annals we are confronted by no such 
 problem ; altered to a certain extent no doubt is the pres- 
 ent aspect of Italy, yet in Florence, Venice, Siena and 
 most of her cities we still possess the empty stages of the 
 pageants and deeds of long ago, all ready prepared for us 
 to people with the famous figures of the historic past. 
 
 Standing on the airy heights of San Miniato, where 
 the golden mosaics of its venerable church have cauhgt 
 the passing glories of the sunset for nigh upon a thousand 
 years, or strolling amongst the ilex alleys of " Boboli's 
 ducal bowers," we can still gaze below upon the Florence of 
 the Medici, the Florence of Lorenzo the Magnificent and 
 of Savonarola, the Florence of Popes Leo and Clement, 
 of Michelangelo and Machiavelli. For beneath us swift 
 Arno still shoots under the arches of Taddeo Gaddi's 
 ancient bridge piled high with its load of tiny shops that 
 Florentine goldsmiths have inhabited for the past six cen- 
 turies. There still dominates the red-roofed city Brunel- 
 leschi's huge cupola, and beside it still springs aloft "into 
 blue aether that no clouds o'ercast" the delicate parti- 
 coloured campanile of the Shepherd- Painter. Nearer to 
 us the graceful yet sturdy belfry of the old civic palace 
 soars majestically into the clear atmosphere, and hard by 
 we note the fantastic spire of the Badia, and alongside it 
 the severe outline of the turret that adjoins the grim castle 
 of the Podesta. Westward the slender pinnacle of Santa 
 Maria Novella greets our eyes, whilst amidst this varied 
 group of towers there obtrudes on our sight the square 
 mass of Or San Michele, that sacred citadel of the Flor- 
 entine guilds. Oltr' Arno nestling at our feet remains 
 wholly unchanged, and of a truth the only conspicuous 
 objects that can interrupt our mental retrospect of the 
 city of Lorenzo and Leo are the mean tower of Santa
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE 3 
 
 Croce, the long colonnades of the Uffizi, and the clumsy 
 dome that surmounts the gorgeous charnel-house of the 
 Medicean Grand- Dukes. To make the picture perfect, 
 we must blind our eyes to these excrescences of a later age, 
 and by another slight effect of the imagination we must 
 behold the modern raw suburbs and their smoke-belching 
 factories sink into the soil of the Florentine plain to give 
 place to tracts of garden and orchard, to shady groves and 
 smiling vineyards, that lie outside the broad coronal of 
 towered walls, wherewith Arnolfo di Cambio endowed his 
 native city for her protection. We must next conceive 
 the steep hillside of Fiesole less populous than at the 
 present day, less marred by quarries and mean houses, 
 yet freely besprinkled with ample villas. Amidst this 
 radiant scenery the practised eye can easily detect the 
 chief Medicean residences ; that sheltered pleasaunce 
 with its long terraces below the crest of ancient Faesulae ; 
 the favourite retreat of the sickly Piero and the Magnifi- 
 cent Lorenzo, with its broad roof peeping forth from bosky 
 thickets of elm and cypress at sunny Careggi ; and again 
 by directing our glance across the fertile plain towards 
 Prato, we seem to discover the whereabouts of Sangallo's 
 stately palace at low-lying Cajano, where the luckless 
 Clement VII. spent much of his childhood. No stretch of 
 the imagination is however required on our part to realise 
 the eternal hills which form the northern background to 
 the City of the Lily ; for ever unchanged and unchange- 
 able remain the stony stretches of familiar Monte Morello, 
 the green and russet slopes of the heights that rise in end- 
 less succession eastward of Fiesole, and the barren violet- 
 tinted mountains bounding the plain above Prato and 
 Pistoja. How exquisite, and also how unaltered even 
 to-day, is the distant aspect of Florence, "la bellissima e 
 famosissima figlia di Roma," as one of her most famous
 
 4 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 sons thus addressed his ancient mother ! With so superb 
 a setting, amid such glorious surroundings, the past history 
 of Florence becomes a living thing, which it needs no 
 striving to quicken, for the true Medicean city of the 
 Italian Renaissance stands before us to-day sharply 
 defined in the crystal-clear air of Tuscany 
 
 Dove "1 humano spirito si purga 
 E di salir al Ciel' diventa degno. 1 
 
 In the heart of the town itself, almost beneath the shadow 
 of the vast dome, out of sight of which no true-born son 
 of Florence is said ever to feel happy, rises that group 
 of buildings which is so closely associated with the origin 
 and fortunes of the House of Medici. Here lies the great 
 basilica of San Lorenzo with its pitiful naked fagade, that 
 Medicean popes and princes were always intending to 
 convert into a costly thing of beauty ; at its transepts up- 
 rear the rival sacristies of Brunelleschi and Michelangelo, 
 above which looms the red cupola of the Grand- Ducal 
 mausoleum. Beside the church extends the long window- 
 pierced form of the Laurentian Library, overlooking the 
 quiet cloister in a dark angle of which sits eternally the 
 robed and mitred figure of the grim-visaged Paolo 
 Giovio, the venal Plutarch of his age and the earliest bio- 
 grapher of Pope Leo X. Upon the little piazza before 
 the church, nowadays the busy scene of a daily market 
 of cheap or tawdry goods, abuts the massive palace which 
 was the cradle of the Medicean race. Much changed 
 in outward aspect is the mansion that Michelozzi con- 
 structed for Cosimo il Vecchio, for the Riccardi, who 
 bought this historic building in after years, must needs 
 spoil its original proportions by adding largely to the 
 structure. The statue-set garden wherein Cosimo and 
 
 1 // Purgatorio, canto i.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE 5 
 
 Lorenzo were wont to stroll has wholly disappeared, but 
 the central courtyard with its antique friezes and its stone 
 medallions remains intact. A most precious relic of its 
 former owners it still retains in the exquisite little chapel 
 covered with Benozzo Gozzoli's renowned frescoes, where- 
 in are portrayed in glowing colours and in gleaming gold 
 Cosimo the Elder, his son Piero, his grandchildren, and 
 his Imperial guests from distant Byzantium, all riding 
 with their trains of richly-clad attendants, with hawk and 
 hound, and even with trained leopard, amidst a landscape 
 of marvellous but fantastic beauty. The old Medicean 
 mansion, lying between Piazza San Lorenzo and the 
 broad curve of Via Larga, cannot perhaps aspire to the 
 symmetry and rich decoration of Palazzo Strozzi hard by, 
 nor can it vie in bulk and majesty with Messer Pitti's vast 
 palace on the slopes of Oltr' Arno ; nevertheless it is 
 a goodly building, well-proportioned and imposing, and 
 withal suitably contrived for defence. 
 
 It was in a chamber of this historic house that 
 Giovanni de' Medici, afterwards Pope Leo X., first 
 saw the light on nth December, 1475. Of his sire, 
 the Magnificent Lorenzo uncrowned king of Florence, 
 genial tyrant of an adoring populace, statesman, diplo- 
 matist, banker, scholar, poet it will be superfluous to 
 speak ; his mother, Clarice Orsini, a member of the 
 haughty feudal Roman house, was the first "foreign" 
 bride to enter the portals of the Medicean palace. She 
 was a good woman and a faithful wife, but in intellect 
 the inferior of her brilliant consort, whose versatile nature 
 and marvellous powers often puzzled or alarmed her. 
 But she had at least the merit of bestowing on her 
 second son the pontifical name by which all the world 
 speaks and thinks of Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici. 
 For on the night before her infant was born the good
 
 6 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Clarice had a dream, wherein she imagined herself seized 
 with pangs of childbirth in the Florentine Duomo, and 
 delivered of a huge but most docile lion instead of the 
 expected infant. 1 Man has always been a superstitious 
 animal, and in the year 1475 dreams such as Clarice's 
 were taken very seriously indeed as intentional warn- 
 ings or compliments from the Unseen, so that there can 
 be no reasonable doubt that Giovanni de' Medici on 
 being elected to fill the papal throne in after years chose 
 his official title of Leo X. out of deference to his mother's 
 nightmare, over the mystical meaning of which he had 
 probably often pondered. 
 
 Of the little Giovanni's brothers and sisters we must 
 speak one word. First, there was Piero, the heir, who 
 was four years old at Giovanni's birth, and last there 
 was Giuliano, born in the year of the Pazzi conspiracy 
 and so named after his ill-fated uncle. Then there were 
 the four sisters Lucrezia, Maddalena, Contessina and 
 Luisa of whom the three first-named were married re- 
 spectively to a Cybo, a Salviati, and a Ridolfi ; whilst 
 Luisa died prematurely on the eve of her nuptials with 
 Giovanni, son of Pier-Francesco de' Medici, head of the 
 younger branch of the Medicean House. To his chil- 
 dren, Lorenzo always showed himself an affectionate and 
 indulgent father, even condescending on occasions to 
 take part in their noisy games of the nursery : a circum- 
 stance that the merciless Machiavelli records with a sneer 
 in the pages of his Florentine history " he would for- 
 get the dignity of his office in romping with his children, 
 for he would oftentimes indulge in any idle or childish 
 amusement they might put him to". Nevertheless, most 
 persons will agree with a modern French critic, who de- 
 
 1 Jovius, lib. i.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE 7 
 
 clares that never could the great Lorenzo have shown 
 "himself more human or more lovable than when playing 
 at soldiers with Piero and Giuliano, or rolling on the 
 floor with the future Leo X. 
 
 Giovanni must have been far too young to remember 
 the conspiracy of the Pazzi with its terrible scenes, when 
 the mangled corpse of his uncle Giuliano was borne from 
 the cathedral to the palace that was surrounded by 
 angry crowds calling for summary vengeance on the 
 murderers, and professing boundless devotion towards 
 their surviving ruler, who had escaped the assassin's 
 knife as though by a miracle. Later, perhaps, he may 
 have recalled an addition to the Medicean nursery in a 
 little dark-eyed boy with the name of Giulio, the bastard 
 son of the murdered Giuliano, who was sometimes 
 brought to share the lessons and amusements of Lorenzo's 
 own children. In any case he must have been conscious 
 of the change of scene from busy crowded Florence to 
 the quiet and solitude of the family estate of Caffagiolo, 
 whither the Magnificent despatched his household for 
 safety after the Conjuration of the Pazzi. The dark 
 forests of pine and fir, the fleecy flocks, the rough but 
 kindly shepherds of the hills, the keen air of the wind- 
 grieved Apennines, must have had their early influence on 
 any son of Lorenzo the Poet, who loved dearly the life 
 and people of the Tuscan country-side. But in strange 
 contrast with the rural surroundings of airy Caffagiolo on 
 its distant mountain-top must have seemed the conversa- 
 tions overheard by the sharp ears of the children between 
 their tutor, Angelo Poliziano, and the handsome young 
 Pico della Mirandola, or the abstruse arguments indulged 
 in by their father with the learned Marsilio Ficino on the 
 chance occasions when Lorenzo was able to join his 
 family in their country retreat. But more often Politian
 
 8 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 was left alone with his charges and their mother, whose 
 views by no means coincided with those of their chosen 
 preceptor. Fiercely did the anxious Clarice wrangle 
 with Politian over the methods of education, which she 
 wanted to be conducted on her old-fashioned lines, the 
 tutor complaining meanwhile to Madonna Lucrezia, 
 Lorenzo's mother, a Tornabuoni by birth, to whom in 
 an amusing letter he sends a comically dismal account 
 of the daily life at Caffagiolo, which was by no means a 
 residence to the taste of the fastidious scholar. 
 
 " The only news I can send you is that we have here 
 such continual rains that it is impossible to quit the house, 
 and the exercises of the country are exchanged for 
 childish sports within doors. Here I stand by the fire- 
 side in my great coat and slippers, so that you might 
 take me for the very figure of Melancholy. . . . Were 
 we in Florence, we should have some consolation, were 
 it only for that of seeing Lorenzo, when he returned 
 home ; but here we are in continual anxiety, and I for 
 my part am half-dead with solitude and weariness. The 
 plague and the war are incessantly in my mind. I lament 
 past evils, and I have no longer at my side my dear 
 Madonna Lucrezia, to whom I might unbosom my 
 cares." 1 
 
 But besides complaining thus to Madonna Lucrezia, 
 the spoiled Humanist does not scruple to upbraid Clarice 
 to her own husband for wasting the time of his most 
 promising pupil, the precocious little Giovanni, by forcing 
 him to squander his newly-acquired power of reading in 
 spelling through the Psalms of David instead of the 
 masterpieces of antiquity. That the mother and tutor 
 of Lorenzo's children were on the worst possible terms 
 
 1 Roscoe, Life of Lorenzo de" Medici t Appendix LIX.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE 9 
 
 at lonely Caffagiolo is evident from one of Clarice's 
 letters, wherein she relates her side of the case with re- 
 gard to the thorny question of education, nor does she 
 shrink from abusing Lorenzo's favourite poet and com- 
 panion to her husband. 
 
 "... I do not like Messer Angelo Poliziano threaten- 
 ing to remain in the house in spite of me. You re- 
 member I told you, that if it was your wzY/he should stay, 
 I was perfectly contented ; and although I have suffered 
 infinite abuse from him, yet if it be with your consent, 
 I am satisfied. But I cannot believe this to be the 
 case." 1 
 
 At length Lorenzo, growing weary of these appeals 
 and bickerings, advised Politian to withdraw to the villa 
 below Fiesole, where he quickly recovered his equanimity 
 and spent a profitable time in composing his Rusticus, a 
 charming Latin poem that his contemporaries did not 
 hesitate to compare with the Georgics of Vergil. 
 
 With unerring instinct Lorenzo had already perceived 
 his second son's talents, and had decided to turn them to 
 the advantage of his House and his policy, so that the 
 little Giovanni was accordingly marked out for an ecclesi- 
 astical career almost from his infancy. Before reaching 
 his seventh birthday the child received the tonsure the 
 solemn shaving of the scalp which notified his entry into 
 the Church, and he was at the same time declared 
 capable of preferment, whereupon Louis XI. of France, 
 to whom Lorenzo had communicated his intention, at 
 once presented the boy with the abbey of Fonte Dolce, 
 and even promised him the see of Aix, until it was un- 
 expectedly realised that its archbishop was still living. 
 A canonry in each cathedral-church of Tuscany was 
 
 1 Roscoe, Appendix LXI.
 
 10 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 promptly bestowed on this infantile pluralist, and even 
 Pope Sixtus IV., that implacable foe of the House of 
 Medici, granted him a little later the rich convent of 
 Passignano. A detailed list of this child's benefices 
 would prove wearisome, but we may mention that he 
 held twenty -seven separate offices, of which the abbeys 
 of Fonte Dolce, Passignano and Monte Cassino were 
 the most lucrative. No wonder then that the learned 
 Fabroni, Leo's first modern biographer, exclaims in 
 horrified amazement, " Dear Lord, what a mass of 
 benefices concentrated in one single youth ! " Yet it is 
 difficult to dissent from Roscoe's shrewd criticism on such 
 a scandal, that it is of small consequence whether such 
 preferment be bestowed upon an infant who is unable, 
 or upon an adult who is unwilling, to perform the re- 
 quisite duties. 1 
 
 In the following year, 1483, this young ecclesiastic 
 was confirmed by the bishop of Arezzo in the beautiful 
 Medicean chapel with its Gozzoli frescoes ; a circumstance 
 which Lorenzo naively mentions in his Ricordi: 
 
 " On the nineteenth day of May, 1483, we received in- 
 telligence that the King of France had of his own motion 
 presented to my son Giovanni the abbey of Fonte Dolce. 
 On the thirty -first we heard from Rome that the Pope 
 had confirmed the grant, and had rendered him capable 
 of holding benefices, he being now seven years of age. 
 On the first day of June, Giovanni accompanied me from 
 Poggio a Cajano to Florence, where he was confirmed by 
 the bishop of Arezzo, and received the tonsure, and from 
 henceforth was called Messire Giovanni. This ceremony 
 took place in the chapel of our family." 
 
 But it is needless to add that Lorenzo had far more 
 
 1 Roscoe, chap, i., pp. 10, n.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE n 
 
 ambitious ends in view than the mere obtaining of rich 
 sees and abbeys for his second, who was perhaps his 
 favourite, son. His many experiences of the Protean 
 changes in Italian politics, of which he was now be- 
 coming the acknowledged moderator " the beam of the 
 Italian scales" had already impressed upon his marvel- 
 lous mind the paramount importance of a close connec- 
 tion between his own House and the Papacy. The 
 preponderance of Italian influence in Lorenzo's days was 
 divided between the duchy of Milan and the republic of 
 Venice in Northern Italy, and the kingdom of Naples 
 and the Papacy in the south, whilst in the centre the 
 wealthy commercial state of Florence under the judicious 
 sway of Lorenzo himself had for some time past managed 
 to keep the balance of power between the jarring ele- 
 ments of North and South, and to prevent any dangerous 
 combinations amongst the four leading states, whose in- 
 trigues also shaped the policy of the smaller Italian cities 
 such as Mantua, Ferrara, Siena, Bologna and the like. 
 But dangerous and tangled as was the skein of political 
 threads held in Milan, Naples, Venice and the minor 
 capitals, it was the uncertain action of the Papacy which 
 the ruler of Florence had most cause to dread. For it 
 had been the unconcealed hostility of Sixtus IV. that 
 had made the Pazzi conspiracy possible, and it was also 
 the same Pope's aggression that had later forced Lorenzo 
 to risk his life at the court of the treacherous Ferdinand 
 of Naples on his famous diplomatic mission of 1480. 
 From a repetition of past dangers at the hands of the 
 Pope, Lorenzo had fully determined to guard himself by 
 obtaining the admission of his younger son into the 
 College of Cardinals, whenever a favourable opportunity 
 might present itself. This attempt to obtain the scarlet 
 hat for Giovanni de' Medici was therefore as much an
 
 12 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 act of political foresight as an object of mere family ag- 
 grandisement, since a Medicean Cardinal would not 
 only help to raise the prestige of the burgher House, 
 already allied with a proud Roman family, but he would 
 also be able to influence the policy of the Sacred College 
 and the shifting aims of successive Popes. 
 
 So long as Sixtus IV. sat in St. Peter's chair, such 
 an ambition could remain only a day-dream, but on 1 3th 
 August, 1484, the Delia Rovere Pope, so dreaded by 
 Lorenzo, expired unloved and unlamented. The sub- 
 sequent election of Giambattista Cybo with the title of 
 Innocent VIII. now placed a personal as well as a political 
 friend on the pontifical throne, so that a rare chance pre- 
 sented itself to Lorenzo to push his intentions at the 
 Roman court. Two serious obstacles lay in the way of 
 his cherished scheme ; the feeble health of the aged 
 Pontiff, whose tenure of the dignity did not promise to 
 be of long duration, and the extreme youth of Lorenzo's 
 own little Cardinal in petto. Yet nothing daunted, the 
 Magnificent at once began eagerly to press his request 
 upon the new Pope, although the latter was naturally, in 
 spite of his regard for the father, extremely loth to no- 
 minate his infant son a prince of the Church. In fact, 
 at his election Innocent had in the conclave not only 
 promised never to admit any candidate to the Sacred 
 College who was under thirty years of age, but also not 
 to create any more members of the College itself until 
 its numbers were in the course of nature reduced to 
 twenty-four. These restrictions, absurd and illegal as 
 they undoubtedly were, the new-made Pope could hardly 
 have been expected to comply with strictly, yet certainly 
 Giovanni's proposed elevation constituted an extreme 
 case. To raise a mere child to the highest rank in the 
 Church, even in that age of universal corruption, would
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE 13 
 
 have caused a grave scandal ; nevertheless, Innocent 
 wavered between the fear of offending the Sacred College 
 and a warm desire to serve his true friend, Lorenzo, who 
 kept on demanding this boon from the Pontiff "with no 
 less fervency than he would have asked of God the 
 salvation of his soul ".* So eager and intimate an appeal 
 the scruples or fears of Innocent were unable to with- 
 stand, especially since in the previous year the existing 
 ties between the Houses of Medici and Cybo had been 
 drawn closer by the union of the Pope's son, Francesco 
 Cybo, with Lorenzo's daughter Maddalena. Besides 
 arranging this marriage between the two families, Lorenzo 
 had left no stone unturned to obtain his desired end. By 
 means of his envoy Lanfredini at the Roman court, 
 the two leading cardinals, Roderigo Borgia, whose name 
 was soon to become notorious throughout Christendom, 
 and Ascanio Sforza, brother of the usurper of Milan, 
 were approached on this delicate matter. Both cardinals 
 worked diligently on little Giovanni's behalf, especially 
 the cardinal of Milan, until the Pope, wearied out by this 
 judicious policy of alternate teasing and flattery, finally 
 complied with Lorenzo's wishes, so ardently expressed. 
 On 8th March, 1489, therefore, Giovanni de' Medici was 
 formally nominated a Cardinal Deacon by the title of 
 Santa Maria in Domenica, the small antique church 
 that stands to-day half-hidden amidst the vineyards and 
 acacia groves of the deserted Coelian Hill. The Cardinal 
 de Balue, Louis XL's minister, writing after the con- 
 sistory to Lorenzo in Florence, thus announces the joyful 
 news: "O happy man, what a blessing and what an 
 honour for your most reverend son, for your own Magni- 
 ficence, and for the city of Florence ! " 2 But supreme as 
 
 1 Fabroni, Appendix II. 2 Ibid.
 
 i 4 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 was Lorenzo's satisfaction on receipt of this news, his 
 transports of joy were not a little tempered by certain re- 
 strictions which accompanied his son's admission into the 
 College. In the first place, Innocent very reasonably 
 and properly it will be admitted refused to allow the 
 new-made thirteen-year-old Cardinal to wear the vest- 
 ments or exercise any of the privileges of his rank for the 
 space of at least three years. Lorenzo's irritation was ex- 
 treme at this command, but in spite of shrewd arguments 
 and persistent entreaties the Pope, to his credit, remained 
 unshaken in his resolve. Another stipulation made by 
 the Pope, who evidently did not consider the education 
 of a Humanist as altogether sufficient for a cardinal, was 
 that Giovanni should quit Florence immediately in order 
 to study canon law at Pisa during his three years of pro- 
 bation. Accordingly the boy was sent to Pisa, that 
 magnificent failure amongst the historic cities of mediaeval 
 Italy, which had lately been endowed with an university 
 by Lorenzo himself. For the brooding quiet of the 
 famous but derelict old city, the cheapness of lodging 
 within its walls, and its central position near the coast- 
 line midway between Rome and Genoa, had already 
 made Pisa a flourishing seat of learning. Here then 
 the future Pontiff studied diligently under Decio, Soz- 
 zini and other learned professors, recently nominated 
 to the various chairs of Pisa by his father, whilst his 
 household was managed for him by a young scholar of 
 great promise, whose career was from this time onward 
 bound up closely with that of his brilliant pupil, who was 
 but five years his junior. This was no less a person 
 than Bernardo Dovizi of Bibbiena, whose shrewd face 
 is so familiar to us from Raphael's splendid portrait 
 in the Pitti Gallery at Florence, and whose attain- 
 ments will ever shed reflected glory on the humble
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE 15 
 
 village amongst the Tuscan uplands that gave him 
 birth : 
 
 Fk nota per costui, dicea, Bibbiena, 
 Quanto Fiorenza, sua vicina, e Siena. 1 
 
 
 
 Meanwhile Lorenzo himself, already ailing in the prime 
 of life, was kept in a perpetual fever of suspense for fear 
 the Pope might die before the close of this probationary 
 period, and there can be little doubt that this continual 
 anxiety contributed not a little to the Magnificent's pre- 
 mature decease. Nor was he idle in urging Innocent, 
 by means of his ambassadors in Rome, to withdraw the 
 odious conditions, so as to allow his son the full enjoy- 
 ment of his rank. But the Pope continued to shut his 
 ears to all appeals and arguments, so that Lorenzo had 
 to rest content with vague assurances of the Pontiff's 
 good-will. " Leave the fortunes of Messire Giovanni 
 to me," replied Innocent to Piero Alamanni's entreaties 
 on his master's behalf; "for I look upon him as my own 
 son and shall perhaps make his promotion public when 
 you least expect it, for it is my intention to do much 
 more for his interests than I shall now express." 5 
 
 Such promises proved cold comfort to Lorenzo, ever 
 intriguing to shake Innocent's fixed resolve, and ever 
 dreading each post from Rome lest it might bring tidings 
 of the old Pope's death, in the event of which he foresaw 
 only too clearly the certain collapse of all his secret 
 schemes. For it was highly probable that a new Pontiff, 
 if a virtuous reformer like Pius II., would postpone for 
 many years the desired consummation ; whilst a bad 
 Pope of the type of his old enemy Sixtus would either 
 extort an immense sum for bestowing the hat or else 
 try to repudiate altogether the promises made by 
 
 1 Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, canto xxvi., st. 48. 
 2 Fabroni, Jn vita Laurentii Medicei, p. 301.
 
 1 6 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Innocent with regard to a child of thirteen. Nor were 
 
 o 
 
 Lorenzo's fears of failure unfounded, for, as we shall see, 
 the papal permission arrived only a few weeks before 
 his own decease ; in short, but for the frantic efforts of 
 Lorenzo, Giovanni de' Medici would never have received 
 the scarlet hat, and the world's history would have lacked 
 the pontificate of Leo X. 
 
 At length the day so anxiously expected by Lorenzo 
 arrived, and on the evening of 8th March, 1492, the 
 young Cardinal, now aged sixteen years and three 
 months, left Florence with a small train to ascend to the 
 ancient abbey that stands on the fertile slopes below 
 Fiesole. This church, commonly known as the Badia 
 Fiesolana, adorns the left ridge of the vine- and willow- 
 clad valley of the Mugnone, and lies within a few hundred 
 yards of the better-known convent of San Domenico 
 with its cherished memories of Fra Angelico. The 
 Badia itself, with its tall tower and its picturesque fa9ade 
 of black and white marble, had long been associated with 
 the name and bounty of the Medici, so that it made a 
 suitable spot for the intended ceremony of investiture, 
 which, probably owing to Lorenzo's ill-health, it had been 
 decided to make as simple and brief as possible. Within 
 the walls, therefore, of this church distinguished by the 
 gifts and emblems of his ancestors, Giovanni spent a 
 long night's vigil in solitary prayer, until with the dawn 
 appeared on the scene Pico della Mirandola and Jacopo 
 Salviati, together with Messer Simone Stanza, the public 
 notary. The young Cardinal now received the Sacra- 
 ment "with the greatest devotion and humility," after 
 which High Mass was sung. During the performance 
 of the service the Superior of the Abbey pronounced 
 a blessing on the insignia of Giovanni's rank \hepallium 
 or mantle, the biretum or scarlet cap, and the galerus,
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE 17 
 
 the broad-brimmed hat with the long depending tassels 
 and these were exposed before the high altar. In its 
 proper place the papal brief of 1489 was read aloud, and 
 attention was openly drawn to the circumstance that the 
 probationary term of three years had at last expired. 
 Then the Cardinal was solemnly vested with mantle, 
 cap and hat of scarlet, and also with the sapphire ring 
 (emblematic of the Church's celestial foundation) at the 
 hands of Canon Matteo Bosso, from whose personal 
 narrative this account is largely drawn. 1 The choir 
 having sung the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, the youth- 
 ful Cardinal stood up to pronounce an indulgence upon 
 all who had attended the ceremony that day, and also 
 upon all such as should repair to the altar of the Badia 
 Fiesolana on succeeding anniversaries of the event. 
 Returning to the refectory, the assembled company was 
 now joined by Piero de' Medici, who had ridden up from 
 the city on a charger of remarkable size and spirit." 
 Meanwhile an immense crowd of friends and sympathisers 
 was beginning to ascend the old Fiesole road in order to 
 witness the ceremony, which was already finished at so 
 early an hour ; but this eager throng's progress was 
 arrested at the bridge over the Mugnone, where all 
 persons were compelled to await the return of the two 
 brothers and their chosen suite. At the Ponte di Mugnone 
 therefore the cavalcade coming from Fiesole was duly 
 welcomed by deputations of the leading citizens, by the 
 whole body of the Florentine clergy, and by the general 
 mass of the people, who with cheers and demands for a 
 blessing from the newly-vested Cardinal, accompanied 
 Piero and Giovanni to the church of the Anunziata, 
 where the latter alighted from his mule to perform his 
 
 1 Narrative of 'Canon Matteo Bosso of Verona, Fabroni, Appendix V. 
 
 2 Ibid., " Equus mirae ferocitatis et magnitudinis ".
 
 1 8 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 orisons at the Madonna's famous shrine ; thence to the 
 Duomo, where more prayers were offered up ; and finally 
 to the Medicean palace, where Lorenzo, sickening with 
 his mortal illness, was impatiently awaiting his younger 
 son's return. Here the Cardinal was presented with a 
 costly service of plate, said to be valued at 20,000 florins, 
 by order of the Signory. Shows and banquets, that 
 occasioned much grumbling amongst the political oppo- 
 nents of the Medici, were given at the public expense in 
 honour of the event, which in the words of the republican 
 chemist, Luca Landucci, "ennobled the city as well as 
 the House of Medici". 1 
 
 The meeting between Giovanni and his father on 
 this occasion has been commemorated for us in one of 
 Giorgio Vasari's frescoes in the Sala di Lorenzo it 
 Magnifico in the civic palace of Florence. Although 
 not of contemporary date, this composition is of ex- 
 ceptional interest, because it affords us one of the very 
 few extant portraits of Leo X. in his boyhood. Lorenzo 
 in a long violet robe appears seated on a throne in a 
 garden ; languid and suffering, he can yet regard with 
 proud satisfaction the son who kneels at his feet dressed 
 in the gorgeous robes of a cardinal, and offering his 
 scarlet hat to the parent whose indefatigable efforts had 
 obtained for him so high an honour. Beside the form 
 of Lorenzo are introduced Politian, Ficino and other 
 members of his court, whilst a warrior waves aloft a 
 white banner emblazoned with the Magnificent's chosen 
 device of three ostrich plumes, red, white and black, 
 clasped by a diamond ring. Above this group towers 
 the strange head of the giraffe which the Grand Turk 
 presented to Lorenzo, and the like of which, so Jovius 
 
 1 Landucci, pp. 62, 63.
 
 CARDINAL DE' MEDICI AND HIS FATHER, LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE 19 
 
 informs us, neither the Portuguese could discover in the 
 Indies nor the Spaniards in the New World. 1 True it 
 is that the spotted ungainly creature, which for some 
 months had been the pet of the Florentine populace, 
 succumbed to the sharp Tuscan climate many years 
 before the event thus commemorated, yet Vasari deemed 
 it not beneath his dignity as a painter to introduce this 
 departed favourite of the people into the scheme of his 
 historical picture. Giovanni himself appears as a tall 
 stripling with light brown hair and a fair complexion, 
 whilst a medallion portrait in the same hall likewise 
 presents him as a youth with a pale heavy face, with 
 flabby cheeks and light hazel eyes. From the peculiar 
 angle at which every portrait of the future Pope has 
 been drawn, it is evident that Giovanni must have 
 possessed a blemish of some sort in the right eye : in 
 any case it is certain that even in these early years he 
 did not share the good looks of his brothers, although 
 his countenance must have been singularly attractive 
 from its marked expression of intelligence and humour. 
 But already at sixteen Giovanni de' Medici gave only 
 too evident promise of that corpulence of body which 
 was destined to become in after-life so great a hin- 
 drance to the health and comfort of the Pope. 
 
 Three days later Giovanni bade farewell to his 
 father and brothers, and with a well-equipped train of 
 followers took the road towards Rome. Travelling by 
 easy stages, which included halts at his own abbey of 
 Passignano, at Siena and Viterbo, he finally arrived at 
 the Flaminian Gate of the Eternal City on 22nd March. 
 Here he took up his temporary abode in the Augustinian 
 convent of Santa Maria del Popolo famous in after 
 
 1 Jovius, lib. i.
 
 20 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 years as the residence of Luther during his visit to Rome 
 and made his preparations for his approaching audi- 
 ence of the Pope. 
 
 Amongst the Italian cardinals then residing in Rome 
 during that momentous year 1492, Giovanni de' Medici 
 was likely to find some friends, notably in the powerful 
 Roderigo Borgia, papal vice-chancellor, and in Ascanio 
 Sforza, both of whom had helped considerably in the 
 matter of his own promotion. He could scarcely expect 
 much sympathy from the two nephews of the late Pope, 
 Giuliano Delia Rovere and Raffaele Riario, the latter of 
 whom had been Sixtus' envoy at the time of the Pazzi 
 conspiracy, and had actually been present at that 
 historic service in the Florentine Cathedral, whereat 
 Giuliano de' Medici had been stabbed to death by in- 
 numerable dagger thrusts. According to vulgar report, 
 Riario had not yet fully recovered from the alarm and 
 horror of that terrible scene, whilst his nervous pallid 
 face bore lasting witness to that abominable act of 
 mingled sacrilege and treachery. Lorenzo Cybo, 
 Innocent's own son, would of course be well-disposed to 
 the new-comer, whilst out of the all-too-few members 
 of the College who were conspicuous for genuine piety 
 or learning, the Cardinal Piccolomini, nephew of Pius 
 II., and Oliviero Caraffa. of Naples, were naturally in- 
 clined to take an interest in the proper development of 
 Giovanni's still unformed character. And though some 
 
 O 
 
 members of the diminished College were ' disposed to 
 regard their new brother with disfavour, such persons 
 with easy Italian duplicity concealed their private 
 feelings, and openly at least appeared ready to extend 
 a warm welcome to their young Florentine colleague. 
 Thus did Giovanni de' Medici, Cardinal Deacon of 
 Santa Maria in Domenica, make his first appearance
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE 21 
 
 at the age of sixteen in the midst of "that sink of ini- 
 quity," as Lorenzo did not scruple in private to describe 
 the seat of Western Christendom ; and his first letter 
 telling of his arrival and early experiences in Rome to 
 his anxious father in Florence, although couched in 
 simple s rather childish terms, is not without human 
 interest. 
 
 " To LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT, BEST OF FATHERS IN 
 
 FLORENCE 
 
 "... On Friday morning I was received in 
 state, being accompanied from Santa Maria del Poplo as 
 far as the palace, and from the palace back to the Campo 
 de' Fiori by all the Cardinals, and by nearly the whole 
 court, although it was raining heavily. I was warmly 
 welcomed by Our Lord ; he spoke scarcely a word, but 
 the following day our envoys visited him, and they had 
 a most gracious audience of him. The Pope set aside 
 the next day for my own reception, that is to-day. 
 Thither I went, and His Holiness addressed me in as 
 loving a manner as possible. He has reminded me, and 
 also exhorted me to return the Cardinals' visits, and 
 this I have begun to do in the case of all who have 
 visited me. I shall write another day to tell you who 
 they all are ; they profess themselves to be very well 
 disposed towards yourself. Of all matters that passed, 
 I know you are fully informed. I shall write nothing 
 more concerning myself, except that I shall ever strive 
 to do you credit. De me proloqui ulterius, nefas. 
 The news of your much improved state of health 
 has given me great joy. I have no further desire 
 for myself except to hear such good tidings often, 
 and for this recent information I beg to thank my
 
 22 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 brother, Ser Piero. I recommend myself to you. No 
 more. 
 
 " JOHN, YOUR SON 
 
 "Ax ROME, 25/^5 March, 1492 J>1 
 
 It was probably on receipt of this simple missive from 
 his second-born in Rome that Lorenzo indited that 
 famous letter of advice, which the good Fabroni eloquently 
 calls the Magnificent's swan -song ("vox cycnea"), seeing 
 that it was composed within a very few days of his 
 premature death at the age of forty-two ; and indeed, 
 apart from the intrinsic value of this epistle, such a 
 circumstance would naturally lend it a pathetic interest. 
 However early in life Lorenzo's physical powers may 
 have sunk beneath the fearful strain of his public and 
 private cares, this letter provides the fullest proof that 
 his marvellous and versatile intellect continued unim- 
 paired to the last. It was indeed a swan-song of peculiar 
 strength and sweetness, wherein excellent spiritual advice, 
 not unworthy of a Fenelon, was so blended with worldly 
 maxims that a Chesterfield might have penned, that it is 
 well-nigh impossible to separate its component elements 
 of an exhortation to a Churchman's strict morality and of 
 a subtle suggestion to turn an ecclesiastical career to the 
 private interests of the House of Medici. That a careful 
 perusal of this remarkable letter is essential to the student 
 of Leo X.'s career, it is needless to state ; whilst it is of 
 special interest to note the extent to which the young 
 Cardinal, for whose future guidance this unique piece of 
 admonition was composed, either followed or deviated 
 from the path thus carefully pointed out beforehand for 
 him by his illustrious father. 
 
 1 Fabroni, Appendix VI.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE 23 
 
 " LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT IN FLORENCE TO THE 
 CARDINAL DE' MEDICI IN ROME 
 
 "... You and all of us who are interested in 
 your welfare ought to esteem ourselves highly favoured 
 by Providence, not only for the many honours and benefits 
 bestowed on our House, but more particularly for having 
 conferred upon us in your person the greatest dignity we 
 have ever enjoyed. This favour, in itself so important, 
 is rendered still more so by the circumstances by which 
 it is accompanied, and especially by the consideration of 
 your youth, and of our situation in the world. The first 
 thing that I would therefore suggest to you is, that you 
 ought to be grateful to God, and continually to recollect 
 that it is not through your prudence, or your solicitude, 
 that this event has taken place, but through His favour 
 which you can only repay by a pious, chaste, and 
 exemplary life, and that your obligations to the per- 
 formance of these duties are so much the greater, as in 
 your early years you have given some reasonable ex- 
 pectation that your riper age may produce such fruits. 
 It would be indeed highly disgraceful, and as contrary to 
 your duty as to my hopes, if at a time when others 
 display a greater share of reason and adopt a better 
 mode of life, you should forget the precepts of your 
 youth, and forsake the path in which you have hitherto 
 trodden. Endeavour therefore to alleviate the burden 
 of your early dignity by the regularity of your life and by 
 your perseverance in those studies which are suitable to 
 your profession. It gave me great satisfaction to learn 
 that in the course of the past year, you had frequently of 
 your own accord gone to Confession and Communion ; 
 nor do I conceive that there is any better way of ob- 
 taining the favour of Heaven than by habituating your-
 
 24 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 self to a performance of these and similar duties. This 
 appears to me to be the most suitable and most useful 
 advice, which in the first instance I can possibly give 
 you. 
 
 41 1 well know that as you are now to reside in Rome, 
 that sink of all iniquity, che e sentina dituttii mali, the 
 difficulty of conducting yourself by these admonitions 
 will be increased. The influence of example is itself 
 prevalent, but you will probably meet with those who 
 will particularly endeavour to corrupt and incite you to 
 vice, because, as you may yourself perceive, your early 
 attainment to so great a dignity is not observed without 
 envy ; and those who could not prevent your receiving 
 that honour will secretly endeavour to diminish it, by 
 inducing you to forfeit the good estimation of the 
 public, thereby precipitating you into that gulf wherein 
 they have themselves fallen, in which attempt the 
 consideration of your youth will give them a confidence. 
 To these difficulties you ought to oppose yourself with 
 the greater firmness, as there is at present less virtue 
 amongst your brethren of the College. I acknowledge 
 indeed that several of them are good and learned men, 
 whose lives are exemplary, and whom I would recom- 
 mend to you as patterns for your conduct. By emulating 
 them you will be so much the more known and esteemed, 
 in proportion as your age and the peculiarity of your 
 situation will distinguish you from your colleagues. 
 Avoid, however, as you would Scylla or Charybdis the 
 imputation of hypocrisy. Guard against all ostentation 
 either in your conduct or your discourse. Affect not 
 austerity, nor even appear too serious. This advice you 
 will in time, I hope, understand and practise better than 
 I can express it. 
 
 44 You are not unacquainted with the great importance
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE 25 
 
 of the character you have to sustain, for you well know- 
 that all the Christian world would prosper, if the Cardinals 
 were what they ought to be, because in such a case there 
 would always be a good Pope, upon which the tranquillity 
 of Christendom so materially depends. Endeavour 
 then to render yourself such, that, if all the rest resembled 
 you, we might expect this universal blessing. . . . 
 
 "You are now devoted to God and the Church, on 
 which account you ought to aim at being a good ecclesi- 
 astic, and to show that you prefer the honour and state 
 of the Church and of the Apostolic See to every other 
 consideration. Nor, while you keep this in view, will it 
 be difficult for you to favour your family and your native 
 place. On the contrary, you should be the link to bind 
 this city of Florence closer to the Church, and our family 
 with the city, and although it be impossible to foresee 
 what accidents may happen, yet I doubt not but this 
 may be done with equal advantage to all, observing 
 that you always prefer the interests of the Church. 
 
 " You are not only the youngest Cardinal in the College, 
 but the youngest person that was ever raised to that 
 rank, and you ought, therefore, to be the more vigilant and 
 unassuming, not giving others occasion to wait for you 
 either in the chapel, the consistory, or upon deputations. 
 You will soon get a sufficient insight into the manners 
 of your brethren. With those of less respectable char- 
 acter converse not with too much intimacy, not merely 
 on account of the circumstance in itself, but for the sake 
 of public opinion. Converse on general topics with all. 
 On public occasions let your equipage and dress be 
 rather below than above mediocrity. A handsome 
 house and a well-ordered household will be preferable 
 to a great retinue and a splendid palace. Endeavour to 
 live with regularity, and gradually to bring your expenses
 
 26 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 within those bounds which in a new establishment can- 
 not perhaps be expected. Silks and jewels are not suit- 
 able for persons in your station. 1 Your taste will be 
 better shown in the acquisition of a few elegant remains of 
 antiquity, or in the collecting of handsome books, and 
 by your attendants being learned and well-bred rather 
 than numerous. Invite others to your house oftener 
 than you yourself receive invitations. Practise neither 
 too frequently. Let your own food be plain, and take 
 sufficient exercise, for those who wear your habit are 
 soon liable, without great caution, to contract infirmities. 
 The situation of a Cardinal is not less secure than ele- 
 vated, on which account those who arrive at it too 
 frequently become negligent, conceiving that their object 
 is attained and that they can preserve it with little 
 trouble. This idea is often injurious to the life and 
 character of those who entertain it. Be attentive there- 
 fore to your conduct and confide in others too little rather 
 than too much. There is one rule which I would re- 
 commend to your attention in preference to all others : 
 Rise early in the morning. This will not only contribute 
 to your health, but will enable you to arrange and ex- 
 pedite the business of the day, and as there are various 
 duties incident to your station, such as the performance 
 of Divine service, studying, giving audience, etc., you 
 will find the observance of this admonition productive 
 of the greatest utility. Another very necessary pre- 
 caution, particularly on your entrance into public life, is 
 to deliberate every evening on what you have to per- 
 form the following day, that you may not be unpre- 
 pared for whatever may happen. With respect to your 
 
 1 Compare with this Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son, a 
 fashionable layman : " Let your lodging be equal to your means ; 
 your living below your means, and your dress above your means ".
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE 27 
 
 speaking in the consistory, it will be most becoming for 
 you at present to refer the matters in debate to the 
 judgment of His Holiness, alleging as a reason your 
 own youth and inexperience. You will probably be 
 desired to intercede for the favours of the Pope on 
 particular occasions. Be cautious, however, that you 
 trouble him not too often, for his temper leads him to be 
 most liberal to those who weary him least with their 
 solicitations. This you must observe, lest you should 
 give him offence, remembering also at times to converse 
 with him on more agreeable topics ; and if you should be 
 obliged to request some kindness from him, let it be 
 done with the modesty and humility which are so pleas- 
 ing to his disposition. Farewell." 
 
 Scarcely had the young Cardinal received this extra- 
 ordinary proof of a father's devotion and wisdom, than 
 there was brought to Rome news of the Magnificent's 
 fatal illness and death at the Careggi villa on 8th April. 
 And thus at the very outset of his career in the Church 
 was the youthful Giovanni de' Medici deprived of a loving 
 parent and a judicious guide, who perhaps whilst he was 
 inditing his final letter to his absent son realised only too 
 well the impending disaster of his own death. 
 
 1 Fabroni, Appendix VII. Roscoe, Life of Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
 vol. ii., pp. 146-151.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 
 
 Italy ! O Rome ! I am going to deliver you into the hands of 
 a people that will wipe you out from amongst the nations. I behold 
 them descending upon you like famished lions. Hand in hand with 
 War stalks Pestilence. And the mortality will be so great that the 
 grave-diggers will pass through your streets calling aloud for the dead 
 bodies. And then will one bear a father to the charnel-house, and 
 another his son. O Rome ! again I warn you to repent. Repent, 
 O Venice ! Repent, O Milan ! . . . Florence, what have you done ? 
 Shall I tell you ? The cup of your iniquities is full, therefore stand 
 prepared for some great vengeance (Sermons of Savonarola). 
 
 R)MANCE and mystery have ever brooded over 
 the death-bed of the Magnificent Lorenzo from 
 contemporary times to the present day. His- 
 torians still disagree concerning the real facts of Savona- 
 rola's undoubted visit to the dying prince at Careggi, 1 
 whilst his end was accompanied by strange portents or 
 coincidences in Florence itself, which at the moment 
 excited the alarm alike of the learned and the vulgar. Not 
 many hours before he expired, there fell from the cupola 
 of the Cathedral a huge fragment of stone- work with a 
 fearful crash in the dead of night, striking the pavement 
 on the side towards the Medicean palace, whereat it was 
 commonly reported that Lorenzo himself recognised his 
 
 1 The reader is referred to Professor Pasquale Villari, Life and 
 Times of Savonarola (book i., chap, ix., Appendix), and to Professor 
 Armstrong, Lorenzo de* Medici (chap, viii.) for accounts of this famous 
 incident. 
 
 28
 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 29 
 
 coming dissolution in this mysterious accident. Men 
 told each other also how a fine lion kept at the public 
 expense had sickened and died, and again certain of the 
 more credulous spoke of comets trailing their light over 
 Careggi and of a fire-breathing monster which had been 
 seen in Santa Maria Novella. There was an universal 
 feeling of restlessness and expectancy in the air ; a vague 
 presentiment of coming peril, as men began dimly to 
 realise that the loss of their beloved Lorenzo, "the most 
 glorious man that could be found," 1 must of necessity cause 
 far-reaching changes not only in Florence, but through- 
 out all Italy. Yet Piero Piero the Second, as he is 
 sometimes called was straightway confirmed in the ex- 
 alted position held by his late father, and in particular 
 the French King's envoy was instructed to recognise the 
 transfer of the dignity from parent to heir, so that out- 
 wardly at least, the state of Florence pursued its normal 
 course, as though it had been guided for generations 
 under an hereditary monarchy. 
 
 As soon as the fatal news reached Rome, it was at 
 once suggested that the young Cardinal should return to 
 Florence, in reality for the purpose of strengthening his 
 brother's hands, but ostensibly on account of the coming 
 heats, which the Florentine envoy in Rome affected to 
 consider injurious to the health of young persons. 2 During 
 the short space of his residence in the Eternal City it is 
 evident that Giovanni de' Medici had gained golden 
 opinions from the Pope, who had been favourably im- 
 pressed both by the Cardinal's modesty and by his ap- 
 plication to business. How far the papal satisfaction 
 was shared by the Sacred College at large, it is difficult 
 
 1 Landucci. 
 
 2 Fabroni, Appendix V. : " Questa aria a giovani maxime non 
 suol esser buona ".
 
 30 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 to determine ; yet everyone expressed pleasure when 
 Innocent announced his intention of investing this fortun- 
 ate youth with legatine authority in Tuscany, so that 
 these additional powers might prove of service to his elder 
 brother, thus suddenly called upon to fill the difficult post 
 of an uncrowned and officially unrecognised monarch. 
 The legatine authority was formally bestowed on 
 Giovanni de' Medici in the Sistine Chapel during the 
 ceremony of the blessing of the palms on Palm Sunday, 
 and the news of this honour, according to the young 
 Cardinal's tutor, Stefano di Castrocaro, made a profound 
 sensation at the Roman court, so that we cannot help 
 reflecting on the gratification which this early mark of 
 favour would have afforded to the ambitious Lorenzo, 
 had he been still living. Yet Castrocaro's report also 
 contains a curious postscript addressed to the Florentine 
 envoy, whom he exhorts to speak seriously to the young 
 Cardinal concerning his present mode of life, which differs 
 much from that pursued by his colleagues, so the writer 
 avers. He will not rise betimes of a morning, and will 
 sit up too late at night, whereat the tutor is much con- 
 cerned, since such irregular habits are likely to injure his 
 general health. 1 On this vital point, therefore, upon 
 which his father had laid such stress, Giovanni evidently 
 did not intend to follow the excellent advice bequeathed 
 him, and, as we know, his lazy habits in later life are 
 severely commented on by those candid critics, the 
 Venetian ambassadors in Rome. 
 
 The Cardinal, who did not return to his native city 
 till 2Oth May, had early written to his brother, bewailing 
 their irreparable loss and also expressing a subject's deep 
 devotion towards one who was now both an elder brother 
 
 1 Fabroni, Appendix V.
 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 31 
 
 and a sovereign, although Giovanni's profession of un- 
 questioning loyalty is tempered by a delicate hint as to 
 future conduct on Piero's side : 
 
 "JOHANNES FRANCISCUS, CARDINAL DE' MEDICI, TO HIS 
 MAGNIFICENCE, PIERO DE' MEDICI 
 
 " DEAREST BROTHER AND SOLE PILLAR OF OUR 
 
 HOUSE! 
 
 "What am I to write, brother mine, for there is 
 nought save tears to tell of, and of a truth in dwelling 
 upon the pious memory of our father, mourning seems 
 better than language? And what a father he was to 
 us ! That no parent was ever more indulgent to his 
 sons, there needs no witness save his own conduct. No 
 wonder therefore that I lament with tears and find no 
 repose ; yet sometimes, dear brother, I obtain consolation 
 in the thought that I have yourself to regard ever in the 
 light of our lost parent. Yours it will now be to com- 
 mand, and mine to obey cheerfully, for it will give me 
 the highest pleasure possible to perform your orders. 
 Despatch me into dangers ; command me ; for there is 
 nothing wherein I would not assist your ends. Never- 
 theless, I implore you, Piero mine, for my sake to con- 
 trive to show yourself generous, courteous, friendly and 
 open towards all, but especially towards our ow r n followers, 
 for by such qualities there is nothing one cannot achieve 
 or keep. But I do not remind you of this for lack of 
 confidence in your powers, but because I feel it my duty 
 to mention it. Many things go to strengthen and con- 
 sole me the crowds of mourners at our gates, the grief- 
 stricken aspect of the city, the public lamentations in 
 Florence, and all those other details which help to allevi- 
 ate sorrow like ours but what solaces me more than 
 aught else is my having yourself, since I trust in you to
 
 32 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 a degree I cannot easily express. . . . Fare you well ! 
 As for myself, I am in such health as my grief permits. 
 
 " From the City 
 
 " \2th April, 1492 M1 
 
 Of his three sons, Lorenzo had long ago predicted 
 that Piero would grow up headstrong (unpazzo), Giovanni 
 a scholar (un savio], and Giuliano good (un buono), and 
 as usual the Magnificent's shrewd judgment was proved 
 by time to be correct. The new ruler of Florence, 
 though not wholly destitute of virtues, for he was 
 generous, cultured and accounted brave, was far too hot- 
 headed and fond of pleasure to carry out adequately the 
 exalted but delicate duties which his father had performed 
 with such marked ability and success for the last twenty 
 years. Addicted to street brawling and to nocturnal 
 amours, Piero was quite unfit to set an example to the 
 Florentine people. His love of costly tournaments, 
 wherein his undoubted skill often bore away the palm ; 
 his excellence at that rough species of Florentine foot-ball, 
 the calcio ; and his acknowledged prowess at pallone, the 
 popular Tuscan game at ball which requires both an un- 
 erring eye and brute strength of arm, served to endear 
 their new ruler to the idle and rich young men ; but such 
 accomplishments scarcely commended themselves to the 
 graver citizens, whilst they excited the contemptuous 
 dislike of the old-fashioned adherents of the Republic. 
 Piero's mother had been an Orsini, and in her eldest 
 son's character the feudal pride of the Roman house 
 dominated the more crafty qualities derived from the 
 burgher blood ; his wife, Alfonsina Orsini, came of the 
 same turbulent stock, and her injudicious advice went 
 far towards increasing her husband's natural arrogance. 
 
 1 Fabroni, Appendix VII.
 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 33 
 
 Tactless and violent, inordinately fond of sports and im- 
 patient of the routine of business, Piero could never have 
 held the mastery of Florence for any great length of time, 
 and on the whole it seems rather remarkable that more 
 than two years were allowed to elapse before the offended 
 citizens expelled with ignominy this incapable young ruler 
 from their midst. As to Giovanni and his possible restrain- 
 ing influence over his elder brother, we must bear in mind 
 that he had not yet attained his nineteenth year, when 
 the final catastrophe of 1494 overwhelmed the Medicean 
 family, and even assuming that he tendered good advice, 
 it does not appear probable that the rash and conceited 
 Piero would have consented to listen to a younger 
 brother's solemn warnings. On the other hand, had 
 Giovanni possessed Piero 's splendid opportunities and 
 additional years of experience ; had he been educated 
 by Lorenzo as his political heir rather than as a future 
 Churchman, we agree with a modern critic in believing 
 that the forcible expulsion of the Medici in the autumn of 
 1494 might certainly have been averted. 
 
 Of a truth, the times were too fateful to allow of medio- 
 crity, far less of downright incompetence, for the year 
 1492, that annus mirabilis, may be described as definitely 
 marking the boundary line between the world of the 
 middle ages and that of modern thought and civilisation. 
 Europe was passing through a series of changes moral, 
 social and political with appalling rapidity. That 
 memorable year saw the expulsion of the Moslem from 
 Granada, and with it the first blow to the overweening 
 
 o 
 
 power of the Turk and the early rise of the vast but 
 short-lived Spanish empire ; it saw too the voyage of 
 Columbus into the New World, that prelude to the dis- 
 coveries of Vasco da Gama and of Sebastian Cabot, 
 which were destined to stultify the whole system of 
 3
 
 34 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 mediaeval geography and astronomy, and to prepare the 
 way for the theories of Copernicus and Galileo. To 
 Italy itself that year was doomed to be climacteric, for 
 the death of Lorenzo de' Medici, that typical product of 
 the earlier Renaissance, broke up for ever the artificial 
 system of balance of power within the peninsula, of which 
 the late ruler of Florence had been the main director ; 
 whilst fresh and unheard-of complications were about to 
 arise on the decease of the aged Pope. Poor Piero's 
 abilities were of course quite unequal to cope with this 
 universal upheaval ; indeed, it is very doubtful if all the 
 skill of his father could have saved Italy from the terrible 
 wrath to come. 
 
 Scarcely had Piero been three months at the head of 
 the Florentine state, than news was brought of the fatal 
 illness of Innocent VIII., "the constant guardian of the 
 peace of Italy," the firm friend of the Medici and the 
 patron of Andrea Mantegna. The Cardinal now hastened 
 to Rome where a conclave of twenty-three members (for 
 to such meagre proportions had the selfish attitude of the 
 Cardinals reduced the Sacred College in Italy) met to 
 select a successor to Innocent. The conclave was of brief 
 duration, for of the two likely candidates for the tiara 
 Roderigo Borgia and Ascanio Sforza the former by un- 
 scrupulous methods soon induced his possible rival to waive 
 his claims. Five asses laden with bags of gold were seen 
 to enter the courtyard of Sforza's palace, and even this 
 was but an earnest of what the Spanish Cardinal promised 
 to his Milanese opponent in return for his support. 
 Smaller largesse was sufficient for the other members of 
 the conclave, all of whom save five are said to have re- 
 ceived pay or promises from Borgia in return for their 
 votes. The opposition of the pious Piccolomini and 
 Caraffa, of Giovanni Colonna and of the young Medici,
 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 35 
 
 and the fierce diatribes of Cardinal Giuliano Delia Rovere 
 proved of no avail; on nth August, within three weeks 
 of Innocent's death, Roderigo Borgia was elected Pope 
 under the name of the invincible Alexander at his own 
 request. The elevation of the Borgia was in short almost 
 an exact historical repetition of that disgraceful incident 
 during the decadence of the Roman Empire, when the 
 Pretorian Guard put up the sovereignty of the Roman 
 world for sale to the highest bidder, the merchant Julius 
 Didianus. The evil reputation of the new Pope and the 
 open bribery he had used to accomplish his aims sent a 
 thrill of horror throughout the courts of Italy. The hard- 
 hearted Ferdinand of Naples, who had never been known 
 to weep, even at the death of his own child, burst into 
 tears of rage and fright at the receipt of this news, whilst 
 the intrepid Cardinal Delia Rovere hurried from the city 
 to the castle of Ostia, whence he denounced the late elec- 
 tion as null and void, loudly appealing to the princes of 
 Christendom to call a general council to depose this false 
 Pontiff, this betrayer of the Church. Nevertheless, 
 Alexander held his own despite the outcry, and at least 
 in Rome itself his accession was far from being considered 
 altogether a calamity. For if the new Pontiff had many 
 acknowledged vices (which Italian historians and gossips 
 have perhaps unduly blackened in the case of a foreign 
 Pope) he certainly owned qualities which might have 
 rendered him an able and even a beneficent administrator. 
 With justice but without mercy the disgraceful state of 
 crime and brigandage, which had prevailed in the Roman 
 States under Innocent's feeble sway, was promptly sup- 
 pressed, and for this and similar measures on behalf of the 
 public safety the Roman people felt not a little grateful. 
 " Vive diu, Bos! O Borgia, live for ever!" cried the 
 admiring throngs in allusion to the heraldic bull on the
 
 36 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Borgian shield, whilst during the coronation festivities one 
 of the many laudatory inscriptions bore the fulsome and 
 almost blasphemous legend 
 
 In Alexander, Caesar is surpast, 
 
 The former is a God, a man the last ! l 
 
 But however much the populace of Rome may have ap- 
 plauded on this occasion, such of the cardinals as had 
 opposed Alexander's election at once perceived the ad- 
 visability of withdrawing quickly from the city. Amongst 
 these was the Cardinal de' Medici, who has been credited, 
 on the authority of Burchard, the papal master of cere- 
 monies, with a remark addressed to his neighbour in the 
 conclave, Lorenzo Cybo : "We are in the jaws of a 
 rapacious wolf! If we neglect to flee, he will devour us." 
 Whether or no Giovanni actually expressed himself thus, 
 it is certain that he deemed it prudent to retire to Florence, 
 where he resided until the expulsion of his House in 1494, 
 inhabiting during this period a palace in the quarter of 
 Sant' Antonio near the Faenza Gate. 2 
 
 The many snares in the existing situation at home 
 must have been soon perceived by the sharp eye of the 
 young Cardinal, who did what he could to render the tenure 
 of the city by his family less insecure. With the political 
 world without ready to fall into confusion, Florence itself 
 was seething with discontent and with a general desire 
 for reform, a desire which found voice in the impassioned 
 sermons of the prior of San Marco, Fra Girolamo 
 Savonarola. His Advent and Lenten addresses, given 
 within the spacious nave of the Duomo, were attracting 
 vast crowds of citizens, bent equally on bewailing their 
 
 1 " Caesare magna fuit, nunc Roma est maxima : Sextus Regnat 
 Alexander; ille vir, iste deus." Creighton, vol. iv., p. 189, note 2. 
 
 2 This quarter of the city was dismantled during the siege of Flor- 
 ence in 1529, and its site is now occupied by the Citadel of the Grand- 
 Dukes of Tuscany. N. Richa, Chiese Florentine.
 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 37 
 
 own sins and deploring the wickedness of those in high 
 places. The recent election of Alexander VI. had caused 
 the deepest indignation to the prior, who was already 
 expounding his predictions of impending disaster to his 
 overflowing audiences, ending each discourse with his 
 three famous " Conclusions," on which all his exhortations 
 were based ; namely, that the Church would be chastised 
 for her present state of corruption ; that she would be 
 regenerated ; and that these measures of punishment and 
 reformation were close at hand. From his conclusions 
 the preacher advanced to attack in scathing language the 
 lives and practices of the prelates of the day, who cared 
 only for the outward adornments of Holy Church for 
 the ceremonies and vestments, the jewelled mitres and 
 golden chalices, the notes of sweet-toned organs and the 
 chaunting of choristers and who only tickled men's ears 
 with pagan arguments from Plato or Aristotle, instead of 
 attending to the true salvation of the soul. From the 
 princes of the Church Savonarola passed to the condem- 
 nation of the secular rulers of Italy, and here his burning 
 indignation knew no bounds ; " these wicked princes are 
 sent to chastise the sins of their subjects ; they are truly 
 a sad snare for souls ; their courts and palaces are the 
 refuge of all the beasts and monsters of the earth, for they 
 give shelter to ribalds and malefactors ". From princes, 
 Savonarola proceeded to "flattering philosophers and 
 poets, who by force of a thousand lies and fables trace 
 the genealogy of these evil princes back to the gods ". 
 And in connection with this last piece of fulmination, we 
 can imagine with what degree of disgust the prior of St. 
 Mark's must have heard of the canonry in the Duomo 
 conferred by the Cardinal de' Medici upon his old tutor, 
 the humanist and reputed pagan, Politian. 
 
 Names were invariably omitted by the preacher, yet
 
 3 8 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 for this general indictment of secular and ecclesiastical 
 corruption in Italy, it was no difficult matter for the vast 
 congregation, much of it already hostile to the Medicean 
 rule, to apply the prior's statements and warnings directly 
 to the sins of the prince and prelate in their midst : the 
 supposed tyranny of Piero and the worldliness of the 
 Cardinal. Nevertheless, Piero was unable or unwilling 
 to take any decided step for the arrest or silencing of 
 this uncompromising monkish agitator. For a short 
 time, it is true, during the summer of 1493, the nominal 
 ruler of Florence, probably at the suggestion and cer- 
 tainly with the help of his younger brother, had contrived 
 by means of the superiors of the Dominican Order in 
 Rome to obtain Savonarola's peaceful transference to 
 Bologna ; yet by an unaccountable act of folly Piero had 
 later allowed the all-powerful preacher to return to 
 Florence, thereby proving beyond the shadow of a doubt 
 that the great Lorenzo's heir was indeed a positive fool, 
 wholly unable to read aright the manifest signs of his 
 times. 
 
 The evil effects of Lorenzo's loss and of Alexander's 
 election soon became apparent, for the three states of 
 Florence, Milan and Naples were already falling into 
 political entanglements, which the constant intrigues of 
 three ambitious women Alfonsina Orsini in Florence, 
 Beatrice d'Este in Milan and the Duchess Isabella at 
 Pavia made yet more complicated. Almost immedi- 
 ately after his father's death, Piero had begun to exhibit 
 a certain degree of coolness towards the usurper of 
 Milan (whom Lorenzo had always done his best to con- 
 ciliate) and to coquet politically with Ludovico Sforza's 
 deadly enemy, King Ferdinand of Naples ; an attitude 
 which eventually drove the exasperated and nervous 
 Duke of Milan to take a step fraught with the utmost
 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 39 
 
 importance for the future of Italy. Dreading a combina- 
 tion of the Florentine state with his arch-enemy, Ferdin- 
 and of Naples, the Sforza now determined to save 
 himself from impending ruin by no less a measure than 
 the total banishment of the dynasty of Aragon from 
 Naples, by inciting the young Charles VIII. of France 
 to take forcible possession of that kingdom, which he 
 claimed as heir of the former monarchs of the House of 
 Anjou. The devil, says the proverb, is at all times 
 easier to raise than to lay ; and in this instance Ludovico 
 Sforza of Milan has gained an unenviable notoriety as the 
 original promoter of that detestable policy of foreign in- 
 vasion, from the evil effects of which Italy has been 
 suffering almost until our own days. But at this period 
 the aims of every government and ruler throughout 
 Italy were mean, selfish and provincial to a degree which 
 we find it hard at this distance of time to realise ; the 
 very notion of Italian patriotism, of Italian unity, was 
 practically non-existent in the year 1492. Even the 
 shrewd Lorenzo had always regarded his native land as 
 a mere conglomerate mass of hostile and disunited states, 
 which it required a master-hand like his own to manipu- 
 late, so as to preserve peace throughout the whole 
 peninsula. Nevertheless, it was reserved for a Floren- 
 tine thinker, an obscure and needy citizen, who was 
 twenty-three years of age at Lorenzo's death, to propound 
 to an unheeding Italy the tenets of true patriotism and 
 their surest means of attainment. 1 
 
 After much hesitation and in opposition to public 
 opinion in France itself, the young French monarch 
 finally accepted the Sforza's selfish invitation, and at last 
 the vast army of Charles VIII., 60,000 men strong and 
 supported by the finest artillery of that age, crossed the 
 
 1 Niccol6 Machiavelli in // Principe, Gli Discorsi, etc.
 
 40 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 snowy barrier of the protecting Alps, which, in the words 
 of Michelet, were now levelled henceforth and for ever- 
 more. After a long period spent partly in feasting and 
 dallying at Asti and Turin, and partly in recovering from 
 the ill-effects of his excesses at these entertainments, 
 Charles was again able to proceed, and his splendid army 
 with its fine French cavalry, its sturdy German Lands- 
 knechts, its Swiss mountaineers and its Scottish archers, 
 once more continued on its course towards Naples, where 
 the aged Ferdinand was making feverish but belated 
 efforts in defence of his coveted kingdom. The king's 
 son, the Duke of Calabria, was meanwhile preparing to 
 oppose the French advance by way of the Adriatic 
 coast-line, but it lay with Piero de' Medici to decide 
 whether or no the invaders were to be allowed to pass 
 unmolested through Tuscan territory on the western 
 side of the Apennines. Intense was the excitement pre- 
 vailing in Florence at the news of Charles' progress, and 
 the general concern was further increased, when it be- 
 came known that Piero, anxious to imitate his father's 
 diplomatic methods, had at his own initiative set out for 
 the French camp to treat in person with the king. Both 
 Medicean and popular parties awaited in tense anxiety 
 the result of this mission, and loud were the execrations 
 of the latter party and dire the dismay of the Palleschi, 
 the adherents of the Medici, when authentic details of 
 Piero's bungling diplomacy were brought to the city. 
 For the foolish and incompetent prince " II Gran Lom- 
 bardo," as he was styled by the French court for want 
 of a recognised official title had actually ceded the 
 Tuscan fortresses of Sarzana and Sarzanella, the keys 
 of the road to Rome and Naples, to the King of France. 
 Yet so blind was Piero to the inglorious nature of his 
 late pact with Charles, that he ventured to return to the
 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 41 
 
 city on 8th November, and throwing open the doors of 
 his palace gave cakes and wine to a number of the popu- 
 lace, whom he assured with a cheerful countenance that 
 now both he himself and the state of Florence were safe 
 from danger owing to his judicious treaty with the in- 
 vincible invader of Italy. But Piero's self-satisfaction, as- 
 suming it to have been genuine, was not of long duration, 
 for on the following day he attempted to force his way 
 into the palace of the Signory in order to explain his 
 late unpopular action, with the result that he was ig- 
 nominiously forced to return to his house amidst the 
 ringing of alarm bells and shouts of contemptuous hatred. 
 Terrified at the hostile aspect of the city, Piero after a 
 short period of wavering finally decided upon flight, 
 thereby committing the last of the many follies which 
 had characterised his brief rule of Florence ; indeed, 
 this final action proved Lorenzo's heir to be not only in- 
 capable but also cowardly. Together with his youngest 
 brother, Giuliano, then sixteen years old, the self-exiled 
 prince hurried to the Porta San Gallo, where horses 
 were waiting in readiness to carry them over the passes 
 of the Apennines to Bologna. Even his voluntary 
 choice of an objective in his flight proves Piero's hopeless 
 incompetence, for his natural bourne under the circum- 
 stances should have been the camp of the French King, 
 with whom he had so recently made a treaty in the 
 name of the state he was supposed to represent. As 
 it so fell, the unlucky prince richly deserved the taunts, 
 however ungenerous, of Giovanni Bentivoglio, tyrant of 
 Bologna, who did not hesitate to twit the head of the 
 once-powerful Medicean House with his late surrender 
 of Florence practically without a protest, certainly with- 
 out a struggle. 
 
 During this acute crisis produced by threats of ex-
 
 42 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 ternal invasion and by dissensions within the city, what 
 had been the conduct of the Cardinal ? Shortly before 
 the approach of Charles towards Sarzana, Giovanni de' 
 Medici had, it seems, been summoned specially to Rome 
 by the Pope. Not daring to disobey Alexander's ex- 
 plicit message, although the Pontiff's request was gener- 
 ally interpreted as a device to obtain Giovanni's person 
 as a hostage for Piero's future obedience to the Holy See, 
 the Cardinal set out for Rome. He had proceeded as 
 far as his own abbey of Passignano, when he was hastily 
 informed of Piero's mission to the French King, where- 
 upon he quickly returned to Florence, now filled with 
 tumult and with the mass of its citizens avowedly hostile 
 to the House of Medici. On that memorable Sunday 
 of 9th November, 1494, the Cardinal, in order to assist 
 his brother's efforts to force an entrance into the palace 
 of the Signory, issued from his house at Sant' Antonio 
 clad in his robes and attended by a number of armed 
 servants. Riding by way of the narrow Corso and 
 shouting Palle ! Palle / the young Churchman contrived 
 to reach the chapel of Or San Michele despite the 
 threatening attitude of the mob and the repeated cries 
 of Popolo e Liberia / Muoiano i tiranni / with which 
 the air resounded. Although the Cardinal kept bitterly 
 reproaching the Florentine crowd for its ingratitude to 
 his House, the red robe was for a while respected ; but 
 in front of Or San Michele, Giovanni was compelled to 
 retire at the risk of his life. An attempt to rouse the 
 poor quarter round San Gallo, hitherto notable as a 
 stronghold of the Palleschi, ended in like failure. The 
 Cardinal now made his way to the convent of San Marco, 
 whereupon the monks ungraciously refused to unbar 
 their doors to a prince of the Church, the son of their 
 former benefactor, Lorenzo de' Medici. Thus repulsed
 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 43 
 
 at San Marco, Giovanni retired to his own house, where, 
 later, information was sent to him of Piero's unmanly 
 flight. Angry crowds were now gathering round the 
 doors of the palace in Sant' Antonio, where Luca 
 Landucci, no friend to the Medici, declared that he saw 
 the Cardinal's form through the open casement, kneeling 
 in prayer with clasped hands, at which, remarks the good 
 Landucci, " I felt very sorry for him, for I reckoned him 
 to be a worthy young man with excellent intentions "- 1 
 The beleaguered Cardinal now hastily exchanged his 
 rich vestments for the coarse brown habit of a Franciscan 
 friar, and quitting his palace unnoticed in this garb and 
 mingling with the crowd bent on his own destruction he 
 escaped under cover of the shades of evening to the 
 Porta San Gallo, whence, following in the tracks of his 
 brothers across the Apennines, he arrived a few hours 
 after them at the gates of Bologna. 
 
 On hearing of the departure of the three Medici, the 
 Florentine populace grew fiercer and more uproarious, 
 so that the proposal to sack the deserted palaces of their 
 late rulers was greeted with shouts of approval. The 
 Casino of San Marco, with its adjacent gardens and 
 academy provided by the Magnificent for the public study 
 of sculpture, was speedily denuded of its treasures, the 
 ignorant rabble hacking to bits the masterpieces of art, 
 which were too bulky for removal. The Cardinal's re- 
 sidence at Sant' Antonio was next destroyed, and its 
 valuable collections all stolen or scattered ; so violent 
 was the behaviour of the mob here that the very fabric 
 of the house was threatened with collapse, and the 
 Cardinal's servants were scarcely permitted to escape 
 with their lives. The great palace in Via Larga was 
 
 1 Landucci, p. 75.
 
 44 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 however protected by express order of the Signory, not 
 out of any motive of compassion for its luckless owner, 
 but because it had been proposed to lodge the King of 
 France under its roof on his expected arrival. Quantities 
 of works of art and pieces of plate were, however, pilfered, 
 and whatsoever the Florentines spared the retinue of 
 Charles removed a little later, so that it is no exaggeration 
 to say that all the Medicean palaces were sacked and their 
 possessors absolutely despoiled of all their private wealth. 
 Nor was this all, for the Signory, after decreeing the con- 
 fiscation of their goods, next set a price upon the heads 
 of the two elder brothers, now declared outlaws, pro- 
 mising by open proclamation 2000 ducats to the slayer 
 of Piero and half that sum to the lucky assassin of the 
 Cardinal. 1 
 
 But before pursuing further the fortunes of the exiled 
 Cardinal, it is impossible to avoid making reference, 
 although such may naturally be accounted a digression, 
 to the coming " Restorer and Protector of the liberties 
 of Florence," as the name of Charles of France was 
 enrolled officially in the archives of the revived Republic. 
 Exactly a week from the violent expulsion of the Medici, 
 late in the evening of I7th November, appeared Charles 
 VIII. as a conqueror with couched lance at the open 
 gate of San Frediano. Mounted on a magnificent 
 charger and clad in black velvet with flowing mantle 
 of cloth-of-gold, surrounded by the flower of French 
 chivalry, Charles made an imposing figure at his entry 
 into Florence. But on his alighting at the portals of the 
 cathedral and thus giving a nearer view of his person to 
 the applauding citizens, general surprise and disappoint- 
 
 1 Landucci, p. 75 : "E in questo tempo mandorono un bando 
 in piazza, che chi amazzava Piero de' Medici guadagniassi 2000 
 ducati, e chi amazzava el Cardinale n' avesse 1000 ".
 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 45 
 
 ment were expressed at the deformed little monster of a 
 man with the inane face, the staring expressionless eyes, 
 the long nose, the tiny trunk and the spindling legs ending 
 in feet so enormous that vulgar tradition credited their 
 owner with the possession of a sixth toe. "He was in- 
 deed a mannikin ! " l sighs the aggrieved Landucci, who 
 however adds that all the Florentine women were in 
 love with him, old and young, small and great. But 
 perhaps it might be thought that Nature, who in a 
 malignant sportive mood had bestowed so mean a pre- 
 sence upon a great monarch, had presented him by way 
 of compensation w r ith surpassing gifts of intellect. The 
 King's mind, however, was fully as mis-shapen as his 
 diminutive body, for according to all contemporary 
 chroniclers, Charles of France was weak, vacillating, 
 timid, cunning and appallingly ignorant ; indeed, his sole 
 distinguishing quality, which w r as not a vice, seems to 
 have been a vague but insatiable craving for military 
 glory. His lust and gluttony were patent to all, whilst 
 his vaunted virtues were imperceptible ; he had the brain 
 of an idiot and the tastes of a satyr. Such was the 
 sovereign whom Ludovico Sforza had called upon to 
 cross the Alps and act as the arbiter of the fortunes of 
 Italy ; such was the creature whom Savonarola now pre- 
 sented to the people of Florence as the scourge of tyrants 
 and the champion of popular rights, as God's own des- 
 tined instrument to chastise and purge His Church. 
 
 It was not long before the three brothers were joined 
 at Bologna by another fugitive member of their House, 
 Giulio, the bastard son of Giuliano the Elder, who had 
 managed to escape from Pisa, where he was then study- 
 ing. Nearly of an age with his cousin Giuliano the 
 
 1 Landucci, p. 80 : "In vero era molto piccolo uomo ! "
 
 46 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Younger, Giulio had originally been brought up as a 
 soldier by his uncle Lorenzo, who had acknowledged 
 him for a nephew and had contrived to get him enrolled 
 one of the Knights of Rhodes ; but later, on the boy's 
 expressing a desire for an ecclesiastical career, he had 
 been nominated prior of Capua and despatched, like his 
 cousin Giovanni before him, to study canon law at Pisa. 
 As a recognised bastard of a great house, Giulio took an 
 unbounded pride in his family, and manifested an intense 
 desire to serve it in every way, so that early in life he 
 began to attach himself to his cousin Giovanni, following 
 and waiting on the latter alike in good and evil fortune 
 till the day of his death. The three brothers quickly 
 dispersed to different parts of Italy ; Piero following the 
 camps, Giuliano chiefly remaining at the courts of Urbino 
 and Mantua, where his accomplishments no less than his 
 buoyant good nature made him a special favourite with 
 the reigning families of Gonzaga and Montefeltre ; whilst 
 the Cardinal, always accompanied by the faithful Giulio, 
 spent much of his time in Rome, although the Eternal 
 City under the rule of the Borgias was scarcely reckoned 
 either a safe or a respectable residence for a young prince 
 of the Church. During the years succeeding the events 
 of November, 1494, no fewer than five attempts were 
 made by the expelled Medici to regain the city of Flor- 
 ence with the assistance of their political friends, but all 
 failed miserably, partly owing to the unforeseen chances 
 of an adverse fate, but largely on account of Piero's un- 
 rivalled incapacity. It is wholly beyond the scope of 
 this work to follow in detail the course of these fruitless 
 efforts or their accompanying intrigues, except to state 
 that ere long both Giovanni and Giuliano relinquished 
 all chance of success for the time being. At length, 
 wearied out with the hopeless task of attempting to re-
 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 47 
 
 cover that which seemed for the nonce irretrievably lost, 
 and living in constant dread of Alexander's suspected 
 enmity, the young Cardinal applied to the Pope for per- 
 mission to leave Italy in order to travel in foreign lands. 
 As Giovanni de' Medici was not rich nor his family any 
 longer of importance in Italian politics, so that he pos- 
 sessed little value as a hostage, the Pontiff consented to 
 this request, whereupon the future Leo X. and the future 
 Clement VII., with ten chosen friends of congenial habits 
 and ideas, departed from Rome on their intended ex- 
 pedition. Having reached Venice, the Cardinal laid 
 aside the signs of his rank, so that the whole party might 
 appear dressed alike, and in this manner the twelve 
 travellers crossed the Alps to seek consolation for the 
 fallen fortunes of the House of Medici in the novel ex- 
 citement of beholding strange nations and of visiting the 
 famous towns of Northern Europe. 
 
 Their first country to sojourn in was Bavaria, where 
 they expressed their delight at the beautiful buildings 
 of Nuremberg and Ratisbon, nor was their pleasure 
 lessened by the terms of perfect equality on which all 
 existed. For every night it was customary amongst 
 them to choose by lot a leader for the ensuing day, 
 whose commands all were obliged to obey without 
 question. And in thus manfully setting at defiance 
 the blows of ill-fortune, the Medici was wont to declare 
 in after years that neither before nor since had he en- 
 joyed so much true freedom of thought and action. At 
 Ulm, however, the identity of this distinguished traveller 
 became recognised, on which the Emperor Maximilian, 
 who had always kept the warmest regard for the memory 
 of the Magnificent Lorenzo, at once summoned his old 
 friend's son to his presence. On hearing from Giovanni's 
 own lips the reason of this pilgrimage, Maximilian's
 
 48 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 admiration was raised, and after prophesying a brighter 
 future for the Medici, he immediately congratulated his 
 visitor upon his recent decision thus to turn his evil fate 
 to such good account ; far better it was, said he, for a 
 man, however highly placed, to enlarge his mind by the 
 study of men and manners abroad, than to sulk in luxuri- 
 ous idleness at home. 1 
 
 Wending their way up the rich valley of the Rhine 
 with its thriving towns, this band of Italian exiles reached 
 Brussels, where they were hospitably entertained by 
 Don Philip, the Emperor's son, on the strength of his 
 father's warm recommendation. From Brussels Giovanni 
 and his companions proceeded westward till they found 
 themselves at Terouenne near the Flemish coast, at 
 which point a difference of opinion arose as to the advis- 
 ability of crossing the sea so as to visit England, a pro- 
 ject on which the future Leo X. it seems had set his 
 heart. It would indeed have been interesting to be able 
 to record a visit of the Medici to our island, and still 
 more so to learn his impressions of London and its in- 
 habitants, but unfortunately the Cardinal's plan was 
 over-ruled by the majority of the party, who positively 
 refused to embark. Their course was accordingly 
 directed into France, in which country a curious mis- 
 adventure befel the whole party, for at Rouen the 
 magistrates of that town made them all prisoners in 
 spite of Giovanni's protestations and open disclosure of 
 his rank ; nor was it until letters from King Louis had 
 been received that the innocent wanderers were released 
 by the obstinate Frenchmen, whom Giovio consequently 
 describes as hasty and suspicious as a nation. On be- 
 ing at last set at liberty, the Cardinal and his friends 
 
 1 Jovius, lib. i.
 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 49 
 
 were allowed to travel unmolested across France, until 
 they reached Marseilles, where they chartered a ship for 
 their conveyance to Italy, for apparently the aspect of 
 the sunny Mediterranean did not appear so alarming to 
 the less adventurous members of the party as the grey 
 waters of the English Channel. But scarcely had they 
 embarked than a succession of inopportune squalls com- 
 pelled the captain to keep under lee of the Genoese 
 coast, until worn and weakened by the discomforts of 
 their protracted voyage, by an unanimous vote they 
 decided to land at Savona. Here, in the native town 
 of his own humble ancestors, they unexpectedly found 
 Cardinal Giuliano Delia Rovere, an exile from Alexander's 
 wrath, who gave a warm welcome to Giovanni and 
 Giulio de' Medici, and at this point Leo's first biographer 
 mentions with proud satisfaction a certain historic meal, 
 whereat there sat down to table the three famous 
 Churchmen, each of them at that moment in evil plight, 
 but each destined later to wear the tiara successively 
 as Julius II., Leo X. and Clement VII. Bidding fare- 
 well to Delia Rovere, Giovanni de' Medici continued 
 his journey to Genoa, where he remained for some time 
 as the guest of his sister Maddalena, the wife of the 
 peace-loving Francesco Cybo. 1 
 
 With the opening of the new century the political 
 situation in Italy underwent a complete transformation. 
 In the summer of 1503, Alexander expired suddenly at 
 the Vatican, and, as Caesar Borgia lay helpless on a 
 sick-bed at this critical moment, the conclave was en- 
 abled to hold its proceedings without fear of any disturb- 
 ing influence from that dreaded quarter. On this occasion 
 the most exemplary member of the Sacred College was 
 
 1 Jovius, lib. ii.
 
 elected to the vacant throne in the person of Francesco 
 Piccolomini, who out of compliment to his famous uncle l 
 assumed the title of Pius III. But the new Pontiff was 
 already fast sinking to the grave at the very time of the 
 conclave a circumstance that perhaps in some degree 
 prompted the choice of the cardinals. To the disappoint- 
 ment of all Italy, but scarcely to the surprise of the 
 Roman court, the new Pope only survived his elevation 
 twenty -six days, dying on i8th October "What boots 
 it to be pious, when an evil Alexander is permitted to 
 reign for years, and a Pius for scarce a month ? " de- 
 manded an indignant epigrammatist, when the fatal in- 
 telligence was spread abroad. Once more the conclave 
 assembled, and as on this occasion Giuliano Delia 
 Rovere, by means of a secret compact with the now 
 partially recovered Caesar Borgia, obtained the votes 
 of the Spanish cardinals, he was finally chosen Pope on 
 ist November by the name of Julius II. Nor did 
 this fateful year draw to its close without producing 
 one more event of importance to the House of Medici, 
 for on 28th December, during the rout of the French by 
 the Spaniards under the celebrated "Gran Capitan," 
 Gonsalvo da Cordova, poor Piero de' Medici, who as 
 usual was serving with the losing army, terminated his 
 useless existence. For on trying to cross the swollen 
 stream of the Garigliano after the battle, the vessel bear- 
 ing Piero and his cousin Paolo Orsini, together with a 
 number of refugees and four pieces of artillery, foundered 
 and sank in deep water. Piero's body, recovered many 
 days later in the shallows near the river's mouth, w r as 
 conveyed to the great Benedictine abbey of Monte 
 Cassino hard by, of which his brother the Cardinal was 
 
 Sylvius Piccolomini of Siena, Pope Pius II.
 
 MISFORTUNE AND EXILE 51 
 
 titular abbot, and here it was buried with due display of 
 military honours. Yet nearly fifty years were allowed 
 to elapse before a monument was erected to the deceased 
 prince, whose memory was perhaps not held very dear 
 by his surviving brothers. In 1552, however, the first 
 Grand-Duke of Tuscany caused a splendid tomb from 
 the chisel of Francesco Sangallo 1 to be raised in the abbey 
 church, although it is significant to note that in its ac- 
 companying epitaph no mention is made of the unhappy 
 prince's career save to state the cause of his early death, 
 and to tell the chance visitor that he was the son of the 
 Magnificent Lorenzo, the brother of Leo X., and the 
 cousin-german of Clement VII. 
 
 By his wife, Alfonsina Orsini, Piero de' Medici left 
 two children : a daughter Clarice, who was later married 
 to the Florentine merchant-prince, Filipppo Strozzi ; and 
 a son and heir, Lorenzo, afterwards Duke of Urbino, 
 who had been born two years prior to his father's head- 
 long flight from his capital in 1494. It is a striking but 
 hardly an inexplicable circumstance that with the pre- 
 mature end of Piero il Pazzo, the fortunes of the depressed 
 House of Medici began steadily to improve, as the old 
 Emperor Maximilian had predicted to the despondent 
 Cardinal during his visit to Germany. 
 
 1 Vasari, Life of Fr. Sangallo.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II 
 
 Julius Secundus loqiiitur. " I raised the revenue. I invented new 
 offices and sold them. I invented a way to sell bishoprics without 
 simony. ... I recoined the currency and made a great sum that 
 way. Then I annexed Bologna to the Holy See. I beat the 
 Venetians. I jockeyed the Duke of Ferrara. I defeated the schis- 
 matical Council by a sham Council of my own. I drove the French 
 out of Italy, and I would have driven out the Spaniards too, if the 
 Fates had not brought me to death. I have set all the princes of 
 Europe by the ears. I have torn up treaties, and kept large armies 
 in the field. I have covered Rome with palaces, and I have left 
 five million ducats in the treasury behind me. ... I have done it 
 all myself too. I owe nothing to my birth, for I don't know who 
 my father was ; nothing to learning, for I have none ; nothing to 
 youth, for I was old when I began ; nothing to popularity, for I was 
 hated all round " {Julius Secundus Exclusus). 
 
 CARDINAL Giovanni de' Medici had tasted 
 enough of the bitter of adversity to appre- 
 ciate his improved position due to the death 
 of Alexander VI. and the election of Julius II. For 
 the last nine years he had experienced what was 
 practically double exile, being forcibly kept out of his 
 native Florence and at the same time rendered chary 
 of settling permanently in Rome, which was in reality 
 also his rightful abode. Although as a nephew of 
 Sixtus IV. the new Pope looked with no favourable 
 eye upon the political pretensions of the House of 
 Medici, yet Julius was personally at least well-disposed 
 towards the young Cardinal. In any case, through the 
 untimely, or timely, death of Piero, Giovanni de' Medici 
 
 52
 
 RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II 53 
 
 had become a personage of increased consequence in 
 the world of Italian politics. Piero's only son, Lorenzo, 
 was but eleven years old when his parent was drowned 
 in the Gariglianq, so that Giovanni now came to be 
 regarded as the real head of his family, and it was to 
 the Cardinal that the Medicean party, crushed but still 
 capable of future action, now turned with renewed hopes 
 of success. Living with Giovanni in his Roman palace 
 (later known as the Palazzo Madama), not far from the 
 venerable Pantheon in the heart of the mediaeval city, 
 were the cunning Bernardo Dovizi and the ever-faithful 
 Giulio ; whilst often residing with his elder brother in 
 Rome was Giuliano de' Medici, one of the most esteemed 
 princes and most charming personalities of the Italian 
 Renaissance, "pre-eminent above all other men," quaintly 
 observes Giovio, "by reason of the perfect harmony of 
 virtues abiding in his nature and conduct". 1 This im- 
 proved position Giovanni was astute enough to strengthen 
 yet further by trying to obtain the good graces of the 
 youthful Cardinal Galeotto Franciotto, the Pope's favourite 
 nephew and papal vice-chancellor. Although Giovio 
 states explicitly that this newly formed intimacy between 
 the Medici and Franciotto had its origin in the diplomatic 
 aims of the former rather than in any mutual inclination 
 of the two young men, yet it is certain that ere long 
 Giovanni grew deeply attached to Galeotto, and that 
 the sorrow expressed by him at the papal nephew's 
 sudden and premature death was both genuine and 
 abiding, for on the testimony of Tommaso Inghirami, 
 we learn that in after years, when the Cardinal de' 
 Medici had been transformed into the Pontiff Leo X., 
 he could not endure to hear Galeotto's name men- 
 
 1 Jovius, lib. i.
 
 54 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 tioned in his presence, and if anyone were so care- 
 less as to allude to his passed friend, the Pope would 
 invariably turn aside his face to hide the tears he was 
 unable to repress. And in the Medici's case this instance 
 of real affection, is of peculiar interest, for with the excep- 
 tion of his brother Giuliano, there exists no record of 
 Leo showing any strong affection towards any one of 
 his contemporaries save this nephew of Julius II. 
 
 With the renewal of public confidence in Rome, 
 Giovanni prepared to enjoy the pleasant existence of a 
 prince of the Church, whose personal tastes, derived from 
 his illustrious father, had early marked him out as a 
 leading patron of the literature and fine arts of his day, 
 so that the hospitable Palazzo Medici soon became known 
 as a prominent literary and artistic centre. Painters, 
 sculptors, jewellers, poets and scholars all found a hearty 
 welcome in the saloons of the Medici, whose natural 
 delight in music also induced him to encourage singers 
 and players of instruments, who were engaged to perform 
 at the many sumptuous banquets that he gave, notwith- 
 standing the dying Lorenzo's earnest counsel to be 
 moderate in all things. For in spite of numerous bene- 
 fices the Cardinal was not nearly so opulent as many of 
 the colleagues with whom he endeavoured to vie, nor 
 was his extravagant style of living compensated for by 
 any aptitude for household management on his part. 
 Even the prudent Giulio's economy was unable to pre- 
 vent his cousin from running continually into debt, an 
 inconvenience which seemed however to sit very lightly 
 on the easy-going Cardinal, although oftentimes the well- 
 spread table stood depleted of its choicest silver vases 
 and goblets, owing to the fact that the plate had been 
 deposited temporarily with the Roman butchers and fish- 
 mongers for lack of ready money. As the Cardinal
 
 RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II 55 
 
 preferred to risk his credit rather than to retrench, debts 
 rapidly accumulated, yet he only declared cheerfully that 
 men of mark like himself were specially provided for by 
 Heaven, so that they need never lack long for all that 
 was necessary, if only they kept a lively faith in their 
 predestined good fortune. 1 When the daily audiences 
 were finished, and the last scholar with his poem in 
 manuscript or goldsmith with some graceful design for a 
 ring or chalice had been dismissed, the Cardinal usually 
 rode out into the Campagna to amuse himself with hawk- 
 ing or hunting, for he had inherited his father's love of 
 outdoor sport. This period of daily exercise in the fresh 
 air was of peculiar value in helping to reduce the already 
 bulky frame, which threatened its owner with excessive 
 stoutness at no distant date, unless he made abundant 
 use of the remedies which Lorenzo had suggested long 
 ago in his famous letter. But this pleasant existence, 
 wherein business, sport and culture were so agreeably 
 blended, this daily life of entertaining and of being enter- 
 tained, of encouraging obsequious scholars who hung 
 intent on his shrewd criticisms, and of examining or buy- 
 ing works of art, could not long continue undisturbed 
 under such a Pontiff as the vigorous old man who had 
 lately ascended the throne of St. Peter. 
 
 Julius II. undoubtedly shone as a great states- 
 man, but he was in reality a greater warrior, for much 
 as he busied himself in the finer arts of diplomacy, 
 in his heart he preferred the rough life of the camp to the 
 deliberations of the council-chamber. At the date of 
 his election all Italy was at peace, with the exception of 
 the endless war between Florence and her revolted 
 colony of Pisa. Yet this state of quiescence was but the 
 
 1 Jovius, lib. ii.
 
 56 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 ominous lull before the approaching storm, for the ponti- 
 ficate of Julius was fated to be remembered as the most 
 turbulent and bloody in the annals of the Papacy, a cir- 
 cumstance for which the ambitious policy of Julius him- 
 self was mainly responsible. At his accession the French 
 were firmly established in the Milanese ; the Spaniards 
 were masters of Naples ; Venice was busily engaged in 
 annexing one by one the various towns of the Romagna, 
 which had recently formed part of Csesar Borgia's 
 short-lived duchy, whilst she was also strengthening her 
 position along the seaboard of the Adriatic. Such a 
 situation was bound to lead to mischief in the near future, 
 and although the presence of two sets of invaders con- 
 stituted at once a menace and a disgrace to Italy as a 
 whole, yet it was the growing predominance of Venice 
 amongst the Italian states that most of all excited the 
 alarm of Julius, whose aim was now directed to prevent 
 the Venetian Republic from becoming the dictator of 
 Italy, in reality her only possible means of salvation from 
 the designs of these foreigners. In the first place to 
 humble and cripple Venice, and in so doing to extend 
 the boundaries of the Holy See ; then to rouse the whole 
 Italian nation and by one united effort to free Italian 
 soil from the polluting presence of the " Barbarians" j 1 - 
 such was the ardent desire of Julius, which like many 
 another grandiose conception was entirely local and self- 
 ish in its main object, and patriotic only in a secondary 
 sense. 
 
 In the military expeditions and deep-laid schemes of 
 
 1 The contemptuous epithet of " Barbarian " is fiercely repudiated 
 by the author of the Julius Exclusus, who lays stress on the mongrel 
 pedigree of the Italian people, " who are but a conglomerate of all the 
 barbarous nations in the world, a mere heap of dirt, yet they are 
 absurd enough to call everyone not born in Italy a barbarian ! "
 
 JULIUS II. CARDINAL DK MKDICI AND OTHKKS
 
 57 
 
 this Pope, the Cardinal de' Medici had for the first time 
 an opportunity to display his inherent diplomatic ability 
 both in humouring the irascible Julius and in silently 
 building up the collapsed fortunes of his own House. 
 That the utmost caution and dissimulation had always 
 to be practised by the young Cardinal will appear obvious 
 at once to those who care to study the characters of the 
 two men, for it would be well-nigh impossible to name 
 two great historical types more diverse from every point 
 of view than the reigning Pontiff and the future Leo X. 
 Thus the Medici was a young man barely thirty 
 years of age, just beginning to creep warily into that 
 treacherous sea of Italian statecraft ; Julius, on the other 
 hand, had many years behind him of varied political ex- 
 perience, whilst he was considered venerable in having 
 passed his sixtieth year in an age wherein medical at- 
 tentions often proved more disastrous than disease itself. 
 Julius was violent, arrogant and ill-tempered ; the 
 Cardinal was always calm, suave and credited with a 
 remarkable mildness of disposition, upon which all con- 
 temporary writers emphatically dwell. The Pope, sprung 
 from a plebeian stock, the grandson of a Genoese fisher- 
 man, with a peasant's coarseness and garrulity ; Medici, 
 a cultured Florentine scholar with a Roman princess for 
 his mother, ever scrupulously courteous even under severe 
 provocation and with a complete mastery over that un- 
 ruly member, the tongue. The Pope was fond of an 
 active military life, loving camps and sieges, not refusing 
 to partake of the coarse fare of his soldiers nor even 
 objecting to use their oaths under stress of excitement ; 
 whilst the fastidious Cardinal had a perfect horror of 
 martial savagery and bloodshed, and undoubtedly held 
 opinions, which were none the less strong because they 
 had to be kept secret, concerning the propriety of a Roman
 
 58 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Pontiff taking the field in person like a general. Julius, 
 although he gave commissions to Raphael and Michel- 
 angelo, had no real sympathy with art, which he regarded 
 solely as an useful means of recording his own prowess ; 
 he was notoriously unlearned, and at times did not hesi- 
 tate to express his contempt for the classical literature 
 wherewith his own court was so deeply engrossed : " Put 
 a sword in my hand, not a book, for I am no schoolman ! " 
 had replied the plain-spoken Pontiff to Michelangelo, 
 when the sculptor asked him to suggest a fit emblem for 
 the Pope's bronze statue to be erected in Bologna. Of 
 the Medici's true understanding of art and letters, it is 
 needless to speak here. In outward appearance, as in 
 age, the two Churchmen offered the strongest contrast ; 
 Julius spare, bearded he was the first Pontiff to wear 
 hair on his chin alert in defiance of his years ; the 
 Cardinal, corpulent despite his youth, slow in his move- 
 ments and constantly requiring spectacles or spy-glass 
 to aid his feeble vision. Nevertheless, although the two 
 men differed in appearance, aims, ideas, age, learning, 
 manners and morals, it was now the manifest duty of 
 the younger man to pay court to the reigning Pope, in 
 order to obtain the full amount of sympathy and con- 
 fidence necessary for the intended restoration of the 
 Medici to Florence, which at this period of his career 
 formed without doubt the overwhelming desire of the 
 future Leo X. 
 
 In the height of the summer of 1507, Cardinal de' 
 Medici received a foretaste of Julius' methods of cam- 
 paigning, when he accompanied his master on the expedi- 
 tion to reduce Perugia and Bologna, both cities being 
 nominally fiefs of the Church. Twenty-four cardinals in 
 all swelled the papal train, yet only 500 men-at-arms 
 were engaged for their protection, so that it speaks elo-
 
 RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II 59 
 
 quently for the intense terror which the name of Julius 
 had already inspired throughout Italy, that on the Pope 
 reaching Orvieto, Gian-Paolo Baglioni, tyrant of Perugia, 
 should have hastened to come in person to make his sub- 
 mission. Julius received this treacherous vassal of the 
 Church with lofty condescension, and without waiting to 
 collect an adequate army, pressed forward to seize the 
 surrendered city : a piece of wilful rashness, which aroused 
 the wonder, or rather the deep disappointment of 
 Machiavelli, who has criticised this hasty action of the 
 Pope and the cowardly complaisance of Baglioni in one 
 of the most famous passages of the Discorsi. There 
 could be no question that Julius ran the gravest risk in 
 thus placing himself and all his court at the mercy of one 
 who was in reality an aristocratic brigand with a small 
 but well-trained army. The defenceless condition of the 
 Pontiffand his cardinals, together with the vast amount of 
 treasure in their luxurious trains, must have been apparent 
 to the greedy eyes of the Umbrian tyrant ; nevertheless, 
 he shrank from committing a sacrilegious crime on so 
 grand a scale, and for his omission thus to purchase an 
 undying reputation for good or ill, Machiavelli has cen- 
 sured the hesitating Baglioni in the bitter language of 
 which he was an acknowledged master, and in terms 
 clearly expressive of his own detestation of the methods 
 of the warrior Pope : 
 
 " Men know not either how to be splendidly wicked 
 or wholly good, and they shrink in consequence from 
 such crimes as are stamped with an inherent greatness 
 or disclose a nobility of nature. For which reason 
 Giovanpagolo, who thought nothing of incurring the guilt 
 of incest or of murdering his kinsmen, could not, or more 
 truly durst not avail himself of a fair occasion to do a 
 deed which all would have admired ; which would have
 
 60 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 won for him a deathless fame as the first to teach the 
 prelates how little those who live and reign as they do 
 are to be esteemed, and which would have displayed a 
 greatness far transcending any infamy or danger that 
 could attach to it" 1 
 
 From Perugia the papal army and its followers crossed 
 the Apennines by way of Gubbio to the plains of the 
 Romagna, not resting till they reached Cesena, at which 
 place the Pope had arranged to meet with the Cardinal 
 d' Amboise, the all-powerful minister of Louis XII., who 
 in return for sundry favours to himself and his nephews, 
 was prepared to withhold French aid from threatened 
 Bologna. Having thus bribed France to complaisance, 
 Julius now launched one of his bulls of excommunication 
 against Giovanni Bentivoglio, who promptly fled from 
 the city to the French camp, all ignorant of the shameless 
 bargain lately concluded between the Pope and the 
 French cardinal. This open display of rank cowardice 
 on the part of the old tyrant of Bologna must have 
 afforded some measure of satisfaction to Giovanni de' 
 Medici, who had certainly not forgotten Bentivoglio's 
 ill-timed merry-making over the misfortunes of Piero and 
 himself some thirteen years before, when the Medici had 
 been forcibly driven from Florence. On nth November, 
 Julius entered the city of Bologna in state, where, as befel 
 every Italian conqueror in that era of perpetual change 
 of masters, the indifferent populace greeted the victorious 
 Pope as a liberator and benefactor, as a second and a 
 more glorious Julius Caesar. Amidst waving of kerchiefs 
 and showers of late-blooming roses, the self-satisfied 
 Pontiff proceeded towards the vast church of San 
 Petronio, nor was he aware that in the midst of the 
 
 l Discorsi, booki., chap, xxvii.
 
 RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II 61 
 
 applauding crowds stood a sharp-eyed observant traveller 
 from the north with fur collar well tucked up to his ears, 
 who was watching narrowly the passing procession. For 
 by a curious chance Erasmus of Rotterdam happened 
 to be visiting Bologna at the very moment of Benti- 
 voglio's flight and the Pope's triumphal entry into the 
 city, so that to feelings outraged by such a spectacle of 
 worldliness may have been due the production of that 
 striking satire called t\\& Julius Exclusus Pope Julius 
 excluded from Paradise which has ever been attributed 
 to the pen of the great Humanist in spite of his repeated 
 denials. " Would that you could have seen me carried 
 in state at Bologna, and afterwards in Rome ! " the boast- 
 ful Pontiff is made to exclaim to the indignant Apostle 
 at the gate of Heaven. " Carriages and horses, troops 
 under arms, generals prancing and galloping, handsome 
 pages, torches flaming, dishes steaming, pomp of bishops, 
 glory of cardinals, trophies, spoils, shouts that rent the 
 heavens, trumpets blaring, cannon thundering, largesse 
 scattered among the mob, and I borne aloft, the head and 
 author of it all ! Scipio and Csesar were nothing in 
 comparison with me ! " In any case it is certain that 
 Erasmus was an interested eye-witness of the strange 
 scene which is described so vividly in the Pope's apology 
 for his life to the Janitor of Heaven. 
 
 So far the cardinals, whom their militant master had 
 turned into lieutenants of his warlike enterprise, had not 
 suffered greatly during this autumn campaign. True, 
 they had endured some degree of misery from the bites 
 of the rapacious mosquitoes infesting the marshes of the 
 Romagna, to which their disfigured faces bore ample 
 
 ^Julius Exclusus. A Dialogue in the form of a drama performed 
 in Paris in 1514. A translation of this amusing work is included in 
 Froude's Life and Letters of Erasmus, Appendix to Lecture VIII.
 
 62 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 testimony, 1 but the ease with which an almost unarmed 
 Pope could reduce in so short a space of time and 
 practically without carnage two of the most important 
 towns in central Italy must have given intense satisfac- 
 tion to those members of the Sacred College who shared 
 their Pontiff's views. But this opening campaign, which 
 seemed little short of a triumphal procession with none 
 of the horrors and scarcely any of the hardships of war, 
 was destined to be succeeded by many stern experiences. 
 Towards the close of December, 1508, the celebrated 
 League of Cambrai, the most cherished object of the 
 papal diplomacy, was concluded between France, Spain, 
 the Empire and the Papacy, for the admitted purpose of 
 stripping Venice of all her dominions on the mainland : 
 a political combination against which the Republic of St. 
 Mark made a most feeble show of resistance. Defeated 
 by the French troops at Vaila and despoiled of her 
 colonies, the humiliated state was ere long only too 
 thankful to implore for the Pope's mercy and the bless- 
 ing of an alliance with the Holy See. Having thus 
 reduced to impotence the sole Italian state which seemed 
 capable of resisting the foreign invasion, and having got 
 the towns of the Romagna into his own hands, Julius 
 realised that the primary object of his detestable and 
 unpatriotic policy had been secured, and now that the 
 might of Venice was hopelessly broken for the sake of 
 a few miserable fortresses, he was anxious to obtain 
 Venetian co-operation in striking a severe blow at French 
 influence in Lombardy. A reconciliation was easily 
 effected, whereupon the Pope promptly seceded from 
 the League of Cambrai, even boasting that by such a 
 piece of perfidy " he was thrusting a dagger into the 
 
 1 Adriano da Castello, Creighton, vol. v., p. 102, note i.
 
 RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II 63 
 
 side of the French King ". At the same time he made 
 arrangements for a number of Swiss mercenaries to 
 descend upon Milan under the direction of his devoted 
 agent, the Cardinal Matthew Schinner of Sion in the 
 
 o 
 
 Valais, who had lately supplied Julius with that historic 
 bodyguard of picked mountaineers, the Swiss Guard, 
 who in their quaint parti-coloured livery have continued 
 for nearly four centuries to keep watch and ward at the 
 portals of the Vatican. 
 
 Of Julius' endless troubles, secular and ecclesiastical, 
 of his wars and sieges, of his marches and counter- 
 marches, of his massacres and excommunications, we 
 have no space to speak in a work which is wholly con- 
 cerned with the career and character of his successors. 
 But on 1 3th May, 1511, Bologna, "the Jewel of the 
 Pope's crown," was retaken with French assistance by 
 Alfonso d' Este, Duke of Ferrara, who signalised his 
 contempt for the spiritual fulminations of Julius by re- 
 moving from the facade of San Petronio the fine bronze 
 statue of the militant Pontiff, a justly admired work of 
 the divine Michelangelo. Reserving the head of the 
 figure to add to his stock of curiosities in the ducal 
 museum at Ferrara, the dauntless prince had a large 
 piece of artillery cast from the component bronze, which 
 in mockery he christened " Giulio," and concerning 
 which he w r as wont to indulge in many a coarse jest. 
 But a far more serious incident than this open insult to 
 the Pope succeeded the fall of Bologna : an incident 
 which, there is good reason to believe, made an indelible 
 impression on the mind of Cardinal de' Medici, now held 
 in the highest favour by Julius and recently invested 
 with the important see of Amalfi. The late capitulation 
 of Bologna had not taken place without manifest signs 
 of treachery on the part of its Cardinal- Legate, the
 
 64 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 worthless Francesco Alidosi, Bishop of Pavia, detested 
 by all decent men but adored for some mysterious 
 reason by the Pontiff, who placed absolute confidence in 
 Alidosi's good faith and personal devotion towards him- 
 self. After the recapture of the city, which was on all 
 sides attributed to the venal aims of this papal minion, 
 the Cardinal- Legate proceeded to Ravenna, where on 
 entering into the Pope's apartment, he threw himself at 
 his indulgent master's feet and openly accused Julius' 
 own nephew, Francesco- Maria Delia Rovere, Duke of 
 Urbino, of having been the cause of the late catastrophe. 
 So deep-rooted was the Pope's infatuation for Alidosi, 
 that he at once turned upon the duke, who was standing 
 beside his throne, and with threats and curses and 
 Julius was ever an adept at foul invective drove the 
 young man, his own nephew and heir, from his presence 
 on the mere word of one who was commonly reported 
 a liar and a villain. Successful in his mission and more 
 confident than ever of the papal protection, Alidosi 
 quitted the palace in high spirits to return to his castle 
 of Rivo, when at an evil moment in one of the streets of 
 Ravenna he chanced to meet with the retiring Duke of 
 Urbino. With ill-timed levity the triumphant Legate 
 must needs jeer at the crestfallen prince, whereupon, 
 infuriated beyond all control by this last insult, Delia 
 Rovere leaped from his horse and with naked sword 
 rushed upon his traducer, flinging him off his mule and 
 raining blow after blow upon the defenceless Churchman 
 as he lay writhing and screaming in the mire of the 
 street. " Take that, you traitor ! and that, and that, 
 and that for your deserts ! " cried the duke, until having 
 dealt his prostrate foe some half-dozen strokes on the 
 head and body, he left the corpse to be hacked to pieces 
 by some of his attendants. " A favourite has no friends,"
 
 65 
 
 particularly a favourite of the type of Alidosi so that 
 many persons, including the Legate's own servants, 
 looked on unconcernedly upon this murder of an un- 
 popular Churchman in broad daylight. Having com- 
 pleted the foul deed, the living secular tyrant fled with 
 his train towards the lofty citadel of Urbino, leaving the 
 dead ecclesiastical tyrant a shapeless blood-stained mass 
 in the mean lane of Ravenna. Even in those days of 
 universal violence and crime such an act of combined 
 sacrilege and brutal revenge stands without parallel, so 
 that it is highly probable that Leo's subsequent hatred 
 of Alidosi's murderer arose originally from his feelings 
 of horror at this assassination of one who, however vile 
 and unscrupulous, was yet a Cardinal- Legate and a 
 bishop. But of this matter we intend to speak more 
 fully in a later chapter. It is enough to state here that 
 the sympathies of the common people lay as usual with 
 the aggressor, and that the cry was raised on all sides, 
 " Blessed be the Duke of Urbino ! Blessed is the death 
 of his victim ! Blessed be the name of God, from Whom 
 all good things do proceed ! " In fact, Julius alone of 
 all men expressed grief at the news of the wretched 
 Alidosi's fate ; he beat his breast, he refused food, and 
 as he was being conveyed that night towards Rimini 
 from Ravenna a place now grown hateful to him in 
 his bereavement his attendants could hear loud cries 
 of impotent rage and deep groans of sorrow issuing from 
 the curtained litter of this extraordinary old man. When 
 the violence of his grief had somewhat spent itself, Julius 
 appointed a committee of four cardinals, amongst them 
 being Giovanni de' Medici, to make a full inquiry into 
 the conduct of the Duke of Urbino ; nor was it until 
 
 1 Diary of Paris de Grassis, Creighton, vol. v., Appendix, pp. 
 309-311. 
 
 5
 
 66 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 many months had elapsed that the Pope, at last con- 
 vinced of Alidosi's acts of treachery in the past, finally 
 consented to receive his heir back into favour. 
 
 At the close of this same year 1511, the Holy League 
 between Spain, Venice, England and the Holy See, an- 
 other political creation of the Pope's fertile brain, was in- 
 augurated with the expressed object of driving the French 
 out of Italy. A new papal army, composed chiefly of 
 Spanish infantry under Raymond de Cardona, viceroy of 
 Naples, and of Italian cavalry under Fabrizio Colonna, was 
 now formed to re-conquer the lost cities of the Romagna, 
 and of this mixed force Cardinal de' Medici was named 
 Legate : an appointment clearly showing how successful 
 had been Lorenzo's son in his supreme efforts to win the 
 complete confidence of a Pope who was originally chary 
 of trusting a Medici. Early in the new year the papal 
 forces advanced to the siege of Bologna, now held by the 
 re-instated Bentivogli with the aid of French troops under 
 Lautrec and Yves d'Allegre. In order to effect a breach 
 in the walls, the Spanish engineer, Pedro Navarro, laid 
 his mines at a certain point of the rampart which was 
 dominated by a chapel of the Virgin, consequently known 
 as La Madonna del Barbacane. The attempt was suc- 
 cessful in its initial stage, for on the fuse being ignited, the 
 Cardinal and the besieging army saw the fragment of 
 wall blown high into the air, and then to their amazement 
 and terror (so Jovius gravely informs his readers) they 
 beheld wall and chapel descend uninjured and fit them- 
 selves again into the breach made by Navarro' s explosion. 1 
 The spectacle of this military miracle caused a profound 
 impression both amongst the soldiers of the papal army 
 and the defenders of the city ; and whatsoever phenomenon 
 
 1 Jovius, lib. ii.
 
 RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II 67 
 
 may have happened on this occasion, it is evident that 
 some curious incident, ascribed by all present to Divine 
 interposition, raised the spirits of the besieged and de- 
 pressed those of their assailants at a most critical moment. 
 In any case, the delivery of the beleaguered town was 
 close at hand, for the famous Gaston de Foix, a prince of 
 the royal House of Navarre, who flashes for a brief moment 
 like some brilliant meteor across the troubled sky of the 
 Italian wars, suddenly appeared within sight of the towers 
 of Bologna. The timely arrival of Gaston and his vic- 
 torious troops, fresh from the sack of unhappy Brescia, 
 was the signal for the immediate retirement of the army 
 of the Holy League. Having relieved Bologna, Gaston 
 next pressed on to Ravenna, which was stubbornly held 
 against his attack by the Colonnas and their Roman 
 followers. Meanwhile the Cardinal- Legate, in duty 
 bound to succour Ravenna, decided to advance, and to 
 encamp about three miles from the town, at a spot in the 
 neighbourhood of the famous basilica of Sant' Apollinare 
 in Classe. The united forces of France and of Ferrara 
 had already taken up a strong position midway between 
 the streams of the Montone and the Ronco, which join at 
 Ponte dell' Asse, about a mile and a half to the south of 
 Ravenna. The numbers on both sides were fairly equal, 
 but the advantage of generalship lay obviously with the 
 French, who possessed Gaston himself, Alfonso of Ferrara, 
 Yves d'Allegre, La Pallice and a host of other accom- 
 plished leaders. On the part of the League, Fabrizio 
 Colonna, the cavalry commander, was reputed to be head- 
 strong, whilst Raymond de Cardona, in the elegant words 
 of Jovius, "shone more in civil life than on the battle- 
 field". 1 
 
 Blood-red uprose the sun upon that memorable 
 1 Jovius, lib. ii.
 
 68 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Easter morning, which fell on nth April, 1512, and the 
 superstitious soldiers in either camp declared that the 
 flushed skies denoted the coming death of a generalissimo, 
 although whether of Gaston or of Cardona remained to 
 be seen. Each army possessed its cardinal in attendance, 
 for with the French was Federigo Sanseverino, one of 
 Julius' most bitter opponents and a leading supporter of 
 the schismatic Council of Pisa, whose gigantic form 
 encased in mail was prominent on a huge charger, as he 
 rode about the French camp performing the regular 
 duties of an officer. Very different were the aspect and 
 behaviour of the orthodox legate. Habited in his flow- 
 ing robes of scarlet and wearing the broad-brimmed tas- 
 selled hat, the full panoply of his exalted office, Giovanni 
 de' Medici made a conspicuous figure, as bestriding a 
 white palfrey and with silver cross borne before him, 1 he 
 passed along the ranks of the Italians and Spaniards, ex- 
 horting the soldiers to acts of valour and offering up prayers 
 for victory. His naturally peaceful disposition made the 
 prospect of a bloody and confused engagement singularly 
 distasteful to him, yet the position of legate in his master's 
 army forbade him to retire from the scene of expected 
 massacre, although in any case his defective eyesight 
 rendered his presence on the battlefield useless in victory 
 and a cause of anxiety in the event of defeat. 
 
 The fight opened with a duel of artillery, for which 
 the level nature of the battlefield gave full scope, and 
 which proved all to the advantage of the French, since 
 Alfonso of Ferrara had long been paying special attention 
 to this branch of warfare, so that his guns were the best 
 constructed and most ably served in all Italy. Colonna's 
 cavalry suffered severely from this heavy and well- 
 
 1 He is so represented in the famous Tapestries of Raphael, see 
 chapter ix.
 
 RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II 69 
 
 directed cannonade, but the Spanish infantry, reputed 
 the best foot-soldiers in Europe, escaped almost un- 
 scathed owing to the foresight of the capable Navarro, 
 who bade his men lie prone upon the flat surface of the 
 plain, so long as the murderous hail of bullets from across 
 the intervening Ronco continued. Colonna, however, 
 maddened by the havoc wrought by Duke Alfonso's 
 artillery and disgusted with what he deemed the cowardice 
 of the Spaniards, now charged headlong towards the 
 river, compelling the Spanish infantry to follow his lead. 
 Along the banks of the Ronco raged the battle with 
 almost unparalleled ferocity, for in this case hatred and 
 jealousy of race were added to the ordinary lust of 
 fighting. Richly clad in a mantle distinguished by the 
 heraldic devices of the royal House of Navarre and 
 with right arm left bare for the fleshing, rode hither and 
 thither that splendid youth, Gaston de Foix, swearing he 
 would never quit the field save as victor and urging the 
 troops of France to pursue the hard-pressed Spaniards, 
 who were slowly retiring in good order long after 
 Colonna's cavalry had been scattered to the four winds. 
 But at the very moment when the battle of Ravenna 
 was actually won, and the enemy's camp already cap- 
 tured, Gaston de Foix, forgetting in the supreme hour of 
 triumph that it is the first duty of every capable general 
 to safeguard his own life, must needs lose everything by 
 a piece of boyish folly. Streaming with sweat and 
 bespattered with human brains and blood, the young 
 leader, flushed with victory and already beholding 
 visions of the coveted Neapolitan crown before his 
 dazzled eyes, spurred in person after Cardona's retreating 
 battalions. In mid-career a stray bullet knocked the 
 prince headlong from his charger to the ground, whence 
 mortally wounded he rolled down the steep bank into
 
 7 o THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 the turbid waters of the Ronco. In vain did the un- 
 happy youth cry aloud for quarter, shouting to the savage 
 Spanish soldiery above him that he was the brother 
 of their own queen ; little did they reck at such a 
 moment of their victim's birth and honours. Pierced 
 with a hundred wounds in every portion of his body, 
 Gaston de Foix lost at once the hard-won fruits of 
 his victory and also his young life at the precise moment 
 when he seemed to hold all Italy in his eager and 
 ambitious grasp. 
 
 Death was busy amongst the leaders in both armies, 
 but especially in that of the French, during this historic 
 engagement, wherein at least 20,000 men are said to 
 have perished. Amidst the universal din and confusion, 
 which in this case were not a little increased by the 
 slaughter of so many generals on either side, young 
 Giulio de' Medici, as usual in attendance upon his 
 illustrious cousin, was enabled to escape in the mass 
 of terror-stricken fugitives to Cesena ; but the Cardinal- 
 Legate, impeded by his blindness yet showing commend- 
 able pluck and coolness in a situation of extreme peril, 
 remained on the battlefield, deeply absorbed in performing 
 the last sad offices for the dead and dying. He was 
 engaged in this truly Christian task, when he was per- 
 ceived by some common soldiers of the victorious army, 
 who, recking nothing of the sanctity of a cardinal's robe 
 and person, hastened to lay violent hands upon so 
 glorious a prize as the papal legate. The would-be 
 assailants of the Medici, however, were opportunely struck 
 down by a gentleman of Bologna, named Piatese, who 
 for his better protection handed the Legate over to 
 Federigo Gonzaga, of the noble House of Mantua. 
 Gonzaga immediately led the captive Cardinal into the 
 presence of Sanseverino, by whom his Florentine col-
 
 RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II 71 
 
 league was received with every mark of respect. On 
 the strength of his old friend's kindness, the cunning 
 Medici now ventured to ask as a special favour that his 
 cousin Giulio might be allowed to proceed under a safe- 
 conduct to the French camp. To this seemingly in- 
 nocent request Sanseverino, too much engrossed in 
 quarrelling with the new French commander, La Pallice, 
 to reflect upon any possible ill consequences of his 
 complaisance, at once consented, so that Giulio was able 
 to reach Ravenna before many hours were past. By 
 means of his cousin the shrewd Cardinal- Legate obtained 
 the desired opportunity of sending to Rome an authentic 
 report of the late battle, and also an exact appreciation 
 of the present strength of the French army. For the 
 Cardinal had already perceived clearly that, although the 
 forces of King Louis had indeed gained a stupendous 
 victory, yet the consequences of such a success had been 
 greatly impaired, if not altogether destroyed by the loss 
 of Gaston de Foix, on whose able strategy and far- 
 reaching aims all future policy depended. Hurrying 
 from Ravenna with the Legate's minute instructions, 
 Giulio arrived in Rome at a most critical juncture. 
 Already stragglers from the defeated army had reached 
 the Eternal City, where by the exaggerated language 
 which all bearers of evil tidings are so prone to employ, 
 they had spread consternation amongst Julius and his 
 cardinals attendant, whilst Pompeo Colonna and the 
 Roman barons were already preparing to rouse the 
 populace in favour of an expected French army. The 
 fortunes of Julius had now sunk to their lowest ebb, and 
 so intense was his alarm that an escape by sea from 
 Ostia had even been seriously suggested. To the scared 
 Pontiff and his court Giulio truly brought most welcome 
 relief, for he was able to explain by means of his cousin's
 
 72 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 careful instructions that the dreaded Gaston was no 
 more ; that the Duke of Ferrara had returned to his 
 capital ; that La Pallice and Sanseverino were on terms 
 of open rivalry ; and that, in short, there was little fear of 
 the conquerors now descending upon Rome. Time was 
 all that was needed for repairing the shattered fortunes 
 of the League, since the delays and quarrels of the new 
 French leaders were likely to continue indefinitely, so 
 that in contriving to despatch so able a messenger to 
 Rome with such speed, the captive Cardinal- Legate had 
 indeed performed a signal service to the Pope and the 
 Holy See. Thus reassured, Julius recovered his wonted 
 presence of mind and again began to treat with the 
 French King. A master-stroke, also suited to the exi- 
 gencies of the moment, was the Pope's decision to 
 summon a general Council to meet with all convenient 
 despatch at the Lateran, an action almost certain to 
 counteract the dreaded influence of the schismatic 
 Council, or conciliabulo, which had recently transferred 
 its sittings from Pisa to Milan. Possibly this ingenious 
 idea of calling a Council in Rome itself as an antidote 
 may have originated with the Cardinal- Legate, for the 
 very notion of holding such an assembly had always 
 been highly repugnant to the arrogant Julius ; at any 
 rate, it is remarkable that this announcement followed 
 close upon Medici's lucid explanation of the general 
 situation in Italy after the battle of Ravenna. 
 
 In the meantime the Legate had been escorted in 
 honourable durance to Bologna, where the unfeeling citi- 
 zens came in crowds to gibe at the captive prince of the 
 Church and at his fellow-prisoner, Pedro Navarro. The 
 Bentivogli, however, treated Giovanni with consideration, 
 as did likewise Bianca Rangone at Modena, whither he 
 was next transferred. This lady, a daughter of the
 
 RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II 73 
 
 House of Bentivoglio, actually stripped herself of all her 
 jewels in order to provide properly for the Cardinal's 
 immediate necessities, and it is pleasant to be able to re- 
 cord that this act of kindness shown him in an hour of 
 distress was not allowed to pass unnoticed in the days of 
 prosperity and power that were now so close at hand, for 
 Leo X. granted many favours to the fortunate children 
 of the Lady Bianca. From Modena the Cardinal was 
 taken to Milan, where he was honourably lodged in the 
 house of Sanseverino, whilst many of the leading Milan- 
 ese citizens came to pay him court in spite of his being 
 a French prisoner of war. In fact, the situation in Milan 
 was most extraordinary, seeing that here was the schismatic 
 Council under the presidency of Carvajal and Sanseverino 
 holding its sittings and anathematising the Roman Pontiff, 
 whose captive legate meanwhile was being treated with 
 marked deference by the Milanese themselves, who 
 scarcely tried to hide their contempt for the Council in 
 their midst ; indeed, the ambitious Carvajal was con- 
 tinually assailed in the streets and mocked by the children 
 as "Pope Carvajal". Hither a little later arrived the 
 indefatigable Giulio, armed with letters from the Pope, 
 granting to his legate plenary powers to give absolution 
 to all and sundry at his discretion ; whereupon so many 
 applications were made to the orthodox legate that the 
 Medici's secretaries were kept busily employed day and 
 night in preparing the necessary forms. Numbers of the 
 French officers even openly asked for letters of absolu- 
 tion for their late crime in opposing the arms of His 
 Holiness at Ravenna and Bologna; nor was any atten- 
 tion paid by the governor of Milan to the indignant pro- 
 tests of Carvajal and his colleagues, who complained 
 bitterly of Medici's honourable treatment and his manifest 
 influence. The final withdrawal of the French troops
 
 74 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 from Milan before the advancing Swiss at the close of 
 May, 1512, at last compelled the Council, now utterly dis- 
 credited in the eyes of all men, to retire with the French 
 forces, intending, so it was declared, to select some safe 
 spot in France for its further proceedings. As a hostage 
 the Cardinal- Legate of Bologna undoubtedly possessed 
 no small value in the estimation of King Louis, and ac- 
 cordingly Medici was constrained to follow in the retreat- 
 ing army under a strong escort. Ideas of escape had 
 already suggested themselves to the Cardinal, who was 
 firmly resolved not to be carried a prisoner beyond the 
 Alps without making a desperate effort to regain his 
 liberty. The attempt, carefully matured beforehand, 
 was arranged to take place at the village of Cairo on 
 the banks of the Po, at which spot the French army had 
 decided to cross the river. Closely guarded and watched, 
 the Cardinal by feigning illness was yet allowed to spend 
 the night at the humble house of the parish-priest of 
 Cairo, whilst the French ecclesiastics of the Council were 
 embarking in the barges that were ready to bear them- 
 selves and their attendants to Bassignano across the 
 stream. That night a certain priest named Bengallo, 
 who was in Medici's train and was the guiding spirit of 
 the whole plan, went secretly to implore a country 
 gentleman of the neighbourhood, one Rinaldo Zazzi, to 
 act as his assistant in the matter of the Cardinal's escape. 
 Zazzi was at first unwilling to join in so hazardous a 
 scheme, even though the good priest begged him with 
 tears in his eyes to rescue the Pope's legate out of the 
 hands of the discomfited barbarians, yet a last appeal to 
 the ever-potent memory of Lorenzo the Magnificent was 
 successful in inducing the hesitating Piedmontese squire 
 to give a reluctant promise of aid, but only on the con- 
 dition that a local nobleman, by name Ottaviano Isim-
 
 RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II 75 
 
 bardi, should likewise be admitted into their confidence. 
 The disappointed priest had perforce to agree, whereupon 
 Isimbardi was sought and after additional promises and 
 pleadings was gained over to the cause. Zazzi and 
 Isimbardi now arranged to collect a number of peasants 
 from off their estates to compass the rescue of the Cardinal, 
 whose person was to be seized on the following morning 
 at the river's bank, at the precise moment when he was 
 preparing to step into the barge. The whole scheme, 
 concocted with such care and at such risk by Bengallo 
 and his new accomplices, was however nearly frustrated 
 by an error of Zazzi's messenger, who addressed himself 
 to the French priest in charge of Medici by mistake for 
 Bengallo ; and although the servant had the wit to invent 
 a reasonable explanation of his strange blunder, the 
 Frenchman's suspicions were aroused, so that he gave 
 the order of embarkation sooner than was anticipated. 
 By a series of pretended delays, however, some little time 
 was gained, with the result that as the Cardinal, who 
 managed to be almost the last person left on the river- 
 bank, was about to step into the boat prepared for him, 
 Zazzi and Isimbardi suddenly appeared on the scene with 
 a band of armed men, who quickly drove back the 
 startled Frenchmen and conveyed Medici to a temporary 
 hiding-place. But the Legate's troubles were as yet by 
 no means finished, in spite of this successful beginning, 
 for the French, furious at losing a valuable hostage by 
 so simple a device, set to work to scour the surrounding 
 country, though happily not before the Cardinal had been 
 able to don military attire a most unsuitable disguise, 
 it would seem, for one of his bulky figure and elegant 
 manners and to flee in an opposite direction. Under 
 the circumstances Isimbardi, who accompanied the il- 
 lustrious fugitive, thought it best to seek the protection
 
 76 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 of a relative, one Bernardo Malespina, although he was 
 known to sympathise with the French faction. To the 
 dismay of the poor Cardinal and to the genuine surprise 
 of Isimbardi, Malespina however not only declined to 
 assist the refugee's flight, but insisted on keeping Medici 
 a close prisoner, until he had communicated with the 
 French general, the celebrated Gian-Giorgio Trivulzi. 
 Shut up under lock and key in a dark and dirty pigeon- 
 house, the Legate had ample time to bewail his evil fate, 
 for there was every reason to suppose that Trivulzi, 
 though an Italian by birth, would insist on his being 
 handed over to the French. But to the unbounded joy 
 and relief both of the Cardinal and of Isimbardi, the 
 general's reply was all in favour of the fugitive ; for 
 Trivulzi informed Malespina that he might liberate the 
 Cardinal, if he were so minded, seeing that fortune had 
 so far helped him to elude his late captors. Malespina 
 had sworn to his kinsman to abide by Trivulzi's decision, 
 and although refusing actively to help in the matter 
 of escape, he had no objection to leaving ajar the door 
 of the dove-cote, as though by accident. Issuing thus 
 from his undignified place of restraint in Malespina's 
 castle, the Cardinal hastened in disguise to Voghiera 
 and thence to Mantua, where he was hospitably enter- 
 tained by the Marquis and his consort, the famous 
 Isabella d' Este of Ferrara. Such are the bare outlines 
 of the story of Leo's escape, and for its sequel we must 
 add that according to his usual, if not invariable custom, 
 on succeeding to the Papacy he did not fail to remember 
 and reward all those devoted friends who had assisted 
 in his rescue. The brave and resourceful Bengallo was 
 nominated bishop of Nepi ; titles and estates were be- 
 stowed on Zazzi and Isimbardi ; whilst the over-cautious 
 Malespina must have lived to regret bitterly his harsh
 
 RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II 77 
 
 treatment of the poor wanderer imprisoned in his fowl- 
 house. As a memorial of this interesting and by no 
 means unimportant episode in the career of the first 
 Medicean Pope, the Marchese Isimbardi caused the walls 
 of the chief saloon of his villa at Cairo to be adorned 
 with a series of frescoes illustrating the story of the Pon- 
 tiffs flight, beneath which he added a personal inscription, 
 containing the words : "O Ottaviano Isimbardi! to thy 
 efforts of a truth doth Florence owe a Medicean Prince, 
 Italy a Hero, and the world a Leo the Tenth!" 
 Modesty was not a common attribute of the noblemen 
 of the Italian Renaissance, nor self-glorification a rare 
 one. 
 
 The real political importance of the Medici's escape 
 from the French army at this exact moment must not 
 be overlooked. Had he not attempted, and with success, 
 to break away from his captors, he would undoubtedly 
 have been borne away to France and been kept there as 
 a hostage, at least until the death of Julius II. In that 
 case the restoration of the Medici in Florence an event 
 of which we intend to speak presently would certainly 
 never have occurred, whilst without this increased in- 
 fluence in Italian politics, which the recovery of Florence 
 gave to him, would he ever have been elected Pope, 
 particularly if he were remaining a prisoner honourably 
 treated, no doubt, but a prisoner none the less- on alien 
 soil. Nor, seeing how this extraordinary piece of good 
 fortune befel the Cardinal within a few weeks of his 
 triumphal entry into Florence and within a few months 
 of his ascending the pontifical throne, can we wonder 
 that both Jovius and Egidius of Viterbo should allude 
 to this event as miraculous in an age which attributed 
 all good or evil to the direct intervention of a watch- 
 ful Providence. "It was the act of God," says the
 
 78 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 latter chronicler, "and before all other things that 
 
 have been done in past ages, is it marvellous in our 
 
 i i 
 eyes ! 
 
 1 Cavaliere Rosmini, Istoria del Magno Trivulzio ; Jovius, lib. ii. ; 
 Roscoe, vol. i., pp. 322-324, and p. 324, note 10.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 RETURN OF THE MEDICI TO FLORENCE 
 
 Let no man scheme to make himself supreme in Florence who is 
 not of the line of the Medici, and backed besides by the power of the 
 Church. None else, be he who he may, has such influence or follow- 
 ing that he can hope to reach this height, unless indeed he be carried 
 to it by the free voice of the people in search of a constitutional chief, 
 as happened to Piero Soderini. If any therefore aspire to such 
 honours, not being of the House of Medici, let him affect the popular 
 cause (F. Guicciardini, Counsels and Reflections), 
 
 THE discomfiture of the French had been so 
 complete, that soon after the evacuation of 
 Milan there were remaining to them scarcely 
 half a dozen fortresses of all their late conquests in 
 Lombardy. Once more the expelled Sforza were in- 
 stalled in Milan ; Bologna was again in the hands of 
 Julius II., whose fury against the unfortunate Bentivogli 
 burned so fierce that he threatened to raze the whole 
 city and transplant its fickle inhabitants to the town of 
 Cento ; Parma and Piacenza were likewise seized by 
 the ambitious but not self-seeking Pontiff, who claimed 
 these important towns for the Church as forming outlying 
 portions of the ancient exarchate of Ravenna ; Venice, 
 now supported by her new friend and former foe, the 
 Pope, was preparing to annex Brescia and Cremona, 
 which were still held by French garrisons ; whilst the 
 vacillating Emperor and the shrewd Ferdinand of Spain 
 were silently working to obtain some substantial advant- 
 age out of the recent failure of the French arms. To 
 
 79
 
 8o THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 settle the affairs of Italy and to apportion the spoils 
 amongst the component members of the League, a con- 
 ference had been called at Mantua in the summer of 
 1512. But a more important matter than the pacifica- 
 tion of Northern Italy to be discussed at this meeting 
 was the question of dealing with the only independent 
 state of consequence which had been openly hostile to 
 the victorious League, for throughout the late campaign 
 Florence had remained an acknowledged, if not a very 
 active ally of the French King. The collapse of the late 
 invasion had indeed imperilled the actual existence of the 
 Florentine Republic, now guided by Piero Soderini, 
 who in 1 503 had been duly elected Gonfalionere for life 
 and endowed with powers somewhat akin to those en- 
 joyed by a Venetian doge. Soderini, who was an 
 eminently honest but not very able public magistrate, 
 had for some time past regarded this French alliance 
 with serious misgiving, but partly from a natural in- 
 decision of character and partly from a high-minded 
 sense of loyalty to the pact made with King Louis, he 
 had taken no definite step to dissociate the Republic 
 from an union which was singularly distasteful to the 
 Pope, whose hatred of the French amounted to a verit- 
 able passion. To pursue a middle course under these 
 circumstances proved a fatal mistake, and Soderini's 
 recent conduct in affording shelter to the refugees of 
 both armies after the battle of Ravenna had only ex- 
 asperated the French without winning the gratitude of 
 the League. Now, with the invaders practically swept 
 out of the country, Soderini found himself and the 
 Florentine Republic completely isolated, so that it is not 
 difficult to understand the feelings of grave alarm where- 
 with the Gonfalionere and his adherents were regarding 
 this coming conference at Mantua. In order to propitiate
 
 RETURN OF THE MEDICI TO FLORENCE 81 
 
 the heads of the League, therefore, the perplexed ruler of 
 Florence despatched to Mantua his brother, Gian- 
 Vittorio Soderini, a person "more learned in the laws 
 than in the higher arts of diplomacy," to treat on behalf 
 of the recalcitrant Republic. 
 
 Conspicuous amongst the representatives of the 
 various powers convened at Mantua was the Emperor's 
 plenipotentiary, the haughty Matthew Lang, bishop of 
 Gurck, who was ready to offer his master's good-will to 
 the highest bidder. The Medicean interests were in the 
 hands of Giuliano de' Medici in the absence of the 
 Cardinal, who was engaged in restoring order in Bologna. 
 Giuliano, acting under the advice of his elder brother, 
 was naturally lavish of his promises both to Lang and to 
 Cardona, the leader of Ferdinand's army ; but all such 
 promises, however tempting they might seem, were 
 necessarily contingent on the restoration of the Medici, 
 who were still exiles. Had Piero Soderini invested his 
 brother with fuller powers to pledge the credit of the 
 Florentine state to an unlimited extent, he might possibly 
 have succeeded in buying off the representatives of both 
 King and Emperor, for without the Spanish army of 
 Cardona, Julius would in all probability have been unable 
 to carry out his open project to overthrow the existing 
 government of Soderini and to replace it by the rule of 
 the Medici. For, thanks to the years of loyal service 
 and his recent misfortunes in his master's cause, the 
 Cardinal had completely succeeded in winning the papal 
 confidence and favour, and had been actually marked 
 out by Julius as a proper instrument for the chastisement 
 of obstinate Florence, which had not only made an un- 
 holy alliance with the detested French, but had also 
 granted hospitality to the late schismatical Council at Pisa. 
 But although the anxious Soderini must have been fully 
 
 6
 
 82 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 aware that, in order to avert the papal vengeance and to 
 placate the enmity of the League, there was absolute 
 necessity for other and more subtle methods than mere 
 appeals to fair-play and common-sense, he shrank from 
 bribery on the required scale, allowing the promises of 
 Giuliano de' Medici to transcend in value his own more 
 frugal offers. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Cardinal, his brother Giuliano, their 
 cousin Giulio and Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena, with all 
 their friends, were busily employed in furthering the 
 restoration of the Medicean family in Florence, whether 
 as acknowledged rulers or as private citizens ; the actual 
 form of their re-entry seemed of little consequence at the 
 moment. Julius now willingly invested the Cardinal 
 with legatine authority in Tuscany, whilst there was 
 placed at his disposal the Spanish army under Cardona, 
 which was encamped near Bologna. Yet Giovanni, who 
 fully realised that the precise moment for a vigorous 
 effort to regain Florence had in very truth arrived, still 
 met with many difficulties in his path, in spite too of the 
 warm support of the Pope and the League. Cardona 
 himself regarded with indifference, if not with dislike, 
 this proposed descent upon Tuscany, and the Spanish 
 general's aversion had to be overcome by such sums of 
 money as the impoverished Cardinal could scrape to- 
 gether. Even more serious and exasperating than 
 Cardona's reluctance was the strong opposition of the 
 papal nephew, Francesco Delia Rovere, Duke of Urbino, 
 who stoutly refused to second his uncle's scheme against 
 Florence in this emergency ; denied artillery to the 
 Spanish army ; and even forbade the Vitelli and Orsini, 
 cousins of the Medici and eager upholders of their cause, 
 to quit the force, which as Captain-General of the Church 
 he himself was then commanding. Whether the duke
 
 RETURN OF THE MEDICI TO FLORENCE 83 
 
 had been secretly bribed, or was acting thus out of a 
 personal dislike of the Cardinal, who had sat as one of his 
 judges in the late enquiry concerning Alidosi's murder, 
 it is impossible to say ; but certain it is that his unseason- 
 able attitude of sharp hostility to the Medici was one 
 which he had every reason ere long to deplore under the 
 Medicean pontificate, which he little dreamed was so 
 near at hand. But the energy and tact of the Cardinal 
 were sufficient to surmount all initial difficulties. It was 
 he who contrived to purchase two pieces of the much- 
 needed artillery, and during the passage of the Apennines 
 it was his personal influence with the mountaineers that 
 secured pack-horses and food for the ill-equipped army. 
 At the village of Barberino, on the confines of the Re- 
 public's territory, arrived an embassy from the city of 
 Florence, offering terms to which Cardona might have 
 been tempted to accede, had it not been for the presence 
 of the Cardinal, who insisted before all things upon the 
 acceptance of the League's late resolution a resolution 
 naturally of the first importance to the struggling Medici 
 that the exiled members of the family should be per- 
 mitted to return to Florence as private citizens. Upon 
 this vital question the negotiating parties were quite 
 unable to agree, the Gonfalionere boldly stating his 
 preference for an appeal to arms rather than for any 
 arrangement which might include a restoration of the 
 Medici ; and to this grave determination Soderini had 
 been urged not a little by the arguments of Niccolo 
 Machiavelli, his secretary-of-state, who had now served 
 the Florentine Republic with devoted skill for the past 
 fourteen years. Acting under Machiavelli's advice, 
 Soderini now permitted the enrolment of a force of local 
 militia, and also gave orders for the strengthening of all 
 fortresses, whilst he boldly thrust into prison some twenty-
 
 84 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 five prominent supporters of the Medicean faction, who 
 were already agitating noisily for the return of their 
 patrons. Having taken measures so decided and alert, 
 the Gonfalionere, convoking the Grand Council of the 
 city, amidst breathless silence addressed his fellow-citizens 
 in a speech, which for pure patriotism, sound reasoning 
 and personal unselfishness must ever confer honour upon 
 the speaker, and to some extent redeem his fixed reputa- 
 tion for incompetence and sloth. After expressing his 
 readiness to resign the office of Gonfalionere, Soderini 
 warned all loyal upholders of the Republic against re- 
 admitting the Medici within their walls, even in the guise 
 of private citizens. For true citizens they could no 
 longer be, he clearly explained, since after so many 
 years of absence from civic life and of residence in foreign 
 courts, they had been transformed into princes, even 
 assuming they had been private persons at the time of 
 their expulsion nearly twenty years before. And this 
 remark would apply with special force to the young- 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, the heir of the family, who, having 
 been an infant at that date, could not therefore possibly 
 remember any of the traditions of his House, but would 
 of necessity behave like a tyrant of the type of a Benti- 
 voglio or a Gonzaga, relying not upon the public love 
 and acquiescence in his rule, but upon force of arms and 
 the support of the Papacy, which his uncle the Cardinal 
 coulcl be trusted to obtain. The Gonfalionere ended his 
 oration by solemnly warning his hearers that the times 
 and government of Lorenzo il Magnifico, " who was ever 
 anxious to cover his real prerogative with a mantle of 
 private equality rather than to make an ostentatious 
 display of his power," would be reckoned as a golden 
 age compared with the open tyranny which his sons and 
 grandsons would inaugurate, were they admitted into the
 
 city. "It therefore becomes your duty," were his last 
 words, "now to decide, whether I am to resign my office 
 (which I shall cheerfully do at your bidding), or whether 
 I am to attend vigorously to the defence of our fatherland, 
 if you desire me to remain." 1 
 
 The patriotic and sensible arguments used by Soderini 
 were received with enthusiasm by his audience, and even 
 by the mass of the citizens, who were distinctly averse 
 to a Medicean restoration. For a time the united 
 determination of the Florentines to resist any attempt 
 at invasion was manifest and genuine, whilst the work 
 of defence, already begun in the early summer, was 
 being pushed forward with feverish alacrity, chiefly under 
 the supervision of Machiavelli. But although Machiavelli 
 was perhaps the greatest genius of his age and whole- 
 hearted in his endeavours to defend his fatherland, yet 
 his talents shone rather in the theoretical than in the 
 practical art of warfare. He could give excellent advice 
 on paper as to strategy and training, but as a civilian 
 pure and simple he was scarcely competent to undertake 
 those more laborious tasks, which necessarily belong to 
 the peculiar province of skilled generals and engineers. 
 Unlike his great fellow-citizen Michelangelo, who was 
 destined seventeen years later to erect the fortifications 
 of San Miniato during the siege of Florence, Machiavelli 
 was neither architect nor mechanician ; yet it is of 
 interest to recall the plain circumstance that on two 
 momentous occasions Florence was prepared for defence 
 by the devoted efforts of this pair of her most illustrious 
 sons. 
 
 The town of Prato with its crumbling brown walls 
 1 Guicciardini, Storia d* Italia, lib. xi.
 
 86 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 and its black and white striped cathedral-tower, which 
 rises so prominent a feature of the fertile and populous 
 Val d' Arno, stands on the right bank of the rushing 
 Bisenzio, and at no great distance from the western 
 slopes of Monte Morello. Even to-day Prato retains 
 much of its mediaeval appearance, whilst its works of art 
 by Donatello and the Robbias, and also Lippo Lippi's 
 glorious frescoes in the cathedral-choir, attract yearly 
 many visitors to the prosperous little city that stands 
 in the midst of a fruitful Tuscan landscape. Situated 
 within eight miles of Florence, this place had long shared 
 the political fortunes of its more important neighbour, 
 and it was familiar to Giovanni de' Medici, who in the 
 past had been itsproposto, or nominal protector, although 
 his first visit hither, undertaken nearly twenty years ago, 
 had been attended by a melancholy accident of a type 
 common enough in those days of elaborate pageants. 
 A triumphal arch, placed above the Florence gate of the 
 town and intended to represent some allegorical scene, 
 had suddenly collapsed on the young Cardinal's approach, 
 so that two pretty children, dressed as welcoming angels, 
 fell to the ground and perished miserably in the wreck- 
 age : an unforeseen catastrophe which quickly changed 
 the festal aspect of the town into one of universal mourn- 
 ing. 1 The Pratesi now, on hearing of the advance of 
 Cardona's army bearing in its ranks their late protector, 
 their " Dolce Pastore," as certain poets had designated 
 him, recalled to mind this long-passed event, and drew 
 an evil augury from the near presence of the Cardinal. 
 Nor were the good people deceived in their dismal 
 prognostications, although the Florentine Signory had 
 hastened to pour thousands of troops within their walls, 
 
 1 Nardi, Islorie Florentine, lib. v.
 
 RETURN OF THE MEDICI TO FLORENCE 87 
 
 since it was openly known that Cardona, deeming his 
 artillery too weak and his men too exhausted to attack 
 Florence itself, was meditating an assault upon Prato, 
 where he could at least obtain the means of victualling 
 
 o 
 
 his famished troops. The first effort of the Spaniards 
 resulted in complete failure, due rather to a lack of 
 cannon than to any skill on the part of Luca Savelli, 
 the Florentine commander ; but the second assault, 
 made from the direction of Campi on the afternoon of 
 29th August, succeeded with an ease which astonished all 
 who witnessed the operations. Battering down with 
 the Cardinal's two pieces of cannon a portion of the 
 wall near the Mercatale gate, the Spaniards rushed into 
 the breach almost unopposed ; the Tuscan militia bands, a 
 mere rabble of armed peasants that Machiavelli had levied 
 for the defence, flying like frightened sheep before the 
 onslaught of Cardona's veterans. Thereupon followed 
 an indescribable scene of confusion, plunder and massacre, 
 the awful effects of which have not been forgotten to 
 this day in unhappy Prato, "where, rightly or wrongly, 
 the name and memory of Giovanni de' Medici, Pope 
 Leo X. will for ever be associated with the blood 
 and tears of its citizens "- 1 For nearly two days the 
 Sack of Prato of impious recollection raged unchecked. 
 Neither age nor sex was spared by the ferocious soldiery, 
 who were said, though probably without truth, to have 
 included a large number of Moslem mercenaries. No 
 quarter was granted either to peaceful merchant or to 
 fleeing peasant ; priests were struck down at the altar ; 
 the crucifix, and even the Host were insulted ; the 
 churches were plundered ; and the famous shrine of 
 the Cintola, the Madonna's girdle, which is the historic 
 
 1 Baldanzi, Storia della Chiesa Cattedrale di Prato.
 
 88 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 relic of Prato, is said to have escaped depredation only 
 by means of a timely miracle that terrified its would-be 
 devastators. 1 Monasteries were set on fire, and their 
 inmates stabbed or beaten ; the very convents were 
 invaded by the licentious soldiery. "It was not a 
 struggle, but sheer butchery," comments the historian 
 Nardi ; "it was an appalling spectacle of horrors," de- 
 clares the unemotional Machiavelli, whose hastily-levied 
 militia had in no small degree contributed by cowardice 
 and inexperience to the disaster itself. To add to the 
 terrors of the scene, a fearful thunderstorm with torrents 
 of rain raged all night over the town, so that the 
 fiendish work of destruction and outrage was rendered 
 yet more easy, and any attempt at keeping order was 
 thereby rendered impossible. " The place was a verit- 
 able pool of blood," writes a contemporary chronicler ; 
 and indeed, when we take into account the small area 
 of the town and the mass of soldiery suddenly admitted 
 within the narrow compass of its walls, it becomes easy 
 to understand so terrible, if exaggerated a description, 
 especially on hearing that the number of those who 
 perished in the sack of Prato has been estimated at so 
 high a figure as 5000 persons. 
 
 With the dawn of 3<Dth August, the work of massacre 
 and rapine was continued with renewed force. By the 
 clearer light of day persons of every rank in life and of 
 either sex were dragged from sanctuary or hiding-place, 
 and after the application of rough and ready forms of 
 torture (said to be a characteristic of the Spanish troopers) 
 to enable their captors to discover the whereabouts of 
 their supposed hoards, the unhappy victims were brutally 
 slain and their bodies stripped before being flung into the 
 
 1 Archivio Storico Italiano, vol. i. : " II Miserando Sacco di Prato," 
 di Messer Jacopo Modesti.
 
 RETURN OF THE MEDICI TO FLORENCE 89 
 
 streets. Every well in the town was choked with naked 
 corpses, and the walls of the Cathedral still bear to-day 
 an inscription alluding to this horrible phase of the sack 
 of Prato. After a day and a night of unsurpassed carnage 
 and cruelty, the Viceroy Cardona made his state entry 
 into the town, and at once gave the order for the booty 
 to be sold at public auction ; " O Dio ! O Dio ! O Dio ! 
 che crudelta ! " is the dismal comment of an eye-witness, 
 one Pistofilo, a secretary in the train of Ippolito d' Este. 1 
 The part played by the Cardinal and his brother in 
 the events leading up to the sack of Prato has been 
 censured in the severest terms by a modern Italian 
 historian. "The Medici," declares with indignation the 
 late Cesare Guasti, " descended upon the confines of their 
 own fatherland (shameful to relate!) in the rear of a 
 foreign army ; whilst the Cardinal, making use of his 
 legatine powers, actually obtained at Bologna for this 
 force the very cannon which were to open the fatal breach 
 in the walls of Prato. As Cardinal- Legate he tolerated 
 all the horrors committed at the sack of the town, even 
 the very outrages upon persons and places devoted to 
 religion. " : That the Medici were responsible for this 
 invasion of Florentine territory by a foreign force, there 
 can be no question of doubt, for, as we have already shown, 
 Cardona was loth to move southward, and but for the 
 Cardinal's gold and arguments would never have done 
 so at all. To this extent, it may be at once frankly ad- 
 mitted, the Medici were directly answerable for the ensu- 
 ing capture and sack of Prato, which had refused to 
 capitulate at the joint request of the Cardinal- Legate and 
 
 1 // Sacco di Prato e il Ritorno dei Medici in Firenze nel MDXII. 
 A collection of documents and poems edited by Cesare Guasti 
 (Bologna, 1880). 
 
 td., Prefazione.
 
 9 o THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 of Cardona, or even to supply the invading army with 
 the provisions which were so badly needed. But it is 
 unreasonable to accuse the Cardinal of directly instigating 
 or approving the subsequent sack of the place with its 
 attendant brutalities. As a Tuscan, as a prince of the 
 Church, and as a human being naturally inclined to 
 methods of mercy, it seems inconceivable that Giovanni 
 de' Medici could have witnessed otherwise than with 
 feelings of shame and indignation the cruel treatment of 
 the little city which was itself almost a suburb of his 
 native Florence. His real responsibility lay in his hav- 
 ing raised a tempest, the fury of which he himself failed 
 to foresee, and the progress of which he was absolutely 
 powerless to check or even mitigate. But it appears 
 illogical to brand as a crime this forcible attempt of the 
 exiled Medici to return to their native land, even under 
 cover of an alien army, when we take into consideration 
 the previous expulsion of the Cardinal and his brothers 
 from Florence, their outlawry, the seizure of their private 
 estates and the blood-money set on their heads by a 
 hostile government. 
 
 " This day (29th August), at sixteen of the clock, the 
 town was sacked, not without some bloodshed, such as 
 could not be avoided. . . . The capture of Prato, so 
 speedily and cruelly, although it has given me pain, 
 will at least have the good effect of serving as an example 
 and a deterrent to the others." 1 Thus writes the 
 Cardinal to the Pope on the very day that saw the seizure 
 of the town and certain unpleasant features of the sack ; 
 but it is evident from the writer's tone that the worst ex- 
 cesses had not yet been committed, when Giovanni de' 
 Medici was inditing his despatch to Julius II. The pro- 
 
 1 Villari, vol. ii., p. 13, note 2.
 
 RETURN OF THE MEDICI TO FLORENCE 9I 
 
 bability is that the Cardinal and his brother Giuliano, on 
 hearing of the continuance of the sack and of the abomin- 
 able acts of cruelty and sacrilege in the captured town, 
 hastened to do what was possible to save the women and 
 children from further outrage and the convents from 
 spoliation. On the authority of Jovius, the Cardinal, his 
 brother and his cousin Giulio did their utmost, "with 
 prayers and even with tears," to compel Cardona and his 
 officers to safeguard the women and unarmed citizens, so 
 that it was due to their frenzied efforts that the Cathedral, 
 which was packed with terrified refugees, was protected 
 from the fury of the lawless soldiery. In the various 
 accounts of contemporary writers, all of them with 
 Medicean sympathies, the part played by the Cardinal 
 in thus endeavouring to save the honour of the women 
 and the lives of the inoffensive burghers, is constantly 
 insisted on, and although the phrases used are often 
 grossly flattering and the account of the Cardinal's tears 
 sounds somewhat unctuous, yet it appears evident that 
 the Medici did all they could to alleviate the evils of the 
 town, which had thus been made the scapegoat of the 
 whole Florentine state for the past ill-treatment of the 
 exiled family that was now returning to power and pros- 
 perity. 
 
 Di lagrime si bagnia el viso e '1 petto 
 
 El nostro Monsignore, anche il fratello. 
 
 E poi diceva ; " O Cristo benedetto, 
 
 Di rafrenar ti piaccia tal fragello ! 
 
 O Prato mio, da me tanto diletto, 
 
 Come ti veggo far tanto macello ! " l 
 
 And another poet actually goes so far as to speak 
 with a dismal pun of the presence of the Medici as being 
 medicina to the ills of the unhappy Pratesi ! Certainly, 
 after his election to the papal throne, Leo X. received in 
 
 1 // Saao di Prato, p. 87.
 
 92 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Rome a deputation from Prato with encouraging words 
 of sympathy and expressions of favour, but such promises 
 were for one reason or another never carried into effect, 
 so that we can scarcely marvel at the evil reputation 
 borne by Leo X. and the Medici even at this distance of 
 time in the little city that suffered so terribly at the re- 
 turn of Lorenzo's two surviving sons. 
 
 The heart-rending reports of the excesses perpetrated 
 by the Spanish soldiers, " more cruel than the Devil him- 
 self," l and of the rank cowardice displayed by the Tuscan 
 regiments, upon which Soderiniand the sanguine Machia- 
 velli had relied to preserve the city from invasion, had 
 the immediate effect of bringing the Florentines to a full 
 sense of their imminent peril. A sack of Prato repeated 
 on a gigantic scale in Florence itself was a possible catas- 
 trophe to be averted at any price, no matter how costly 
 or humiliating to the Republic. With the popular con- 
 sent, therefore, the faction of the Palleschi, led by the 
 Albizzi, the Strozzi, the Salviati and other families 
 favourable to the Medicean cause, was requested to 
 arrange for an armistice with the Viceroy Cardona, whose 
 bloodthirsty troops were hourly expected to appear at the 
 city gates. The terms that had been so scornfully re- 
 jected at Barberino were promptly accepted, the Signory 
 expressing its willingness to renounce the French alliance ; 
 to pay a large indemnity to the Viceroy ; to dismiss 
 Soderini from the official post he had held for the past 
 nine years ; and most important concession of all to 
 re-admit the exiled Medici without reserve. Piero 
 Soderini himself, on being approached by the Medicean 
 leaders, at once stated his intention of retiring ; where- 
 upon he was escorted under a safe-conduct to Siena, 
 
 1 Landucci, p. 323.
 
 RETURN OF THE MEDICI TO FLORENCE 93 
 
 whence a little later he wisely fled over-sea to Ragusa, 
 in order to avoid the clutches of the revengeful Julius. 
 In spite of his nerveless rule and mistaken policy, it is 
 impossible not to admire poor Soderini's candour and un- 
 selfishness ; yet the very qualities on which our modern 
 appreciation is based are those which aroused the fierce 
 contempt of his brilliant lieutenant, Machiavelli : a 
 lasting contempt which found its utterance in the heart- 
 less epigram composed in after years at the death of his 
 master, the deposed Gonfalionere of Florence, whose 
 childlike simplicity seemed only in Machiavelli's eyes to 
 render his departed soul worthy to abide in Limbo, the 
 bourne of unbaptised infants : 
 
 La notte che mori Pier Soderini, 
 
 L' alma n' ando nell' Inferno alia bocca. 
 
 E Pluto le grido : " Anima sciocca, 
 
 Che Inferno? Va nel Limbo dei bambini ! " l 
 
 It is pathetic to reflect that this cruel verse is far better 
 known than the stately epitaph upon Soderini's beautiful 
 tomb by the Tuscan sculptor Benedetto da Rovezzano, in 
 the choir of the Carmelite church in his own Florence, 
 which stands but a few yards distant from the little 
 chapel that the frescoes of Masaccio have rendered 
 famous for all time. 
 
 With the hurried departure of Soderini and the 
 signing of the treaty with Cardona, the city was once 
 more thrown open to the triumphant Medici after an en- 
 forced absence of nearly eighteen years. Nor were 
 portents lacking in that superstitious age to give timely 
 warning of the return of the Magnificent Lorenzo's sons 
 and grandson. Men noted that the French King's shield 
 with the golden lilies the lilies of France that Savonarola 
 
 1 (Died Soderini, and that very night 
 Down to Hell's portals flew his simple soul ; 
 Where Pluto cried : " Not here, O foolish sprite, 
 Canst thou remain. Of babes we take no toll ! " )
 
 94 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 always wished to unite with the crimson gigli of Florence * 
 had mysteriously fallen to ground during the night- 
 time, and that a thunderbolt had struck the crest of the 
 palace of the Signory, passing through the very chamber 
 of the Gonfalionere and finally burying itself in the pave- 
 ment near the foot of the grand staircase. 2 The heavens 
 themselves seemed to be fighting on behalf of the illus- 
 trious wanderers, who were now daily expected to return 
 to the city, which their presence alone appeared likely to 
 save from the ruin that had lately overtaken little Prato. 
 Already masons and painters were busily engaged in re- 
 storing the escutcheons of the family that had been 
 pulled down by the mob in 1494, or in erasing the crimson 
 cross, the heraldic emblem of the Florentine people, which 
 had in certain instances replaced the familiar coat of gold 
 with its red pellets, the historic palle of the Medicean 
 House. And the sight of this hasty transformation of 
 the Cardinal's armorial bearings on the old palace in Via 
 Larga so affected a worthy citizen belonging to the 
 faction of the PaJUeschi, by the name of Gian-Andrea 
 Cellini, that, being of a poetical turn of mind although 
 only an ebanista or inlayer of ivory and wood by pro- 
 fession, he set himself to compose a quatrain suitable to 
 the occasion, which, so we learn on the authority of his 
 son Benvenuto, was quoted by the whole of Florence : 
 
 Quest' arme, che sepolta e stata tanto 
 Sotto la Santa Croce mansueta, 
 Mostra or la faccia gloriosa e lieta, 
 Aspettando di Pietro il sacro ammanto. 3 
 
 1 " Gigli con gigli sempre devono fiorire." 
 
 2 Jovius, lib. ii. 
 
 3 Vita di Benvenuto Cellini, lib. i., cap. i. 
 (This glorious shield, concealed for many a year 
 Beneath the sacred Cross, that symbol meet, 
 Raises once more a joyful face to greet 
 Peter's successor, who approaches near.)
 
 RETURN OF THE MEDICI TO FLORENCE 95 
 
 The gist of this simple little epigram must have ap- 
 peared obvious to all its readers. The father of the 
 prince of jewellers, then a lad in his twelfth year, thus 
 artlessly predicts the supreme honour which in the near 
 future awaits the Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, now 
 tarrying outside the gates of the city before advancing 
 to occupy again the grand old mansion that had been his 
 birthplace. 
 
 Meanwhile Giuliano had already passed the walls on 
 ist September and taken up his abode in the house of 
 Messer Francesco degli Albizzi, one of his keenest sup- 
 porters. Nevertheless, deeming that as a matter of 
 course he had returned to the old palace in Via Larga, 
 the fickle Florentine crowd must needs parade the broad 
 space before the palace doors to cry aloud, Palle ! Palle ! in 
 the hope of attracting the attention and gaining a glimpse 
 of the returned prince. Giuliano, however, on his part ap- 
 peared most anxious to avoid all such public manifesta- 
 tions, for he proceeded to walk with his friends unguarded 
 about the streets, after first donning the lucco or long 
 citizen's hood and shaving off beard and moustache in 
 
 o 
 
 accordance with Florentine taste. So far as he was 
 personally concerned, Giuliano was willing and even 
 desirous to settle down as a private individual in his 
 native city, where his courteous manners and innate 
 modesty soon won him the affection of all save the more 
 ardent members of his own party. But his liberal views 
 were by no means shared by his elder brother, the 
 Cardinal, who was absolutely determined to secure the 
 re-instatement of the Medici in Florence beyond the 
 possibility of another expulsion similar to that of 1494. 
 Prompt measures, the Cardinal was convinced, must be 
 taken at the present moment, when the support of 
 Cardona's army lay at his back ; for, realising Giuliano's
 
 96 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 pliable nature and the young Lorenzo's utter inexperi- 
 ence, he was fully aware that this unique opportunity 
 might yet be wasted, and the proud position held in suc- 
 cession by his father, his grandfather and his great-grand- 
 father, might again be wrested from his House on the 
 coming retirement of the Spaniards. Amidst wild scenes 
 of enthusiasm, therefore, on the part of the more eager of 
 the Palleschi, who were quick to recognise their true 
 leader in the Cardinal- Legate rather than in the gracious 
 and liberal-minded Giuliano, the second son of the 
 Magnificent Lorenzo entered the city by the Faenza 
 Gate with 400 Spanish lances and 1000 foot-soldiers, 
 under the command of Ramazotto, a roving captain for 
 whose head the Florentine Signory had only a few 
 weeks before offered blood-money merely on account of 
 his seeking service under the Medici. 1 Taking posses- 
 sion in state of his former residence at Sant' Antonio, 
 which the rabble had pillaged and whence as a boy of 
 eighteen he had fled for his life in the dingy garb of a 
 friar, thus did Giovanni de' Medici once more re-enter 
 Florence . as her undisputed master and the arbiter of 
 her fate. "The city was reduced to the point of help- 
 lessness save by the will of the Cardinal de' Medici, and 
 his method was the method of complete tyranny," wails 
 Francesco Vettori, when tw r o days after his arrival at 
 Sant' Antonio, Giovanni, making an ingenious use of the 
 attendant Spanish army, contrived to replace the late 
 system of administration by a Balm, or executive 
 council, consisting of forty-five members all chosen by 
 the Cardinal and all therefore devoted adherents of the 
 Medici. Skilled in the peculiar diplomacy of his father 
 and well versed in the traditions of his House, which 
 
 1 Landucci, p. 321.
 
 RETURN OF THE MEDICI TO FLORENCE 97 
 
 always sought the substance rather than the pomp of 
 power, the Cardinal was yet able to accomplish this in- 
 ternal revolution without bloodshed and without flagrant 
 violation of the old republican forms ; and thus the Balia, 
 arranged and erected by Giovanni de' Medici, continued 
 the true source of political power in Florence until the 
 third and last exodus of the Medicean family in 1527. 
 Nor did the victorious Cardinal disdain to make use of 
 the smaller arts in winning popular applause and acqui- 
 escence in his restored rule, for he organised costly 
 masquerades to tickle the people's fancy, causing the old 
 Carnival ditties, against which Savonarola had waged 
 so fierce a war, to be sung once more in the streets, 
 as in the long-past days of the Magnificent Lorenzo. 
 These efforts to revive the dormant spirit of Florentine 
 merriment were chiefly carried out under the auspices of 
 the two newly established societies of the Diamond and 
 the Broncone, or Bough, so named from the emblems as- 
 sumed respectively by Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici. 
 Emblematic heraldry being the fashion of the day, the 
 prudent Giovanni himself did not despise the use of a 
 personal badge, which might afford all men a clue to 
 his intentions and ideas, and accordingly he selected the 
 device of an ox-yoke inscribed with the single word 
 Suave, in allusion to the significant circumstance that, 
 however firmly fixed his rule might be over the Floren- 
 tines, yet " his yoke was easy and his burden was light". 1 
 But it is impossible to dwell further on the numberless 
 incidents that mark the restoration of the Medici in 1512, 
 a most important episode in Florentine history, of which 
 the future Leo X. is at once the presiding genius and the 
 picturesque figure-head. For, apart from the diplomatic 
 
 1 Scipione Ammirato, Ritratti de' Medici (Opuscoli, vol. iii.). 
 7
 
 98 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 skill exhibited by him throughout this critical period and 
 the careful steps whereby he secured the political triumph 
 of his House without seriously offending public opinion, 
 it is necessary also to record the remarkable clemency 
 which as conqueror he displayed towards the city that 
 had so ignominiously, not to say unjustly, expelled and 
 outlawed him in his youth. Such mild treatment goes 
 to prove, if any further proof were needed, the real affec- 
 tion which Leo X. bore towards Florence, as well as his 
 natural inclination to mercy, a quality of which his con- 
 temporaries so often speak with admiration. And when 
 we reflect upon the all-pervading spirit of fury and venge- 
 ance of those times, and call to mind the innumerable 
 acts of bloody retribution wrought in that same spirit, it 
 becomes impossible for any impartial person to withhold 
 praise for the forbearance, the patience and the kindli- 
 ness of a prince who had at last regained possession of 
 a rebellious and ungrateful city after so many years spent 
 in undeserved poverty and exile. 
 
 As the actual, though not officially recognised head 
 of the Florentine state, the Cardinal now gave audience 
 to the papal datary, Lorenzo Pucci, and to other am- 
 bassadors, including the powerful Bishop Lang, whom 
 he entertained at the family villa of Caffagiolo, where so 
 much of his own childhood had been spent. But fate 
 did not intend the Cardinal's personal guardianship of 
 Florence to be of long duration, for shortly after the ex- 
 posure of Boscoli's abortive plot, which only served to 
 rivet yet more firmly the new-forged Medicean fetters, 
 there arrived in February, 1513, news first of the illness 
 and then of the death of Pope Julius, who expired on the 
 twentieth day of that month. Despite the fact that he 
 was suffering severely from a constitutional malady and 
 in consequence appeared unequal to bear the fatigues of
 
 RETURN OF THE MEDICI TO FLORENCE 99 
 
 the tedious journey to Rome, the Cardinal hastily made 
 arrangements for the government of the city in his ab- 
 sence, and was then conveyed southward in a litter in 
 order to assist at the coming conclave. Men nodded 
 their heads and speculated as to the prospects of the 
 Florentine Cardinal's election, for notwithstanding his 
 comparative youth and his precarious health, Giovanni 
 de' Medici had by sheer force of talent combined with 
 patient statecraft already won back Florence ; and now 
 that the Medicean star was once again in the ascendant, 
 not a few persons were ready to predict that as one of the 
 ablest, the noblest born and the most popular members 
 of the Sacred College, the second son of Lorenzo the 
 Magnificent owned an excellent chance of obtaining the 
 supreme honour of Christendom, so as to complete the 
 recent triumph of his illustrious House, which had at 
 last recovered its old prestige and importance in the 
 polity of Italy.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 
 
 Cette Europe des premieres annees de la XVIme sieclo, 
 laboured par la guerre, decimee par la peste, ou toutes les nationalites 
 de 1'Europe interme'diare s'agitent en cherchant leur assiette sous 
 runite" apparent de la monarchic universelle de 1'Espagne ; ou Ton 
 voit d'un meme coup d'ceil des querelles re"ligieuses et des batailles, 
 une mele'e inouie des hommes et des choses, une religion naissante 
 en lutte de violence avec la religion e"tablie, l'ignorance de 1'Europe 
 occidentale se debattant centre la lumiere de 1'Italie : l'antiquit 
 qui sort de son tombeau, les langues mortes qui renaissent, la grand 
 tradition litte"raire qui vient rendre le sens des choses de 1'esprit a 
 des intelligences perverties par les raffinements de la dialectique 
 religeuse ; du fracas partout ; du silence nulle part : les hommes vivant 
 comme les pelerins et cherchant leur patrie ca et la ; une republique 
 litte'raire et chretienne de tous les esprits Sieves, re"unis par la langue 
 Latine, cette langue qui faisait encore toutes les grandes affaires de 
 1'Europe a cette e"poque ; d'e"pouvan tables barbaries a cote" d'un 
 pre\:oce ^l^gance des moeurs ; une immense me!6e militaire, r^ligieuse, 
 philosophique, monacale (M. Nisard, Renaissance et Reforme). 
 
 IT affords some satisfaction to recall that the last days 
 of Pope Julius were marked by edifying conduct, 
 and that he prepared for his approaching end with 
 a calm dignity well befitting the august office he held. 
 Summoning the Consistory to assemble a few days prior 
 to his agony, the aged Pontiff, stretched on the sick-bed 
 whence he was fated never to rise, despatched a peremp- 
 tory message to his cardinals to refrain from all simony 
 or bribery at the coming election of his own successor ; 
 he lamented the defection of the rebellious Carvajal and 
 Sanseverino, yet as a man he would not refuse them his 
 
 100
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 101 
 
 final blessing", although as Pontiff he was denouncing their 
 late secession in terms of withering hate ; he spoke also 
 of Christ's Church, with complacency designating himself 
 a miserable sinner and an unworthy vice-regent, who 
 had however consistently striven for the true interests of 
 the Holy See. To the last the dying Pope continued 
 to utter imprecations against the French and the obdu- 
 rate Alfonso of Ferrara, whose fall he had been so anxious 
 to accomplish ; the cry of " Fuori ! Fuori ! Barbari ! " 
 (Out of Italy, ye Barbarians !) still issued from the cracking 
 lips in the frequent attacks of feverish delirium, and his 
 wondering attendants sometimes imagined that these 
 half-conscious threats were levelled not only at the dis- 
 comfited Gaul, but also at the favoured Spaniard, whose 
 sword the bellicose Pontiff had not scrupled to utilise in 
 his late campaigns. At length the constant flow of hazy 
 invective ceased, and the old man passed away peace- 
 fully, the news of his death provoking an outburst of 
 genuine grief in Rome, the like of which had not been 
 seen within the memory of living man, and which seems 
 to have astonished the decorous Paris de Grassis, the 
 papal master of ceremonies, to whom Julius had long 
 since given explicit instructions as to the decent disposal 
 of his corpse. Loud were the lamentations of the Roman 
 populace, which was traditionally expected to curse a 
 pontiff when dead, however much it may have cringed 
 to him during life ; tears were falling on all sides ; women 
 with dishevelled hair were weeping like children at the 
 gates of the Vatican ; the crowd struggled fiercely to 
 kiss the papal feet which according to ancient custom 
 were made to protrude outside the enclosing grille of the 
 mortuary chapel. Uomo terribile, Julius was vaguely 
 accounted a patriot by the short-sighted Italians, who 
 totally failed to recognise in this papal scourge of the
 
 102 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 hated foreigner the true consolidator of the temporal 
 power of the Papacy. No, it was the grand Pontiff, now 
 lying in state before them, who had chased the invading 
 French back across the Alps ; that was all men cared to 
 remember at the last hour of Julius. 
 
 Considered solely as a secular prince and judged by 
 the standard of his own turbulent age, Julius certainly 
 shines as a monarch who was guided by definite and 
 high-minded principles rather than by pure self-interest 
 for himself or for some less worthy brother or nephew. 
 He had continued the policy of the Borgia, it is true, 
 but all his exertions had been made to strengthen the 
 Holy See, of which he had always deemed himself but 
 the temporary guardian, and not to found a principality 
 for some kinsman. For with the sole exception of the 
 little town of Pesaro, all the hard-won conquests of 
 the late Pope had gone to swell that papal empire, which 
 Julius considered absolutely essential for the proper 
 maintenance and autonomy of himself and his successors. 
 So far then as he is the acknowledged founder of the 
 States of the Church, Julius appears as a disinterested 
 and even patriotic conqueror. But if, on the other hand, 
 we turn to criticise his career from a moral standpoint, 
 regarding him (as he doubtless regarded himself) as the 
 Vicar of Christ, the vice-regent of the Prince of Peace, 
 what language can be found adequate to convey an 
 opinion of the violent old man who deliberately embroiled 
 all the princes of Europe, and deluged his own unhappy 
 country with blood, all for the sake of a few coveted 
 towns and fortresses ? Fire and sword, rapine and 
 starvation, these are the characteristics of the reign of 
 Julius II., who nevertheless expired perfectly contented 
 with the results of his blood-stained pontificate and 
 utterly unconscious of the mischief he had wrought or the
 
 GIULIANO BELLA ROVERE (JULIUS II)
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 103 
 
 Divine laws he had broken. "He was so great that 
 he might be accounted an Emperor rather than a Pope ! " 
 remarks the half-admiring Francesco Vettori ; whilst 
 Guicciardini, the Livy of his age, who after Machiavelli 
 ranks as its pervading genius, expresses more forcibly 
 his private opinion concerning the famous Warrior- Pope. 
 " Only those who have abandoned the art of plain 
 speaking and have lost the habit of right thinking extol 
 this Pontiffs memory above that of his predecessors. It 
 is such persons who declare it to be the Pope's duty to 
 add territory to the Apostolic See by force of arms and 
 spilling of Christian blood, rather than to occupy him- 
 self in setting a good example, in correcting the general 
 decay of morals and in trying to save the souls for whose 
 sake Christ has made him His vicar on earth." 1 But 
 far more illuminating than a score of dissertations upon 
 the morality and aims of Julius II. is an inspection of 
 Raphael's splendid portrait of this Pope, 2 which hangs in 
 the Pitti Palace at Florence. 3 The Umbrian artist, it is 
 needless to relate, has depicted his subject in a most 
 favourable attitude. Exhausted and anxious, the old 
 man sits wearily in the broad high-backed chair, his be- 
 jewelled hands clinging for support to the framework 
 and his bearded chin sunk languidly upon his breast. 
 Physically he is resting, but his quick mind, the painter 
 clearly shows us, is still at work, for the Pope's brain was 
 ever teeming with the many grandiose schemes which 
 only the natural term of years forbade him to accomplish. 
 It is a moment of necessary repose, but merely the repose 
 
 1 Storia d" Italia, lib. xi. 
 
 2 The original cartoon, of more interest than the painting itself, 
 is preserved in the Corsini Palace in Florence. 
 
 3 The National Gallery of London possesses a fine replica of this 
 celebrated portrait.
 
 io 4 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 of a quiescent volcano that is ready at any minute to 
 burst into fierce flames of passion or invective. Perhaps 
 this fascinating likeness has performed better service to 
 the memory of the irascible Julius than all the arguments 
 of his apologists. The venerable countenance, distin- 
 guished by " the natural foliage of the face " (as the 
 courtly Valeriano named this novelty of a papal beard), 
 the nervous supple hands, the crimson velvet vestments, 
 the air of profound reflection, all appeal strongly to 
 posterity on behalf of the Warrior-Pope, for they produce 
 an undeniable effect of real majesty and of lofty medita- 
 tion. Julius was not without his virtues, but these, as 
 we have tried to explain, were more than balanced by 
 his defects ; yet here in Raphael's admirable picture of 
 the Pontiff, the virtues alone are apparent, the vices are 
 not perceptible. The unrestrained temper, the vulgar 
 peasant's suspicion, the coarseness, the indifference to 
 suffering are not suggested on the canvas : only the 
 grandeur of the Pope's conceptions and his stately 
 presence are exhibited to our scrutiny. Magnificent as 
 it undoubtedly is as a masterpiece of the great painter, 
 yet Raphael's portrait of Julius II. does not afford so 
 perfect a mirror of the mind as does his likeness of Leo 
 X., which also adorns the collection of the Pitti Palace. 
 Strange it is that both these glorious portraits of the two 
 greatest of the Popes of the Renaissance, who represent 
 respectively the selfish violence and the pagan culture of 
 that brilliant epoch, should thus finally be placed side by 
 side in a Florentine gallery, where " all the world in 
 circle " can pass by and draw its own conclusions of the 
 character and worth of each from the pictures of the 
 divine artist of Urbino. 
 
 There were only twenty-four cardinals in Rome 
 ready to assemble in the ensuing conclave. On the
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 105 
 
 morning of 4th March, therefore, all these attended the 
 customary mass of the Holy Spirit, which owing to the 
 dilapidated state of St. Peter's had to be sung in the 
 adjacent chapel of St. Andrew instead of at the high 
 altar. Through the chinks and crevices of the tottering 
 walls the stormy w r inds of March shrieked and wailed, 
 whilst the acolytes were kept busily employed in relight- 
 ing the tapers on the altar, which the tempest would not 
 permit to burn steadily. After this ceremony, of necessity 
 shorn of its usual splendour, the cardinals entered the 
 building, which according to the prescribed rule had 
 every door locked and every window hermetically sealed, 
 so that it is easy for us to comprehend how dreaded an 
 ordeal a conclave always seemed to the older and feebler 
 members of the Sacred College. 
 
 Giovanni de' Medici, who on account of a terrible 
 ulcer had been compelled to travel in a litter all the way 
 from Florence to Rome, did not reach the conclave until 
 6th March, arriving in such a state of pain and exhaustion 
 that it was evident to all that the immediate attendance 
 of a surgeon was imperative. A certain Giacomo of 
 Brescia, 1 who had gained a high reputation for his medical 
 skill, chanced to be in Rome at this moment, and he 
 was accordingly admitted within the carefully guarded 
 portals of the building, where he operated with success 
 upon the suffering Cardinal, who for some days remained 
 too ill to leave his bed, whilst his colleagues were still 
 wrangling and scheming over their choice of a new Pope. 
 At length on the seventh day of discussion, the guardians 
 of the conclave, in order to bring to a point the delibera- 
 tions of the cardinals, decided to reduce the daily meal 
 of the princes of the Church to one solitary dish, and this 
 
 1 His house, a good specimen of Renaissance architecture, is still 
 standing in the Borgo Nuovo near St. Peter's.
 
 106 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 parsimonious diet combined with the stifling air of their 
 present abode at last produced an universal desire in the 
 imprisoned members of the College to select a Pontiff 
 speedily, if only as a means of escape from the foul 
 atmosphere and the scanty supply of food. The elder 
 members of the conclave had now tired of their persist- 
 ent but unavailing efforts on behalf of Cardinal Alborese, 
 whilst the younger faction was joined by Raffaele Riario, 
 cousin of the late Pope, who had originally aspired to the 
 tiara himself but was beginning to realise the hopelessness 
 of his secret ambition. Meanwhile the younger cardinals, 
 and especially a clique formed of such as belonged to 
 reigning houses, like Louis of Aragon, Ghismondo 
 Gonzaga of Mantua, Ippolito d' Este of Ferrara and 
 Alfonso Petrucci of Siena, were most eager to elect one 
 of their own rank and ideas. They were heartily sick 
 of the late Pontiffs savage wars with their attendant 
 horrors and fatigues ; they were still smarting from the 
 sharp reproofs and lectures of the rough Ligurian peasant 
 who had been their master ; and they were consequently 
 most anxious to obtain a Pope who should appear in 
 every way the exact opposite of Julius II. in birth, 
 manners and principles. Now, there was no one of their 
 number answering better to this description than Giovanni 
 de' Medici, who was the son of a sovereign, was a 
 cultured man of letters and was credited with peaceful 
 proclivities. Medici was likewise the most popular 
 member of the Sacred College, w r herein he did not 
 possess a single enemy, if we except Francesco Soderini, 
 brother of the recently expelled Gonfalionere of Florence, 
 yet even in this solitary instance of real enmity, opposition 
 was removed through the tactful machinations of Bernardo 
 Dovizi, now serving as Medici's secretary in the conclave, 
 who contrived to placate the hostile Florentine Cardinal
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 107 
 
 by hinting at a possible matrimonial alliance between the 
 young Lorenzo de' Medici and a daughter of the rival 
 House of Soderini. Those engaging manners and 
 studied efforts to please, which Medici had always culti- 
 vated so assiduously, had in fact endeared him to all 
 his companions in the College, whereof, though com- 
 paratively still a young man, he had been a member for 
 twenty-four years and had participated in four papal 
 elections. The proposal of Medici's name therefore as 
 being papabile, or worthy of the tiara, was received with 
 general satisfaction, and now that the adhesion of both 
 Riario and Soderini had been gained by the young 
 Cardinal's supporters, his election became a foregone con- 
 clusion. On nth March the formal scrutiny took place, 
 whereat Medici himself, as senior Deacon, had to record 
 and count the votes cast into the urn. A true son of 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent, the Pontiff elect showed in his 
 face and manner no trace of triumph or pleasure whilst 
 thus employed : a circumstance which afforded great satis- 
 faction to his colleagues. With perfect calm the new 
 Pope received the proffered homage of his late peers, 
 and on being requested to announce the pontifical title 
 which he intended to assume, Medici replied with modest 
 hesitation that he would prefer to be known as Leo X., 
 provided the Sacred College approved of this selection 
 of a name. The title indeed caused some surprise, as 
 coming from one to whom the epithet clemens or plus 
 might have been deemed more appropriate ; nevertheless, 
 the cardinals, who were doubtless ignorant of Medici's 
 hidden reason for preferring so vigorous a title, 1 declared 
 their consent, and even went so far as to call it an ideal 
 name, which they themselves would have chosen had 
 
 1 See chapter i.
 
 io8 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 similar luck befallen them. The formal preliminaries of 
 an election being concluded, Alessandro Farnese now 
 broke the seals laid upon the shuttered windows over- 
 looking the piazza, and thrusting his head through the 
 aperture, in a loud voice announced the welcome intelli- 
 gence to the expectant crowd below in the usual set 
 terms: "Gaudium magnum nuntio vobis ! Papam 
 habemus, Reverendissimum Dominum Johannem de 
 Medicis, Diaconum Cardinalem Sanctae Mariae in 
 Domenica, qui vocatur Leo Decimus ! " (I bring you 
 tidings of great joy! We have a Pope, the most 
 Reverend Lord, Giovanni de' Medici, Cardinal Deacon 
 of Santa Maria in Domenica, who is called Leo X. !) 
 
 Thus at the remarkably early age of thirty-seven was 
 Giovanni, second son of Lorenzo de' Medici, late tyrant 
 of Florence, elevated under the happiest of auspices to 
 the highest dignity in all Christendom. For although 
 the conclave of 1513 cannot be accounted free from in- 
 trigue, yet it appears in striking contrast with most of the 
 papal elections that had preceded it. Nor was there 
 any suspicion of bribery in Medici's case, unless Bibbiena's 
 successful attempt to win over the reluctant Soderini can 
 be considered as such ; broadly speaking, the choice 
 made was spontaneous, and one that relied solely on the 
 merits and position of the person selected. Malicious 
 rumour certainly hinted that the support of Riario and 
 the older cardinals had been gained in their full belief 
 that Medici, despite his youthful years, was not likely to 
 survive his newly acquired dignity any great length of 
 time, since he was in obvious ill-health and suffering, 
 even in the conclave, from a painful malady, concerning 
 which the accurate Paris de Grassis presents us with a 
 mass of minute and revolting details. 1 This prejudiced 
 
 1 Creighton, vol. v.
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 109 
 
 view did not, however, reflect the general opinion of the 
 time, nor has it been endorsed by modern historians, 
 who are inclined to follow the more kindly criticism of 
 Francesco Guicciardini : 
 
 "Almost all Christendom heard with the greatest joy 
 of the election of Leo the Tenth, and on all sides men 
 were firmly persuaded that at last they had obtained a 
 Pontiff distinguished above all others by the gifts of mind 
 he had inherited from a noble father, and by the reports 
 of his generosity and clemency that resounded from all 
 quarters. He was esteemed chaste ; his morals were 
 excellent ; and men trusted to find in him, as in his 
 parent's case, a lover of literature and all the fine arts. 
 And these hopes waxed all the stronger, seeing that his 
 election had taken place properly, without simony or 
 suspicion of any irregularity." 
 
 In Rome itself the election of Leo X. was hailed with 
 unfeigned satisfaction, and with exuberant joy in that 
 world of letters and culture whereof the late Cardinal de' 
 Medici had for many years been regarded as a munificent 
 patron. But the expressions of content in the Eternal 
 City were mild in comparison with the frantic outburst of 
 popular rejoicing, which was now witnessed in Florence, 
 the place of the new Pontiffs birth. The momentous 
 news from Rome arrived in Florence at two of the clock 
 on the Friday following the scrutiny, and when the report 
 was officially confirmed, the ecstacy of the Palleschi, now 
 of course the ruling party, knew no bounds of reason or 
 restraint. The bells were rung madly ; fireworks were 
 exploded ; artillery was fired ; and in all the streets bon- 
 fires were raised of tar-barrels and brushwood, supple- 
 mented in many cases by the household furniture of 
 unfortunate citizens suspected of hostility to the Medici. 
 
 1 Storid ' delt Italia, lib. xi.
 
 no THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 The shops and dwellings of the poor Piagnoni, the puritan 
 followers of Savonarola, were on all sides plundered, 
 while in not a few instances the roofs were set alight by 
 crowds of Medicean partisans, drunken with wine or 
 enthusiasm, and shouting aloud Palle ! and Papa Leone ! 
 at the top of their raucous Tuscan voices. The din was 
 terrific, and the disorder finally grew so serious, that the 
 Florentine Council of Eight, alarmed for the public 
 safety, was compelled to issue an order threatening with 
 the gallows all persons caught in the act of robbery or 
 arson. This Medicean orgy quest a pestilenzia, as the 
 republican Landucci styles these proceedings endured 
 for four days, during which time the whole town resounded 
 with festal explosions and reeked with the pungent smoke 
 of the bonfires, which the revellers kindled daily before 
 the Palazzo Vecchio or in front of the Medicean mansion. 
 Other adherents of the Medici regaled the eager crowds 
 with sweet wine drawn out of gilded barrels, that had 
 been set in rows upon the historic Ringkiera 1 of the 
 civic palace. As a final proof of the city's intense joy 
 and proud content, a deputation of prominent officials 
 fetched from Impruneta the famous statue of the Madonna, 
 the palladium of the Florentines, and with the effigy 
 gorgeously arrayed in nine new mantles of cloth -of-gold, 
 the procession halted before the portals of Casa Medici 
 in Via Larga, where food and wine were provided and 
 crackers exploded. But in the midst of this bout of 
 unrestrained carnival over the novel honour that had 
 befallen the city, there were not lacking some sober 
 spirits, who were able to discern the dubious advantages 
 of a Florentine Pope. "I am not surprised," remarked 
 to certain bystanders the shrewd Lomellino, the 
 
 1 A stone platform extending along the northern side of the 
 palace, long since removed.
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS in 
 
 historian of Genoa, who was an amused spectator of these 
 scenes of popular rejoicing, "at your present satisfaction, 
 since your city has never yet produced a Pope, but when 
 you have once gained this experience, as has been our 
 case in Genoa, you will grow to realise a Pontiff's dealings 
 with his native land and the price his fellow-citizens have 
 to pay for the honour." 1 
 
 Giovanni de' Medici was, as we have already said, 
 only in his thirty-eighth year when he attained to the 
 supreme dignity, which one of his father's courtiers, the 
 poet Philomus, had predicted for him nearly a quarter 
 of a century before; "What joy," had cried the far- 
 seeing bard, " will so high an honour afford your beloved 
 parent, and what verses will Apollo inspire me to write 
 in commemoration of the event! " 2 
 
 Eximiumque caput sacra redimire thyara 
 Pontificis summi ; proh gaudia quanta parenti 
 Turn dabis, et quantis mihi turn spirabit Apollo ! 
 
 In outward appearance the new Pontiff was tall with 
 a dignified carriage, despite a stout and unwieldy frame. 
 His head was disproportionately large ; his smooth- 
 shaven countenance was flushed and unhealthy in hue ; 
 whilst his great prominent eyes were so feeble of vision 
 that in order to perceive any person or object, no matter 
 how familiar, the Pope was obliged to use continually a 
 spy-glass, w r hich was rarely absent from his hand. He 
 had a short fleshy neck with a pronounced double chin, 
 a broad chest and an enormous paunch, with which his 
 spindling legs made a curious contrast. His only claim 
 to physical beauty lay in his hands, of which their owner 
 was inordinately proud and was frequently to be observed 
 examining with artless satisfaction ; they were plump, 
 
 1 Bacciotti, Firenze Illustrata, vol. i., p. 78. 
 
 2 Roscoe, Appendix IX.
 
 ii2 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 white and shapely, and usually adorned with rare and 
 splendid gems. 1 Unlike his father, whose speech was 
 always rasping and singularly unpleasing to the ear, Leo 
 was the happy possessor of a soft, persuasive and well- 
 modulated voice ; his manner was almost invariably 
 courteous and genial, and he had sedulously trained his 
 natural gift of tact to the highest degree of perfection, so 
 that he could always appear deferential towards his 
 elders, and jocular, or even boisterous in the society of 
 younger men. As may be gathered from this description, 
 the youthful Pope did not enjoy robust health. 2 From 
 his early years he had been the victim of a chronic 
 infirmity which the ignorant quacks of that age could 
 neither cure nor alleviate, and which not only caused him 
 perpetual inconvenience and frequent attacks of pain, 
 but also at certain times rendered the poor sufferer's 
 presence most unpleasant to the friends around him. 
 It speaks eloquently for Leo's natural good-nature and 
 his acquired habit of self-control, that he never allowed 
 this constant source of annoyance to affect his temper, 
 which seems to have remained even and suave to the 
 last. 
 
 Since Giovanni de' Medici was but a deacon in the 
 conclave whence he issued as Pope, with all convenient 
 despatch he was ordained priest on I5th March, and 
 consecrated bishop two days later, whilst on igth March 
 he was formally enthroned and crowned, the Cardinals 
 
 1 Vita Anonyma Leonis X., Bossi-Roscoe, Appendix CCXVIII. ; 
 Jovius, lib. iv. ; Scipione Ammirato, Rittrati de Medici, etc. 
 
 2 Quod ad valetudinem attinet, ulcere quodam quod fistulam 
 vocant in inferiore parte corporis quae plurime carne contecta est 
 laborabat, eoque interdum graviter cruciabatur; nam cum in- 
 tercluderetur plerumque sanies retentaque fluere solita erat, eum 
 ita perturbabat ; atque ita de valetudine dejiciebat, ut praeter ulceris 
 dolorem febre etiam corriperetur, sed ea brevi solvebatur (Vita 
 Anonyma Leonis X.)
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 113 
 
 Farnese and Louis of Aragon placing the heavy triple 
 diadem on his head. For this purpose a pavilion had 
 been specially erected on the steps of the dilapidated 
 basilica of St. Peter, the fagade of which bore in large 
 letters of gold an inscription in honour of " Leo the 
 Tenth, Supreme Pontiff, Protector of the Arts and 
 Patron of Good Works ". The usual ritual of a papal 
 coronation was duly carried out in this meagre temporary 
 building, and Paris de Grassis describes in his Diary how, 
 as master of the ceremonies, he bore in accordance with 
 ancient custom to the foot of the throne a rod decorated 
 with a bunch of tow, which he ignited with a burning 
 taper, and then, whilst the dry flax was being rapidly 
 consumed in a sheet of bright flame, addressed the time- 
 honoured warning : " Holy Father, thus passeth away 
 the glory of this world!" And again, "Thou shalt 
 never see the years of Peter," whose traditional reign as 
 first Pontiff is said to have endured for twenty -five years. 1 
 And yet Leo was but thirty-seven, so that, if he were to 
 attain to the ordinary human age-limit of threescore 
 years and ten, he would then have exceeded by eight 
 summers the great Apostle's tenure of the dignity ; 
 nevertheless, the young Pope's indifferent state of health 
 rendered such an admonition a salutary warning in the 
 midst of all this pomp and worship. 
 
 By ancient precedent it was permitted to the cardinals 
 assisting at a papal coronation to present petitions to the 
 new master who had been their late colleague, and on 
 this occasion Medici's reputation for lavish generosity 
 and his dislike of refusal had the effect of giving rise to 
 
 1 Of the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IX. (1846-1878) has exceeded 
 "the Years of Peter," as he has himself proudly recorded above the 
 Apostle's statue in the nave of the Basilica. Also Leo XIII., whose 
 reign occupied twenty-five years (1878-1903).
 
 ii4 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 an extraordinary number of requests from the cardinals 
 on behalf of themselves, their relations and their innumer- 
 able dependants. So boundless were the extent and 
 variety of their demands that Leo, half-amused and 
 half-disgusted at the audacity of many of their pleas, 
 rebuked the unseemly greed of the Sacred College with 
 a mild but satirical reproof: " Take my tiara," exclaimed 
 the Pontiff to his importunate suppliants, "and act as if 
 each one of you were Pope himself! Agree among 
 yourselves on what you desire, and take your fill." 1 
 
 For the late ceremonies in the derelict basilica of St. 
 Peter there had been small time for preparation and 
 smaller scope for splendour. The festivities of Holy 
 Week were also close at hand, and in consequence Leo 
 was forced to defer the elaborate procession and act of 
 public rejoicing on which his heart was set, until the 
 occasion of his formal occupation of the historic church 
 and palace of the Lateran. The date of this impending 
 event therefore the Pope fixed not without secret satis- 
 faction for nth April, the first anniversary of the battle 
 of Ravenna, which had seen the papal army scattered 
 and the present Pontiff a prisoner of the French King. 
 This decision afforded Leo an unique opportunity for 
 indulging in his inherited taste for splendid pageantry, 
 since not only had he the overflowing treasury of the 
 thrifty Julius at his disposal, but likewise, as he soon 
 perceived, the Roman court and the Roman people 
 were setting to work with feverish activity upon pre- 
 parations, which were destined to make of Leo's triumphal 
 progress across the city of the Caesars and the Popes 
 the greatest spectacle of pomp and beauty which even 
 that era could produce. But before proceeding to de- 
 
 1 Diary of Paris de Grassis, Bossi-Roscoe, lib. iv., cap. iv., p. 18.
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 115 
 
 scribe in detail this most famous pageant, which marks 
 the opening of the Leonine Age, it will be proper for us 
 in the first place to give a brief description of the Eternal 
 City as it appeared in the year that witnessed the ele- 
 vation of the Cardinal de' Medici to the pontifical 
 throne. 
 
 If the Florence of our own days has preserved intact 
 no small portion of its ancient character, the Rome of 
 King Victor-Emmanuel owns few features that were 
 prominent within its walls at the date of Leo's election. 
 Looking down from the carefully tended gardens of the 
 Pincian Hill upon the city spread beneath us, we can 
 perceive scarcely a single object which must have been 
 familiar to the eyes of the Medicean Pope nearly four 
 centuries ago. And yet within the memory of many 
 persons living the Eternal City has undergone an almost 
 complete transformation of aspect, for the Rome of Pius IX. 
 was itself a totally different place from the modern 
 capital of United Italy ; so many an ancient landmark 
 has been recently swept away, so many obtruding public 
 edifices have arisen, and so many hundreds of brand-new 
 streets on a stereotyped Parisian model have been 
 constructed on all sides. Rome, like a palimpsest, is 
 perpetually changing her character, and it is curious to 
 reflect that the great spreading capital of to-day could 
 hardly appear less strange or bewildering to the con- 
 temporaries of Leo X. than would the old papal seat of 
 Pio Nono, which .so many still love to recall with its 
 stately air of repose and its picturesque scenes of ecclesi- 
 astical life. Only the Pantheon with its low dome and 
 lofty colonnade, the vast circle of the Colosseum and 
 certain of the ruined Therms (and these not a little 
 altered or curtailed) survive from one century to another, 
 linking the Rome of the Middle Ages, the Rome of the
 
 n6 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 sovereign Pontiffs and the Rome of the Italian Kings 
 with the imperial city of Augustus and the Antonines. 
 
 A very small portion of the immense area enclosed 
 by the irregular ring of mouldering walls was occupied 
 by houses in the year 1513, the remainder being covered 
 with vineyards, gardens, groves and even with thickets 
 of brier and myrtle, so dense that deer and wild boar 
 occasionally sought shelter within their recesses. Out 
 of this bosky expanse peeped forth at various points the 
 forms of ancient churches with delicate arched campanili 
 of red brick beside them ; whilst here and there were 
 conspicuous huge masses of tawny ruins draped with ivy 
 or eglantine that harboured myriads of pigeons, which 
 the sportsmen of the city would sometimes shoot or 
 snare in idle hours. The classic Forum, known by 
 the humble appellation of the Cattle Market (Campo 
 Vacchino) ; stretched as a long marshy scrub-covered 
 expanse, wherein a few shafts of antique temples still 
 rose aloft, but the Via Sacra and the foundations mark- 
 ing the heart of the proud city lay hidden beneath a 
 crust, some thirty feet in depth, of superincumbent soil 
 and rubbish. Beyond the utter desolation of the Roman 
 Forum towered the gigantic bulk of the Flavian Amphi- 
 theatre, inexpressibly grand in its lonely magnificence 
 and with its fabric practically intact, for the evil days of 
 Roman vandalism had scarcely begun in earnest. The 
 Palatine, the Coelian and the Aventine were but wooded 
 hills, dotted 'with a few farms and convents, or with de- 
 cayed heaps of ancient buildings, which were now form- 
 ing convenient quarries for the architects of the new 
 palaces and churches springing up on all sides. The 
 Capitol itself with its tall towers and forked battlements 
 resting on the Titanic sub-structures of antiquity still 
 retained the aspect of a mediaeval fortress which had
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 117 
 
 been bestowed upon it two centuries before by Boniface 
 VIII., but the Tarpeian Rock beside it was but a barren 
 cliff, as its local name of Monte Caprino the Goat's 
 Hill implied. The population of Rome, computed 
 at various figures but probably numbering about 60,000 
 souls, was chiefly huddled into the narrow space lying 
 between the Capitol and the Tiber and into the trans- 
 pontine quarter of Trastevere, the denizens of which 
 have always affected to boast a pure descent from the 
 ancient Romans themselves gli Romani di Roma. 
 These two districts together constituted the mediseval 
 town, which was still a maze of dark filthy alleys, inter- 
 spersed by churches or palaces. Around the Vatican 
 itself was rising a new and splendid quarter of the city, 
 with residences for the princes of the Church or for the 
 numerous envoys to the papal court, but in the main 
 Rome still kept its mean appearance of the Middle Ages. 
 The older houses, many of them overhanging the 
 muddy Tiber and often entered by means of boats, 
 were mostly distinguished by exterior stairways and 
 by tall stone turrets, of which a few specimens survive 
 to-day. On all sides the fortified ruins, including the 
 arches of Constantine, Titus and Severus, bore ample 
 testimony to the unsettled and lawless conditions of the 
 past, and to the old-time feuds of Orsini and Colonna, 
 of Frangipani and Gaetani. 
 
 Standing on the Pincio, then clothed with vines and 
 olives, the stranger would at once become aware of the 
 absence of that world-famous group of buildings, which 
 constitutes the most prominent object in Papal Rome. 
 In the room of the great domed church and the far- 
 spreading courts of the modern Vatican, there uprose to 
 view only the fagade of old St. Peter's, and beside it 
 the tall form of the Sistine chapel and the Torre Borgia,
 
 n8 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 for Alexander VI. had embellished the papal residence, 
 and had strengthened the neighbouring Castle of Sant' 
 Angelo, 1 which he had joined to the Vatican itself by 
 means of a stone gallery of communication, that was 
 doomed to play a conspicuous part on more than one 
 occasion in the later annals of the secular Papacy. But 
 the glittering exterior of the venerable basilica merely 
 masked what was in reality a naked ruin, whilst the 
 completed portion of the palace was surrounded by a 
 trampled wilderness littered with hewn and unhewn 
 blocks of stone or marble, and with fine antique columns 
 pilfered from the pagan fanes : evidences of the late 
 Pontiffs work of demolition and his earnest desire to 
 erect a Christian temple, or rather a mausoleum for 
 himself, which should exceed in size and splendour every 
 structure the world had hitherto beheld. At the extreme 
 point east of St. Peter's within the circumference of the 
 city walls, rose the second papal palace and the vast 
 church of St. John's Lateran, the true cathedral of 
 Rome, "the mother and head of all churches on the 
 face of the earth," with the famous Baptistery beside it, 
 wherein the Emperor Constantine had been made a 
 Christian by Pope Sylvester. Once the seat of power 
 and magnificence under such Pontiffs as Innocent III. 
 and Urban IV., the Lateran had long been abandoned 
 as a residence by their successors, who now only cared 
 to concentrate their energy and expend their wealth 
 upon the rival palace across the Tiber. Yet the 
 neglected Lateran still owned a special sanctity and im- 
 portance, so that a new Pope's formal procession thither 
 
 1 The Municipality of Rome whether in a fit of moral zeal or 
 of childish vandalism, we leave the reader to decide has recently 
 effaced all their heraldic bearings from the escutcheons of the Borgia 
 Pope on the face of the Castle of Sant' Angelo.
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 119 
 
 was always made the occasion for a solemn display of 
 pontifical majesty. At this particular moment also an 
 additional interest was afforded by the circumstance 
 that the council, recently convoked by Julius and re- 
 garded with so many brave hopes by the would-be 
 reformers of the Church, was now holding its sittings 
 within these very walls, so that Leo's coming visit 
 possessed even more significance in men's minds than 
 was usually attached to this papal ceremony of the 
 Sacro Possesso, or formal entry into the Lateran. 
 
 It was in truth a brilliant opening to the Leonine 
 Age, which was fated to prevail in Rome for fourteen 
 years with one short interval, and when we contrast the 
 scenes of popular delight and extravagance of 1513 with 
 the awful yet inevitable catastrophe of 1527, we grow to 
 comprehend dimly the close connection between the 
 golden days of Leo's reign and the period of shame and 
 outrage which was to terminate that glorious epoch under 
 the unhappy Clement. Yet no sadness of impending 
 disaster, no premonition of future destruction hung over 
 the expectant city or the genial Pope, who ever since 
 his coronation had been taking an almost child-like 
 interest in every detail of the projected pageant, which 
 the anxious Paris de Grassis was superintending. At 
 length the desired morning broke, warm, sunny and 
 balmy, as only a Roman spring-tide can produce, an 
 ideal day for an open-air festival, of which the pro- 
 gramme was arranged and developed on so grandiose a 
 scale " that this spectacular representation of the secular 
 Papacy in 1513 has afforded us also the most perfect 
 picture of its established splendour". 1 And a truly 
 marvellous sight did the Eternal City present on this 
 
 1 F. Gregorovius, vol. vii.
 
 120 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 occasion, with every house on the line of procession 
 decked with wreaths of laurel and ilex, and with every 
 casement displaying rich brocades or velvets of all shades 
 of colour, arranged with an exquisite taste for general 
 effect. Triumphal arches, many of them real works of 
 art in themselves and the invention of the leading 
 painters and architects in Rome, had been erected to 
 span the streets at various points, for the wealthy 
 merchants, headed by the famous Sienese banker, 
 Agostino Chigi, were all vying to attract the notice and 
 win the praise of their new ruler. Priceless antique 
 statues of the pagan gods and goddesses, the prized 
 treasures of many a choice collection, had been set in 
 niches of these arches, often in incongruous proximity to 
 the effigies of Christian martyrs or divinities, amongst 
 whom the favourite Medicean saints, St. John the 
 Baptist, St. Lawrence and the Arab physicians Cosmo 
 and Damiano naturally appeared conspicuous. On all 
 sides were to be observed inscriptions, mostly in Latin, 
 applauding the new Pontiff and calling down blessing on 
 his head ; and fulsome as were many of these eulogies, 
 yet there can be no question but that the city of Rome 
 was as delighted with Leo at this early period, as the 
 Pope himself was overjoyed at the display of all this 
 adulation and festal magnificence. Of the numerous 
 arches, trophies and obelisks, most people adjudged the 
 palm of merit to that reared by Agostino Chigi, whose 
 vast income seemed to place him at an advantage over 
 other private persons. A wholly unconscious critic of 
 his own times, Chigi had likewise placed in letters of 
 gold upon the frieze of his eight-columned arch an elegiac 
 couplet, comparing the coming reign of the Medicean 
 Pontiff to that of Minerva, and naming Leo's two pre- 
 decessors as votaries respectively of Venus and Mars :
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 121 
 
 Olim habuit Cypris sua tempora ; tempora Mavors 
 Olim habuit ; sua nunc tempora Pallas habet. 1 
 
 To counterbalance Chigi's prophecy of this approaching 
 intellectual millenium, the goldsmith Antonio da San 
 Marco had either by accident or design inscribed below 
 a statue of Aphrodite, an exquisite production of some 
 Grecian chisel with which he had adorned his trophy, a 
 solitary pentameter, that must have greatly tickled Leo's 
 exuberant sense of humour: 
 
 Mars fuit ; est Pallas ; Cypria semper ero. 2 
 
 Many were the flattering sentiments conveyed thus 
 to the first Medicean Pope, and many were the anxious 
 hopes expressed for a coming period of peace and pro- 
 sperity. " Live according to your established piety ! O 
 live for ever, according to your deserts ! " announced 
 another of these inscriptions ; whilst on Cardinal Sauli's 
 portico were to be seen verses alluding to the Pontiffs 
 supposed horror of the bloodshed wherewith the late 
 reign had been so disgracefully stained : 
 
 Non de coesorum numero fusoque cruore, 
 Sed de sperata pace trophaea damus. 3 
 
 The entrance to the Capitol bore a motto with a deeper 
 and more spiritual meaning: 
 
 Genus humanum mortuos parit, quos Ecclesia vivificat ; 
 
 which served to remind the fortunate Medici of the 
 boundless powers conferred by the great Apostle of the 
 gold and silver keys upon all his successors. Another 
 arch, reared by the delighted Florentine residents of 
 
 1 Venus has fled, and now the War-God's arms 
 
 At last have yielded to Minerva's charms. 
 
 2 Mars is fled, and Pallas reigns, 
 
 Yet Venus still our queen remains ! 
 
 3 Not for slain victims nor for shedding blood 
 
 We rear these trophies, but for future peace.
 
 122 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Rome in grateful honour of their illustrious countryman, 
 was distinguished by a medley of Medicean emblems 
 and heraldic devices the ring and ostrich plumes of the 
 Magnificent Lorenzo, the ox-yoke of the reigning Pontiff, 
 the burning branch of the youthful heir of Piero de' 
 Medici and the diamond of Giuliano, whilst the address 
 upon its architrave recorded the respectful homage of 
 his fellow-citizens to "the Ambassador of Heaven". 
 In addition to these triumphal erections, the streets had 
 been strewn with sprigs of box and myrtle ; improvised 
 altars had been set up at several corners, and every door- 
 way was festooned with verdant wreaths. The populace 
 was wearing festal attire, and in sign of the general quiet 
 and sense of security all private persons were forbidden 
 to wear swords. Some of the public fountains had been 
 made to run with wine instead of water, and the whole 
 city prepared itself to enjoy the coming procession with 
 a zest and good-humour that had ever been denied to 
 the late Pope's set triumphs after his vigorous campaigns. 
 First to quit the broad piazza before the Vatican, 
 where the huge train was being marshalled, were the 
 men-at-arms followed by the households of the cardinals 
 and prelates of the court, all richly clad in scarlet. These 
 were succeeded by a number of standard-bearers, in- 
 cluding the captains of the Rioni, or historic divisions of 
 Rome, and after them thundered the cavalcade of the 
 five Gonfalonieri, wielders of the more important banners 
 connected with the Holy See, conspicuous in their 
 number being Giulio de' Medici in the robes and insignia 
 of a knight of Rhodes. Behind this group of horsemen 
 with their fluttering ensigns was led a string of milk- 
 white mules from the papal stables, housed in gorgeous 
 trappings, whilst behind them walked over one hundred 
 equerries of the court, all of noble birth and clad in gala
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 123 
 
 robes of red fringed with ermine, the hindmost four bearing 
 the papal crowns and jewelled mitres upon short staves 
 of office. These gave place to a second cavalcade com- 
 posed of a hundred Roman barons with historic names, 
 each noble being followed by an armed escort of servants 
 dressed in their master's livery, prominent amongst them 
 being Fabrizio Colonna and Giulio Orsini, who rode 
 side by side with clasped hands in sign of present amity 
 and of past discord. The notables of Rome were in their 
 turn succeeded by a company of the chief citizens of 
 Florence Tornabuoni, Salviati, Ridolfi, Pucci, Strozzi 
 and the like many of them being related to the Su- 
 preme Pontiff, in whose honour all this elaborate pageant 
 had been planned. Amidst the gay trains of the Italian 
 and foreign ambassadors, pursuing on the heels of the 
 Florentine merchant-princes, appeared the form and re- 
 tinue of the late Pope's nephew, Francesco Delia Rovere, 
 Duke of Urbino, all decorously apparelled in deep 
 mourning and making thereby a curious streak of sable 
 amidst the glowing uniforms around them. The laity 
 having all passed, the clergy now made their appearance 
 in due order, escorted by a host of sacristans and pages 
 in crimson velvet with silver wands, some of whom 
 directed the paces of the palfrey that bore on its back the 
 Sacrament in a glittering monstrance, above which Roman 
 citizens upheld a canopy of cloth -of-gold. Hundreds of 
 priests, lawyers and clerks in flowing robes of scarlet, 
 black or violet next passed in review, preparing the way 
 for the bishops and abbots to the number of two hundred 
 and fifty, after whom advanced the cardinals, each prince 
 of the Church bestriding a beautiful steed with trailing 
 white draperies and each supported by eight chamber- 
 lains. At the head of the Sacred College ambled the 
 handsome and haughty Alfonso Petrucci, Cardinal of
 
 i2 4 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Siena, little dreaming in his youthful pride of the ignomi- 
 nious fate lying in store for him at no distant date ; whilst 
 beside the last cardinal rode the bluff Alfonso d' Este, 
 Duke of Ferrara, husband of Lucrezia Borgia and the 
 undaunted opponent of the terrible Julius, but now 
 obviously an eager suppliant for the good graces of his 
 successor. Behind the cardinals and their equipages 
 walked discreetly the Conservators of Rome, humble 
 representatives of the ancient senators of the former 
 Mistress of the World, and close upon their footsteps 
 tramped Julius' Swiss body-guard, 1 two hundred strong, 
 a corps of picked mountaineers armed with halberds and 
 clothed in parti-coloured uniforms of green, white and 
 yellow. Last of all rode the Supreme Pontiff himself, 
 the author and object of all this magnificence, mounted 
 on the white Arab stallion he had ridden on the fatal 
 field of Ravenna, which until its death was always re- 
 garded by its owner with a degree of affection almost 
 amounting to superstitious awe. 2 Draped in snowy 
 housings, the beautiful creature, after its paces were 
 first tried by the haughty Duke of Ferrara in person, had 
 been led by the Duke of Urbino, as Prefect of Rome, 
 to the fountain in the centre of the space before St. Peter's, 
 where His Holiness with the assistance of his nephew 
 Lorenzo de' Medici was adroitly lifted into the saddle. 
 Above horse and rider eight Roman citizens of patrician 
 rank bore aloft a baldacchino or canopy of embroidered 
 silk in order to shield the Sovereign Pontiff from the 
 envious rays of the Sun-God, with whom not a few poets 
 and courtiers were already beginning to compare the 
 
 1 The present uniform of the Swiss Guard at the Vatican said on 
 doubtful authority to have been designed by Michelangelo is com- 
 posed of stripes in equal parts of red, yellow and black. 
 
 2 Jovius, lib. iii.
 
 LEO X RIDING IX STATK
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 125 
 
 fortunate, the resplendent Leo X. Sinking beneath the 
 weight of triple tiara and of jewelled cope, the Pontiff 
 was nevertheless sustained throughout the tedious length 
 of his public progress across the city by the deep sense 
 of exalted satisfaction, that was reflected in his broad 
 purple face, from which the perspiration ran in streams 
 as the result of the unusual exertion beneath a hot April 
 sun. With hands in perfumed gloves sewn with pearls, 
 the Pontiff continued to bestow blessings at regular inter- 
 vals to the cheering crowds, which perhaps appreciated 
 even more than the papal benedictions the silver coins 
 flung ceaselessly by a pair of chamberlains, who carried 
 well-filled money-bags. Led on his favourite white 
 steed, with dukes and nobles beside him esteeming it a 
 privilege to touch his bridle, Leo proceeded slowly in an 
 ecstacy of gratified pride from the piazza of St. Peter's 
 towards the bridge of Sant' Angelo. At this point, 
 according to the usual custom, the Jews of Rome were 
 assembled in order to request in all humility the per- 
 mission to reside in the Holy City and also to present a 
 copy of the Law ; and as the gorgeous figure in shining 
 crown and robes approached, the rabbi meekly stepped 
 forward to give the prescribed greeting and to offer the 
 volume. "We confirm your privileges, " replied the Pope, 
 opening the proffered scroll, "but we reject your faith ! " 
 (Confirmamus sed non consentimus!) and then allowed 
 the book of the Law to fall like an accursed thing to the 
 ground. 
 
 Turning aside gladly from the group of supplicating 
 Hebrews, Leo continued his course towards the Lateran 
 along the historic Via Papale, the Pope's Way, doling 
 out largesse and giving endless benisons, whilst the whole 
 air rung with prolonged cries of Leone ! Leone ! Palle ! 
 Palle ! From time to time the Pope's features were
 
 126 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 seen to relax into a broad smile, as his attendants ex- 
 plained to him the gist of certain of the welcoming in- 
 scriptions, which his purblind eyes could not decipher ; 
 and fatiguing though this prolonged ceremonial must 
 have been to one in Leo's indifferent state of health, yet 
 the distance between St. Peter's and the Lateran did 
 not appear too lengthy to the admiring and admired 
 Pontiff, who was thus taking his fill of all the pomps and 
 vanities of his age in their most entrancing form, and 
 tasting that sweet but seductive draught of popular 
 adulation which has affected many a strong brain. 
 
 Arrived before the pile of the Lateran, the Pope dis- 
 mounted beside the equestrian statue of the Emperor 
 Marcus Aurelius, which then adorned this part of the city. 1 
 Tired physically with his late efforts and excitement but 
 still unsated with the homage paid him, Leo took formal 
 possession of that ancient seat of power, which was so 
 intimately connected with the deeds of many illustrious 
 predecessors. After the due performance of the rites 
 incidental to the Sacro Possesso, there followed a banquet 
 in the great hall of the palace, served with all the osten- 
 tatious luxury of which the Italian Renaissance was 
 capable. The meal ended, the glittering train prepared 
 to start homewards in the glowing atmosphere of an 
 April sunset. More shouts of applause, more benedic- 
 tions, more largesse out of the savings of the frugal Julius 
 flung to the expectant rabble, yet when the gloaming 
 fell upon the scene and began to dim the brilliant hues of 
 the vestments and uniforms, the long papal procession 
 had scarcely reached the Campo de' Fiori. Torches and 
 
 1 This famous statue now occupies the most prominent position 
 on the Roman Capitol, whither it was moved by Michelangelo under 
 Paul III., not without opposition from its owners, the canons of the 
 Lateran.
 
 LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 127 
 
 tapers now began to twinkle in every window of the city, 
 eclipsing the starlight of the spring evening, and pro- 
 ducing a weird but lovely effect upon the returning 
 cavalcade. At last even Leo had grown exhausted, so 
 that on reaching the gateway of the castle of Sant' 
 Angelo, whose vast circular form loomed out black and 
 distinct against the star-lit sky, he dismounted to enter 
 the castle portals as the guest of young Alfonso Petrucci, 
 who was doomed four years later to be strangled by his 
 affectionate host's command in a noisome vault below the 
 gilded and painted chamber wherein he was now enter- 
 taining his master. "In thinking over all the pomp and 
 lofty magnificence I had just witnessed," naively records 
 the simple Florentine physician Gian-Giacomo Penni in 
 his lengthy account of the ceremony which he had evi- 
 dently watched with envious eyes, " I experienced so 
 violent a desire to become Pope myself, that I was unable 
 to obtain a wink of sleep or any repose all that night. 
 No longer do I marvel at these prelates desiring so 
 ardently to procure this dignity, and I verily believe 
 every lacquey would sooner be made a Pope than a 
 Prince ! " l 
 
 Thus terminated the supreme pageant that marked 
 the happy accession of the first Medicean Pontiff and in- 
 augurated with such a burst of splendour those golden 
 days of culture and patronage, of license and extrava- 
 gance, to which in after years the poets and scholars, who 
 had participated in their delights, were wont to refer with 
 affectionate regret; even exaggerating the bountiful 
 
 1 The chief account of the Sacro Possesso of Leo X. is derived 
 from this letter of Gian-Giacomo Penni, directed to Contessina 
 Ridolfi, the Pope's sister, in Florence. Chronicha delle magnifiche et 
 honor ate pompe fatte in Roma per la creatione et incoronatione di Papa 
 Leone X. (Bossi-Roscoe, lib. v., pp. 189-231). For another and 
 shorter account, see Aless. Luzio, Appendix, Doc. 2.
 
 i 2 8 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 condescension bestowed upon arts and letters by this 
 Papal Maecenas, to those less fortunate aspirants to fame 
 and fortune, who had never tasted the joys of the Eternal 
 City during the all-too-rapid passing of the Leonine 
 Age.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 
 
 Cette grande force de Frangois ler n'etait pas seulement de cir- 
 constance et de situation ; elle etait aussi personelle. Tout reussit a 
 la jeunesse, tout lui sourit. . . . Ni Charles VIII. , ni Louis XII., les 
 sauveurs predits par Savonarola, n'avaient repondu aux exigences de 
 1'imagination populaire ; Tun petit, mal bad, difforme par sa grosse 
 tete ; 1'autre cacochyme, bourgeois, Roi des bourgeois. Celui-ci au 
 contraire, beau de race, de fleur de jeunesse, plus beau de sa victoire, 
 trouvant pour tous par sa langue facile des mots de grace et d'esper- 
 ance, n'etait il pas enfin, pour 1'Italie et pour le monde, ce Messie 
 pro mis, attendu ? (J. Michelet, La Renaissance). 
 
 SPECULATION was rife throughout Europe as 
 to the public policy the first Medicean Pope was 
 likely to pursue, although it was no difficult matter 
 for such as had followed his past career as a Cardinal 
 under Julius II. to make a shrewd guess at Leo's probable 
 attitude towards the movements and questions of the day, 
 both domestic and foreign. That he had a strong per- 
 sonal dislike to France would be a natural conclusion of 
 such observers, seeing that the French King had sup- 
 ported the late Florentine Republic, and that Leo himself 
 only a year before had endured in the French camp some 
 months of captivity, which had not been wholly without 
 discomfort and indignity. On the other hand, Leo had 
 every reason to favour the Spaniards, whose lances had 
 helped him to win back his native city for himself and 
 the Medici. His late remarkable display of clemency in 
 Florence led men to expect a Pontiff averse to war and 
 9 129
 
 1 30 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 strife ; his moral reputation aroused the high hopes of all 
 those who were anxious to reform and purify the Church ; 
 his affability invited men to look for a ruler more reason- 
 able and kindly than Julius ; whilst his manifest devotion 
 to literature provoked the Humanists to prepare for a re- 
 turn of the ofolden age of Roman letters under Augustus, 
 
 o o o 
 
 and to find in Leo X. a veritable Papal Maecenas and a 
 perfect patron. 
 
 "It is my opinion," so writes Count Alberto Pio to 
 his master the Emperor, " that the Pontiff will be gentle 
 (mitis] as a lamb rather than fierce as a lion. He will 
 cultivate peace and not war. He will observe all his 
 vows and engagements most scrupulously. He will cer- 
 tainly be no friend to the French, yet on the other hand 
 he will not prove himself their implacable foe, like Julius. 
 He dreams of honour and glory. He will patronise men 
 of letters, at least improwisatori, poets and musicians. 
 He will erect palaces. He will perform with care the 
 sacred offices, and will not neglect any ecclesiastical duty. 
 He will not rush into any war, except a crusade against 
 the Turks, unless much provoked or absolutely compelled 
 thereto. He will try to finish whatsoever he has under- 
 taken. He will be unassuming in manner, and easily 
 prevailed on. These are my prognostications concern- 
 ing Leo, but men change from hour to hour, and the 
 Divine power often plays tricks with our human calcula- 
 tions." 
 
 Although Pio's general estimate of character and fore- 
 cast of Leo's policy sound fairly accurate, yet in the letter 
 just quoted the writer evidently does not lay sufficient 
 stress on the new Pontiff's overweening but carefully hidden 
 ambition, the existence of which was little suspected by 
 the world at large, or even by his own intimates who had 
 
 1 Roscoe, vol. i., p. 352, note 13.
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 131 
 
 elected him Pope. As the son of a ruler who had pur- 
 posely instilled into his children's minds his own principles 
 of statecraft from their earliest years, Leo possessed ad- 
 vantages above most of his predecessors in that he had 
 been familiar from a tender age with the subtle methods 
 of a tyranny which concealed the most selfish aims under 
 a beneficent guise. During the years of ignominious exile 
 under Alexander VI. and of hard service under Julius II. 
 the Cardinal de' Medici had been digesting the paternal 
 advice he had received in his youth, whilst his late ex- 
 periences of poverty and insignificance had only served 
 to whet his natural appetite for pomp and power. 
 Throughout this period of nearly twenty years he had 
 found ample opportunity for the cultivation of those arts 
 of dissimulation, whereof his father was acknowledged so 
 able an exponent, and of which Leo himself was destined 
 to become a yet more perfect master. As the Magnifi- 
 cent Lorenzo had ever masked the machinery of his re- 
 lentless tyranny by genial manners and by a wise rejec- 
 tion of all the outward attributes of majesty, so Giovanni 
 de' Medici had learned to hide his most cherished schemes 
 in the event of future success under an aspect of careless 
 gaiety, and even of idleness. But at last the wheel of 
 Fortune had turned ; at last the hour for putting into 
 practice the theories privately formulated in past years 
 had arrived. In the spring of 1512 we find Giovanni 
 de' Medici poor, an exile and even a prisoner ; twelve 
 months later he is Supreme Pontiff with boundless wealth 
 and undisputed master once more of the city of his 
 ancestors. 
 
 As scion of a ruling house which had held in kindly 
 but undoubted thraldom for four generations one of the 
 richest states of Italy, the new Pope's position was far 
 superior to that of a plebeian Delia Rovere, desiring
 
 i 3 2 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 only the glory of the States of the Church, of which he 
 had been elected ruler for life ; still less was it compar- 
 able with the newly acquired sovereignty of an aristo- 
 cratic adventurer like the Borgia, who had endeavoured 
 to utilise the Papacy as a means of founding in Italy a 
 new reigning dynasty. Nevertheless, Leo X. had un- 
 doubtedly absorbed not a little of the polity of both his 
 predecessors, for from Julius he obtained the grandiose 
 idea of freeing Italy from the presence of the foreigner, 
 whilst Alexander's open intention to weld Central Italy 
 into one important state strongly appealed to the personal 
 ambition of the Medici. In Italian politics therefore 
 Leo X., following the more private aim of raising his 
 House to a height hitherto undreamed of, had set his 
 heart upon forming the duchies of Ferrara and Urbino 
 together with the towns of Parma, Piacenza and Modena 
 into a new compact realm, of which the papal nephew 
 or brother was to become sovereign under Leo's own 
 guidance. But this ambitious attempt to create a brand- 
 new state was intended only as a step towards a far 
 wider and more patriotic policy. The French, already 
 discomfited at the time of Leo's election, and now by 
 the recent battle of Novara driven altogether out of Italy, 
 might yet in course of time be made useful instruments 
 for expelling the victorious Spanish forces from the 
 Milanese and the kingdom of Naples. It was in truth 
 a dangerous game, this proposed setting of the two lead- 
 ing European powers against each other by means of a 
 delicate but unscrupulous diplomacy, which was based 
 on the Pope's fixed intention of making an open pact 
 with one party and of intriguing with the other. Indeed, 
 Leo X. has not without reason been credited with the 
 invention of the maxim recommending this tortuous 
 practice, which was bound to produce ultimate disaster
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 133 
 
 for its followers ; a result that was achieved, not indeed 
 in Leo's reign, but in that of his successor and faithful 
 pupil, Pope Clement VII. Julius then having scattered 
 the French by means of the Spaniards, and Leo in his 
 turn having removed the conquering Spanish forces by 
 the subsequent aid of France, it was secretly hoped that 
 Italy would by this date be sufficiently consolidated to 
 prevent any further encroachment from either nation ; 
 and thus the whole country would be definitely and for 
 ever relieved of the presence of the "barbarian," and 
 the House of Medici with Leo at its head would become 
 paramount throughout the whole peninsula. With all 
 the might and resources of Italy concentrated thus in 
 his own family and holding the keys of St. Peter in his 
 hands, Leo began to indulge in the hope of being able 
 some day to dictate terms to princes beyond the Alps, 
 and even perhaps to bring the Empire itself beneath the 
 dominion of the Church, as had actually come to pass in 
 the reign of his great predecessor and fellow-countryman, 
 the monk Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII. Without 
 stopping to criticise this attractive conception of a great 
 Medicean supremacy, based alike on secular and ecclesi- 
 astical power, or to expose the many weak places in 
 this magnificent fabric of future policy, we must acknow- 
 ledge that such a scheme offered a singularly brilliant 
 and alluring prospect ; and that it was not altogether 
 impossible of attainment may be gathered from the 
 views and suggestions concerning an universal Medicean 
 despotism in Italy set forth by Machiavelli in the pages 
 of the Prince. 
 
 It was Leo's particular opportunity or misfortune that 
 his election had taken place at a most critical moment, 
 when Europe was not only affected by the various wars 
 and intrigues of her rulers, but was likely to be still
 
 i 3 4 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 further disturbed by great impending changes in the near 
 future. Henry VII. had died three years before Leo's 
 accession, and the English throne was now occupied by 
 a talented but restless young prince ; whilst it must have 
 appeared evident to the more thoughtful that the sickly 
 Louis XII. of France, the aged Emperor and the cunning 
 old Ferdinand the Catholic of Spain must ere long be 
 replaced in the course of nature by youthful heirs. It 
 was upon the young princes therefore rather than upon 
 the old and passing sovereigns that the leading states- 
 men of the day looked with feelings of anxiety and hope ; 
 their attention being engrossed by a contemplation of 
 the youthful Henry Tudor, of the stripling cousin of the 
 French King, and more particularly of the Archduke 
 Charles, in whom a disproportionate amount of European 
 sovereignty seemed likely to centre at no distant date. 
 The uncertainties of the present and the possibilities of 
 the future presented therefore a wide field of operations 
 to a Pontiff, who was eager to turn every combination 
 and every chance in the outside world to the immediate 
 advantage of his own family and to the eventual solidarity 
 of Italy by means of the unique powers wherewith he had 
 recently been invested. "The vigorous policy of Julius 
 II.," remarks Bishop Creighton, "was now abandoned 
 for one more in the temper of the age. Leo X., with a 
 genial smile upon his face, pursued his ends by an elabor- 
 ate system of mine and countermine." 
 
 In accordance with this deep-laid plan of family 
 aggrandisement, which during the next six years gives 
 the key-note to all his policy both at home and abroad, 
 Leo's first step was to create the easy-going Giuliano 
 de' Medici Gonfalionere of the Church, and to nominate 
 his young nephew Lorenzo governor of Florence in 
 
 1 Creighton, vol. v., p. 229.
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 135 
 
 Giuliano's stead. For the education and guidance of 
 this youth of twenty summers there had recently been 
 drawn up a manual of statecraft, based on the well-known 
 tenets of the Magnificent and approved, if indeed it were 
 not actually composed, by the Pontiff himself, so as to 
 teach the heir of the family all the devices necessary to 
 the proper maintenance of a Medicean despotism in the 
 city without offering open violence to the old republican 
 forms. Giuliano, however, the Pope evidently pre- 
 ferred to keep near his own person in Rome, partly out 
 of the genuine affection he bore to his younger brother, 
 but partly also, perhaps, because he had good reason to 
 fear the possible effects of Giuliano's liberal views and 
 simple nature in his dealings with the fickle and turbulent 
 population of Florence. At the suggestion of Leo him- 
 self the city of Rome now proposed to do honour to the 
 Pope's brother, and arrangements on a most lavish scale 
 were made to promote him to the honorary rank of a 
 Roman patrician in September, 1513. For this purpose 
 the palace of the Capitol had been decorated in the most 
 elaborate manner with a series of pictures designed by 
 Baldassare Peruzzi, who had therein portrayed numerous 
 scenes illustrating the historical connection between 
 Ancient Etruria and the city of Rome. The whole 
 ceremony, which had been planned in detail by Gian- 
 Giorgio Cesarini, Gonfalionere or standard-bearer of the 
 Roman Senate and People, included a procession from 
 the Vatican to the Capitol, endless addresses of welcome 
 to the Medicean prince from every public body in Rome, 
 long-winded Latin orations from ambitious poets, and 
 finally a banquet of barbaric profusion which lasted for 
 six hours. The feast was in its turn succeeded by a 
 pastoral eclogue, wherein the actors, after bestowing the 
 most fulsome praise on Leo, did not scruple to poke the
 
 136 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 broadest fun at the late Pope's foibles ; a piece of bad 
 taste which convulsed the whole audience with laughter. 
 The masque was followed by a series of allegorical scenes, 
 including one in which a beautiful woman, robed in cloth- 
 of-gold and intended to personify the city of Rome, was 
 borne on the shoulders of a giant to Giuliano's chair to 
 thank him for the gracious condescension wherewith he 
 had accepted the late homage of the imperial city. After 
 other conceits of this nature, the entertainment was made 
 to conclude with a significant representation of Florence 
 weeping for the loss of her Medicean progeny and being 
 comforted by Cybele, the mother of all the gods, who 
 united the two female figures of Rome and Florence and 
 suggested that henceforth both cities should dwell in 
 mutual concord and happiness under the rule of that 
 family, which loved each with an equal devotion. Next 
 day a broad Latin comedy, the Poenulus of Plautus, was 
 presented in an improvised theatre "with such elegance 
 that it is scarcely credible that even in the days of 
 Plautus himself his play could have been performed 
 better". 1 In grateful appreciation of his brother's re- 
 ception by the city, the Pontiff granted various privi- 
 leges, even reducing the tax upon salt always a most 
 jealously-guarded source of revenue in those days, whilst 
 again in return for Leo's generosity the citizens of Rome 
 caused a marble effigy of the Pope, the work of Giacomo 
 del Duca, one of Michelangelo's pupils, to be placed upon 
 the Capitol with the brief laudatory inscription, Optimi 
 Liberalissimique Pontificis Memoriae S.P.Q.R? 
 
 The festivities held at the Capitol in honour of Giuli- 
 
 1 Creighton, vol. v., pp. 226, 227. Lanciani, pp. 96-98. L. Pas- 
 qualucci, Giuliano de Medici eletto cittadino Romano in 1513 
 (Roma, 1881). 
 
 2 This statue of Leo X., a very feeble work, still adorns the 
 palace of the Conservatori on the Capitol.
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 137 
 
 ano de' Medici and expressive of the new union between 
 Rome and Florence, were succeeded two months later 
 by the submission of the French King, who now re- 
 pudiated the schismatic Council, that had given so much 
 offence to the autocratic Julius. Since the disaster of 
 Xovara, Louis had lost every foothold in Northern Italy, 
 besides being crippled by the defeat of Guinegatte. or 
 the Battle of the Spurs, at the hands of the united English 
 and Imperial forces ; whilst the hereditary ally of France 
 and foe of England had recently been crushed on the 
 fatal held of Flodden in this very year. Now that the 
 humiliated Frenchmen had been expelled from Italian 
 soil, Leo did not intend to pursue them with the unreason- 
 ing rancour of his fiery predecessor ; on the contrary, 
 the Pope was secretly meditating to make some use of 
 the defeated nation for his cherished object of ridding 
 Italy equally of the favoured Spaniards. Smooth and 
 pious words were accordingly addressed to the hesitating 
 Louis, and every effort was made to clear the path of 
 obstacles in the way of his coming submission. The 
 newly restored Maximilian Sforza, Duke of Milan, was 
 urged to treat with leniency and even with generosity 
 those of his subjects who had accepted the late French 
 rule ; the E mperor was admonished likewise on the 
 duties of mercy and forgiveness in a Christian prince ; 
 and even in his congratulatory letter to Henry VIII. on 
 his successful repulse at Flodden of James IV. of Scot- 
 land, Leo cannot refrain from remarking that "it was 
 certainly very distressing for me to hear of so much 
 shedding of Christian blood, of the destruction of such 
 numbers of those who are dear to Our Universal Lord, 
 and especially of the evil fate of an illustrious and valiant 
 Christian monarch, the husband of thine own sister". 1 
 
 is X. Ltttcrae, Roscoe, Appendix XXVII.
 
 138 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 With the Pope thus posing openly as a public peace- 
 maker and exhorting the sovereigns of Europe to acts 
 of Christian charity and forgiveness by means of letters 
 couched in the elegant Latin of his secretary, the erudite 
 Bembo, the year 1514 was everywhere marked by a 
 cessation of open warfare and by an increase of diplo- 
 matic intrigue. Marriages with Leo's approval were 
 likewise planned with the object of ending hereditary 
 feuds amongst the reigning families of Europe ; nor was 
 the Medicean House itself forgotten in these undertakings 
 of political matrimony, for the Pope obtained no small 
 amount of satisfaction from the union of his brother 
 Giuliano with the Princess Filiberta of Savoy, a sister 
 of the widowed Duchess of Orleans and consequently 
 aunt to the future Francis I. of France. The news 
 of this alliance, a brilliant one for the quasi-royal 
 House of Medici, was warmly received at the Roman 
 court, where the bride's arrival was awaited with im- 
 patience as the one thing needful to complete the perfec- 
 tion of that ecclesiastical paradise, which alone required 
 the permanent presence of a princess in its midst : 
 " God be praised ! " writes the delighted Cardinal da 
 Bibbiena to the expected bridegroom, "for here in Rome 
 we lack nothing but a court with ladies ! " But this 
 period of comparative peace and repose was ere long 
 rudely disturbed by the occurrence of one of those events 
 which all far-seeing men must long have anticipated. 
 On New Year's Day, 1515, expired Louis XII. worn 
 out by the gaiety and high spirits of his young bride, 
 the Princess Mary of England, 1 and his sudden demise 
 raised to the throne of France the ever-famous King 
 Francis I. This ambitious youth had long conceived 
 an unbounded admiration for the aims and personality 
 
 1 Sister of Henry VIII. and afterwards Duchess of Brandon.
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 139 
 
 of the brilliant but short-lived Gaston de Foix, so 
 that, taking the ill-fated victor of Ravenna for his model, 
 Francis now burned to revenge the late French de- 
 feats in Italy and to win back that sovereignty 
 which Charles VIII. had enjoyed for so brief a space. 
 Except that he was youthful and vain-glorious, the new 
 King of France possessed no feature either mental or 
 bodily in common with the little caricature of a man, 
 who had been crowned at Naples twenty years before 
 and had been hailed as saviour of Italy and regenerator 
 of the Church by the impassioned Savonarola. To a 
 generous and heroic disposition and a shrewd if unripe 
 understanding Francis added also remarkable beauty of 
 form, for he was of commanding stature and owned an 
 attractive face, which was distinguished rather than 
 marred by a long but shapely nose, the nose that Aretino 
 once celebrated in a comical yet complimentary ode. 
 In short, Francis was the ideal young warrior-prince of 
 his age ; handsome in person, brave in the battle-field, 
 highly gifted in intellect as became a grandson of the 
 poet Duke of Orleans, courteous to all in the days of 
 prosperity and destined to prove himself patient and 
 dignified in that hour of humiliation which lay in waiting 
 for him in the distant and as yet unforeseen future. His 
 adoring sister, Margaret of Valois, " la Perle des 
 Valois, la Marguerite des Marguerites," hastening to 
 rescue her darling, her brother, her king after the fatal 
 catastrophe of Pavia, has described Francis of France 
 for us in simple yet living verses of her own composi- 
 tion : 
 
 " C'est Luy qui a de tout la connoissance. . . . 
 De sa beaute il est blanc et vermeil, 
 Les cheveux bruns, de graude et belle taille, 
 En terre il est comme au ciel le soleil. 
 Hardi, vaillant, sage, et preux en bataille,
 
 i 4 o THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 II est be"nin, doux, humble en sa grandeur, 
 
 Fort et puissant, et plein de patience, 
 
 Soit en prison, en tristesse et malheur. . . . 
 
 II a de Dieu le parfait science. . . . 
 
 Bref, Luy tout seul est digne d'etre Roi." 1 
 
 Such is the picture drawn by Margaret of Valois of 
 her sovereign and brother, who now in his twenty-first 
 year declared his intention to invade Italy and to succeed 
 or perish in the attempt. 
 
 With a well-equipped army of 60,000 infantry, 
 30,000 cavalry and 72 pieces of artillery, Francis, ac- 
 companied by the veteran Milanese general Trivulzi, 
 the young Constable of Bourbon and that skilful Spanish 
 engineer, Pedro Navarro, whom his master Ferdinand 
 of Spain had been too mean to ransom after the battle 
 of Ravenna, crossed the Alps despite all obstacles human 
 and natural, and entered the plain of Saluzzo in Pied- 
 mont in the early autumn of 1515. The forces of the 
 Pope, the Emperor and the Duke of Milan, who had 
 lately convened a league " for the defence and deliverance 
 of Italy" against the new French aggression, were 
 astounded and disheartened by this unexpected and 
 marvellous strategy. Nor was it long before the two 
 armies found themselves encamped opposite each other 
 at Marignano, some few miles from Milan, the joint 
 forces of the confederates consisting of the Spanish army 
 under Cardona ; of a vast array of Swiss mercenaries in 
 the pay of Pope and Emperor and controlled by the 
 warlike Matthew Schinner, Cardinal of Sion ; and last, 
 of Leo's own army commanded by his nephew, Lorenzo 
 de' Medici, who had been given the title of "Captain 
 of the Church and of the Florentines ". We are at this 
 point offered a typical example of Leo's crooked policy 
 in the circumstance that Lorenzo, who had been ap- 
 
 1 J. Michelet, La Renaissance.
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 141 
 
 pointed to fill this post owing to the illness of his uncle 
 Giuliano, had received explicit but private instructions 
 from the Pope that the troops under his command were 
 to be led into the fray only after the issue of the engage- 
 ment had been definitely decided. But although de- 
 termined to safeguard his own interests in the event of 
 a possible French victory, yet so anxious was Leo for 
 the defeat of the invaders, that he likewise sent secret 
 orders to Schinner to urge forward the Swiss and to 
 allow no chance of their defection by means of French 
 gold. Following his instructions from Rome, therefore, 
 Schinner addressed the 30,000 Switzers before the 
 citadel of Milan, bidding them in passionate phrases to 
 defend the cause of Holy Church and of the Keys of 
 St. Peter by annihilating the barbarian host now en- 
 camped at Marignano : "Would that I were permitted 
 to wash my hands in the Frenchmen's blood ! " is 
 the concluding sentence of the fierce harangue that 
 Guicciardini puts into the militant cardinal's mouth. 
 
 After some vicissitudes in the field the great battle 
 of Marignano ended in a decisive victory for the French, 
 who thus destroyed for ever the overweening reputation 
 of that Swiss infantry, upon which Leo had calculated 
 with such confidence. Unhappy Milan at once opened 
 her gates to the conqueror, whilst her Sforza Duke, 
 weary of being the puppet alternately of Pope, Emperor 
 and French King, gladly agreed to accept a pension 
 from the magnanimous Francis, who now assumed the 
 sovereignty of the whole Milanese. Meanwhile, before 
 the tide of success had turned definitely in favour of the 
 French, the impetuous Schinner had hastily despatched 
 a messenger to Rome, telling of the expected victory of 
 the confederate army, and this welcome report was re- 
 ceived at the Roman court with such transports of open
 
 i 4 2 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 delight, that the Cardinal Bibbiena actually gave orders 
 for a public illumination. But that very evening, whilst 
 the city was sparkling with the festal lights of supposed 
 triumph, Marino Giorgi, the Venetian envoy, whose 
 state was once more in close alliance with the invading 
 French, obtained authentic information as to the true 
 result of the recent battle near Milan. Early the follow- 
 ing morning, therefore, Giorgi presented himself at the 
 Vatican to request an immediate audience of the Pope. 
 Generally unpunctual in his habits, Leo was ever a late 
 riser from bed, and accordingly had to be awakened on 
 so important an occasion by his chamberlain. Half- 
 dressed and still heavy with sleep, the Pope anxiously 
 hurried into the hall of audience. Taking a malicious 
 but concealed pleasure in the Pontiff's obvious agitation 
 and pretending to assume that Leo's equanimity would 
 in no wise be affected by his news, the unfeeling Giorgi 
 much enjoyed the delivery of his unwelcome message. 
 " Holy Father, yesterday Your Holiness gave me bad 
 news, which turned out to be false ; but to-day I can 
 offer you information which is not only good, but also 
 true. The Swiss are utterly routed ! " Glancing at the 
 accompanying despatch, Leo, with the habitual smile 
 for once absent from a woe-begone and terrified counten- 
 ance, forgot for a brief moment his accustomed arts of 
 almost oriental dissimulation. Clasping his hands he 
 cried aloud with the genuine alarm of a trickster un- 
 masked, " What, then, will become of us, and also of 
 you?" "So far as we are concerned, all will be well," 
 replied the unconcerned ambassador, "seeing that we 
 are the Most Christian King's own allies, nor is Your 
 
 l4< Quid ergo erit de nobis, et quid de vobis?" (J. Michelet, La 
 Renaissance, p. 369) " Notre victoire le pressait en flagrant delit de 
 duplicite."
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 143 
 
 Holiness likely to suffer any hurt at his hands " ; and 
 leaving Leo thus a prey to the alarm he had neglected 
 to hide, Giorgi, highly gratified with his late diplomatic 
 encounter, returned to his own house, where a barrel of 
 wine was broached for himself and his companions to 
 drink to the late victory and to the memory of the slain 
 at Marignano. On the following day Giorgi was sum- 
 moned to the Vatican, where he was angrily accused by 
 Leo of having openly rejoiced at the late intelligence, to 
 which the envoy replied with an air of astonished 
 innocence : " Holy Father, the rejoicings were confined 
 to your own palace the other evening, there were none 
 in my house! " " It was all the fault of the Cardinal of 
 Santa Maria in Portico (Bibbiena)," retorted the Pope, 
 "and he acted without my knowledge in the matter. 
 But, my lord ambassador of Venice, we shall now see 
 what the Most Christian King will do, for we shall place 
 ourselves in his hands and at his mercy." " Holy 
 Father," replied Giorgi, who was thoroughly enjoying 
 Leo's discomfiture, "neither Your Holiness nor the Holy 
 See will obtain the least hurt, for is not the Most 
 Christian King a son of the Church ?' u 
 
 Having decided to seek the mercy of the Most 
 Christian King, Leo proceeded without further delay, 
 in spite of the alarm and opposition of the Roman court, 
 to arrange for a conference with Francis who, although 
 
 o o 
 
 fully aware of the Pope's treachery at Marignano, was 
 most anxious for various reasons to gain the latter's 
 good-will and alliance. Late in November, therefore, 
 Leo arrived with an immense retinue outside the walls 
 of Florence on his way northward towards Bologna, the 
 fixed trysting-place of King and Pontiff, but at the 
 
 1 Alberi, Relazioni Venete, serie 2 da , vol. iii., p. 44 ; Creighton, 
 vol. v., p. 244.
 
 144 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 special request of the Signory, he consented to tarry 
 awhile at the Gianfigliazzi villa in the suburb of 
 Marignolle, whilst the city was busily preparing a public 
 reception worthy of one who was its first citizen as well 
 as its spiritual chief. It was the Medici's first entrance 
 into his birthplace as Supreme Pontiff, and even his 
 unbounded craving for adulation and pageantry must 
 have been appeased by the sight of the triumphal arches, 
 the elaborate artistic surprises and the applauding crowds 
 of his own countrymen, for whom Leo with all his faults 
 and selfishness bore a sincere affection. The Pope with 
 eighteen cardinals and accompanied by hundreds of 
 nobles and men-at-arms made his state-entry into the 
 city by the Porta Romana, which still bears on its brown 
 weather-stained face a broad marble tablet telling pos- 
 terity of this auspicious event and of the honour conferred 
 thereby on the Florentines. So vast was the papal 
 train that the authorities had first removed the outer 
 courtyard of the gate itself, through which the brilliant 
 slow-moving throng passed on St. Andrew's Day, 3Oth 
 November, 1515. At the church of San Felice below 
 the Pitti Palace, through Leo's spy-glass was perceived 
 the first of the many triumphal erections ; this at San 
 Felice bearing on its crest a bust of the Magnificent 
 Lorenzo with the legend borrowed from Holy Writ, 
 " This is my beloved Son " (Hie est Filius meus dilectus], 
 the sight of which made the emotional Pontiff fall into 
 tears. Down the broad street of Via Maggio with its 
 stately but gloomy palaces, across the old bridge of 
 Santa Trinita backed by the huge form of the Spini 
 mansion, and thence through the Porta Rossa, the New 
 Market and the narrow Via Vacchereccia into the great 
 square of the Signoria below the frowning civic palace 
 wound the long papal procession, with Leo himself in
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 145 
 
 tiara and glittering cope bestowing numberless benedic- 
 tions upon his fellow-citizens to the accompaniment of a 
 continuous shower of broad silver pieces amongst the 
 bystanders. Beneath the wide arches of the Loggia de' 
 Lanzi a huge figure of gilded wood representing Hercules 
 with his club, the work of Baccio Bandinelli, had been 
 erected, overtopping Donatello's group of Judith slaying 
 Holofernes, which this same city of Florence had placed 
 in Orcagna's beautiful arcade at the time of the expulsion 
 of the Medici some twenty years before, to serve as a 
 solemn warning to tyrants, as its terse inscription testifies 
 to-day. 1 Sweeping past the Loggia and the historic 
 statue of the Florentine Marzocco, that placid lion clasp- 
 ing the emblem of the City of the Lily in his paws, the 
 cavalcade proceeded by way of the frowning mass of 
 the Bargello towards the gigantic form of the Duomo, 
 the Pope meanwhile surveying through his monocle the 
 cheering crowds of townsmen and peasants and stopping 
 ever and anon to admire the many festal surprises, or to 
 read their flattering inscriptions. Possibly this enthusi- 
 astic reception in his native Florence may have seemed 
 even more agreeable and satisfying to the fortunate Leo 
 than those splendid pageants which had marked his 
 progress from St. Peter's to the Lateran, less than three 
 years before ; but it was evident that the popular rejoic- 
 ings were equally sincere and spontaneous in both cities. 
 On reaching the Cathedral steps Leo must have ex- 
 pressed his astonishment at the remarkable transforma- 
 tion of its naked and unsightly front through the skill of 
 the architect, Jacopo Sansovino, aided by the ready 
 brush of Andrea del Sarto, then a rising young Florentine 
 painter. For from the crest of the roof to the level of 
 
 1 Exemplum Sal. Pub. Gives. Pos, Mccccxcv. 
 
 10
 
 i 4 6 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 the ground a temporary facade adorned with columns, 
 cornices, architraves and portals, all fashioned out of 
 wood and plaster so as to imitate rare and antique 
 marbles, had been hastily erected, with statues in its 
 niches and with its flat spaces covered in chiaroscuro in 
 "the Perfect Painter's" most graceful and attractive 
 manner. " Everybody," says Landucci, " was filled with 
 amazement at its pictures and ornaments ; saying it 
 ought to serve as a model for a new facade to the 
 Cathedral, since all were so pleased at its noble and 
 stately appearance ; indeed, we were all distressed to 
 see it dismantled and removed." 1 Within the spacious 
 nave of the church itself a narrow but lofty platform had 
 been constructed on trestles, whereby the Pontiff and his 
 companions might advance unimpeded to the high altar, 
 whilst the immense crowd below could secure a better 
 view of the illustrious guest. On reaching the altar, 
 His Holiness doffed jewelled tiara and gorgeous cope, 
 appearing to public gaze clad in the rochet of white 
 brocade, the crimson mozzetta or cape, and the loose 
 skull-cap, also of crimson velvet, in which Raphael has 
 depicted Leo X. for us in his most famous portrait. 
 Thus arrayed, the Pontiff, after offering up prayers and 
 making some splendid gifts to the Cathedral treasury, 
 pursued his course amid renewed applause towards the 
 great Dominican convent of Santa Maria Novella, 
 where a set of rooms, magnificently appointed, had 
 been prepared for his reception. Luxurious quarters 
 had likewise been provided for the eighteen cardinals, 
 and for such distinguished guests as the poet Sannazzaro, 
 the chamberlain Serapica, the papal secretaries Bembo 
 and Sadoleto and others who had swelled the train of 
 
 1 Landucci, p. 356. Vasari, Vita di Andrea del Sarto.
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 147 
 
 Leo on this occasion. Of the efforts thus made by the 
 richest city in Italy to do honour to Pope Leo, her own 
 citizen, Landucci mentions fifteen arches, trophies, 
 obelisks, statues or emblematic figures placed at various 
 points of the Pope's line of procession ; nor does he omit 
 to mention the wholesale destruction of dwelling-houses 
 that were thought to interfere with the pleasing effects 
 aimed at by the Florentine artists, who had been entrusted 
 by the Signory with the general scheme of decoration. 
 Over two thousand workmen had been kept busily em- 
 ployed night and day for the space of a full month, 
 making use of the churches themselves as temporary 
 workshops, whilst the expenses entailed amounted to no 
 less a sum than 70,000 florins, a piece of civic extra- 
 vagance which caused no little regret to the frugal 
 Landucci, who laments this squandering of the city's 
 wealth upon "such flimsy conceits, which passed away like 
 a shadow," although he affects to rejoice at the benefits 
 conferred thereby on the carpenters and artisans of 
 Florence. 1 
 
 On the following day, however, the Pope exchanged 
 his apartments at Santa Maria Novella for the famous 
 suite of rooms in the Palazzo Vecchio, still known as 
 " the Quarter of Pope Leo X.," which in later years were 
 adorned with an interesting series of frescoes from the 
 brush of Vasari, who on the walls and ceilings of these 
 chambers has commemorated Leo's principal achieve- 
 ments, as well as those of other members of the senior 
 branch of the Medicean House. Although this gallery 
 of historical incidents in the careers of Leo X., Clement 
 VII. and their immediate ancestors is not the work of a 
 contemporaneous artist (for Vasari was but an infant at 
 
 Landucci, p. 359.
 
 148 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 the date of Leo's official entry into Florence), yet these 
 beautiful and well-preserved frescoes in the so-called 
 Quartiere di Leone Decimo of the old Florentine public 
 palace are deserving of more attention than is usually 
 paid to them. In particular, the large composition de- 
 picting the papal procession just described, with its 
 interesting view of the Piazza, della Signoria in Vasari's 
 time and with its curious representation of Leo's eighteen 
 scarlet-clad cardinals on mule-back, of the Pope himself 
 borne aloft in his chair of state, and of the papal 
 train, which includes portraits of Bembo, Aretino, 
 Serapica, Lorenzo de' Medici and of half the notabilities 
 of the Leonine Age, is especially worthy of careful inspec- 
 tion by those who wish to study the gayer and more 
 pleasing aspect of the life of the Italian Renaissance. 1 
 
 But Leo's first visit to his native town was of neces- 
 sity curtailed, for he was most anxious to reach his true 
 destination, Bologna. After kneeling beside the tomb 
 of his father in San Lorenzo, where to the edification of 
 the impressed bystanders he made his orisons with tears 
 streaming down his cheeks, and after spending some 
 hours with the ailing Giuliano in the old mansion of his 
 family, Leo prepared to leave Florence on 3rd Decem- 
 ber for Bologna, which city the Pope had prudently 
 selected as his place of meeting with King Francis, whom 
 naturally he was anxious to avoid receiving in Rome 
 whilst flushed with his recent victory. The main features 
 of the coming conference had already been arranged as 
 early as i5th October, between the French chancellor, 
 Duprat, and Ludovico da Canossa, bishop of Tricarico, 
 who was perhaps Leo's ablest diplomatic agent. Broadly 
 speaking, by this suggested treaty the Pope was to re- 
 
 1 Bacciotti, Firenze Illustrata, vol. i.
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 149 
 
 pudiate his former alliance with the Emperor (with whom, 
 it is probably needless to remark, Leo was still in con- 
 stant communication) ; he was to surrender those coveted 
 cities of Parma and Piacenza to the King of France, as 
 conqueror of the Milanese ; and he was also required to 
 restore for a fixed sum the towns of Reggio and Modena, 
 which he had lately acquired from the Emperor, to their 
 rightful owner, Alfonso of Ferrara, who was Francis' 
 ally. In return for these concessions, Francis swore to 
 protect the States of the Church and the Medicean realm 
 of Florence, and also to bestow revenues and commands 
 upon the papal nephew and brother ; whilst the long- 
 standing dispute concerning the privileges of the Gallican 
 Church was to be settled to suit the mutual convenience 
 of King and Pope, without reference to the French 
 people or clergy. Under the circumstances, it cannot 
 be denied that this proposed compact, which was mainly 
 due to the arts and blandishments of the insinuating 
 Canossa, was highly favourable to the Pontiff, who hoped 
 moreover to secure even better terms than these as the 
 result of a personal interview with the youthful King. 
 
 The Pope's reception by the Bolognese, many of 
 whom were still regretting the expulsion of their late 
 Bentivoglio rulers, offered a striking contrast with the 
 late civic greetings in Florence. Neither cheering crowds 
 nor triumphal arches met the eyes of the entering caval- 
 cade as it threaded its way through the arcaded streets 
 of the town towards the great Palazzo Pubblico, where 
 the leading citizens received their papal master with 
 black looks and in a sulky silence, which was even broken 
 once or twice by the raising of the old cry of Sega! 
 Sega f of the departed Bentivogli. 1 But Leo was deter- 
 
 1 Sega, "a saw"; the heraldic emblem of the House of Benti- 
 voglio.
 
 ISO THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 mined to show himself gracious on this occasion, and 
 therefore only reproved the indignant Paris de Grassis, 
 when the latter pointed out to him that the authorities 
 were treating His Holiness with scant respect, since only 
 one canopy of silk and another of shabby stained cloth 
 had been provided by the city to afford the customary 
 shelter for the Sacrament and for the person of the 
 Supreme Pontiff. 1 Yet Leo's good humour was proof 
 even against conduct so dastardly as this, so that he 
 merely gave orders for the silken baldacchino to be borne 
 above the Host, whilst he himself dispensed altogether 
 with this particular emblem of state. Under these de- 
 pressing conditions of manifest disloyalty and dislike, the 
 Pope formally convoked the consistory in a hall of the 
 palace, where twenty cardinals were now collected, the 
 most prominent absentee of the College being Francesco 
 Soderini, whom Leo had left behind in Rome to act as 
 legate, not out of any special confidence in the Florentine 
 Cardinal's powers, but because he deemed his presence 
 in Florence or Bologna as likely to excite intrigue. 
 
 On nth December Francis was met in state by 
 Giulio de' Medici at the city gates, but in spite of the 
 exhortations of Paris de Grassis, the King positively re- 
 fused to be made the central figure of an organised 
 pageant, declaring bluntly that "he cared not a whit for 
 processions ". 2 Plainly habited, the young monarch made 
 his way through the pressing and staring throng of 
 citizens towards the Palazzo Pubblico, where he was 
 most cordially received by the Supreme Pontiff. Al- 
 though the marplot of all his far-reaching schemes in 
 Italy, Leo, who had a keen appreciation of youthful grace 
 and beauty, could not but regard with interest, or even 
 
 1 Diary of Paris de Grassis, Creighton, vol. v. 
 
 2 Fabroni, Appendix XLIV.
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 151 
 
 with paternal affection this young Prince Charming, who 
 was now ushered bare-headed into his presence. Kneel- 
 ing at the pontifical feet, the French King made solemn 
 profession in his native tongue of his intense devotion 
 towards the Holy See and naively expressed his pleasure 
 at thus beholding face to face for the first time " the Pope, 
 the Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ ". To this ingenuous 
 greeting, Leo, who was perfectly versed in the art of 
 public oratory, "replied in the most excellent manner, 
 for fair speech was always customary with him ". The 
 formal ceremonies of the meeting concluded, a private 
 conference between Pope and King was next arranged, 
 whereat Leo without doubt made full use of every 
 Medicean art to threaten or cajole the prince into re- 
 laxing some of the terms already agreed upon. But 
 upon the point of Leo's surrender of Parma, Piacenza 
 and Modena, the King, despite his youthful years and 
 his expressed veneration for the person of the Pontiff, 
 remained obdurate. Leo, therefore, much exasperated 
 at this failure of the usual methods of Medicean diplomacy, 
 refused on his part to listen to Francis' earnest appeal 
 for the pardon of the Duke of Urbino, whose ruin the 
 Pope was then certainly contemplating. Leo likewise 
 received very coldly the proposal for the King's investi- 
 ture of the realm of Naples, which he declared it would 
 be impossible for him to grant during the lifetime of 
 Ferdinand of Spain ; and it was the Medici's undoubted 
 diplomatic skill that alone prevented the young King, 
 elated by his recent success at Marignano and supported 
 by a splendid army, from advancing southward and 
 forcibly seizing that coveted kingdom, which His Holiness 
 was so unwilling to bestow. On the treatment of the 
 defenceless Gallican Church, in the suppression of whose 
 ancient liberties both Pope and King had a special in-
 
 152 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 terest, Leo and Francis soon came to terms ; nor were 
 they parsimonious in their mutual promises of honours 
 and titles ; Leo bestowing a scarlet hat upon Adrian de 
 Boissy, the king's tutor, and Francis creating Giuliano 
 de' Medici Duke of Nemours. The main result of this 
 conference, therefore, proved not particularly satisfactory 
 to either party, for the King had failed to obtain his 
 chief object, the investiture of the kingdom of Naples ; 
 whilst Leo was greatly irritated at the enforced surrender 
 of Parma and Modena. And although Alfonso of 
 Ferrara had good reason to congratulate himself on the 
 Pope's unwilling consent to give up Modena, yet his 
 brother vassal of the Church, the Delia Rovere Duke of 
 Urbino, must have foreseen his inevitable overthrow in 
 the King's failure to avert the impending vengeance of 
 the angry Pope. 
 
 Francis of France tarried altogether only four days 
 at Bologna, but his brief visit was naturally distinguished 
 by every variety of pageant and ceremony, including a 
 Mass said by Leo in person at the high altar of the great 
 church of San Petronio, on which occasion the French 
 monarch did not hesitate to serve the Pontiff in his holy 
 office by bearing in his own royal hands the basin with 
 the water at the Lavabo. In public a good deal was 
 said on both sides concerning the virtue of Christian 
 peace and charity, as also of the dire necessity of an 
 universal campaign of Christendom against the Turks. 
 Duprat, the French chancellor, even made an im- 
 passioned appeal to the successor of the Fisherman to 
 guide the barque of Christ's Church into the haven of 
 perfect peace ; in short, both parties seem to have ex- 
 hausted themselves in insincere professions of friendship 
 and confidence. For nobody was deceived by these fine 
 sentiments and edifying speeches ; on the contrary, all
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 153 
 
 men present knew of the royal and papal ambitions, nor 
 was anyone ignorant of the punishment that was shortly 
 to fall on the erring Duke of Urbino. 
 
 It is impossible to dwell further on the many events 
 incident to this famous but indecisive conference at 
 Bologna, which has been commemorated for us in one 
 of Raphael's splendid frescoes in the Vatican the Coro- 
 nation of Charlemagne, wherein the Prankish emperor, 
 represented with the clear-cut features, the lank black 
 hair, and the pallid complexion of the youthful Francis 
 of France, receives the imperial diadem at the hands of 
 Pope Leo III., in the guise of his namesake and suc- 
 cessor Leo X. ; whilst the little Ippolito de' Medici, 
 Giuliano's bastard son, in the livery of a page upholds 
 the kneeling emperor's mantle. There was of course 
 the customary interchange of gifts between King and 
 Pope, His Holiness presenting Francis with a fine dia- 
 mond and a golden reliquary containing a piece of the 
 True Cross. The French monarch, however, the future 
 patron of Andrea del Sarto and of Benvenuto Cellini, 
 who already prided himself upon his knowledge of modern 
 and antique art, appeared not a little disappointed at the 
 papal presents. Assuming Leo to be the possessor of 
 an abundant store of ancient statuary in Rome, the 
 young prince coolly expressed to His Holiness an over- 
 whelming desire to possess that marble group of the 
 Laocoon, of whose beauties he had heard such glowing 
 accounts. This masterpiece of classical art, which still 
 remains one of the chief treasures of the Vatican galleries, 
 had been excavated almost intact about seven years 
 previously by the lucky owner of a vineyard on the site 
 of the Baths of Titus. The finder, a certain Felice de' 
 Fredis, had promptly sold his treasure-trove to the late 
 Pope, but in the epitaph upon his tomb in a Roman
 
 154 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 church Felice proudly asserts his claim to popular re- 
 membrance and gratitude as the discoverer of "this 
 breathing group in marble" (respirans simulacrum]}- 
 The present owner of the Laocoon, Pope Leo, must 
 have been indeed startled at the French King's audaci- 
 ous request, but although, in the words of an unkind 
 modern critic, he would sooner have surrendered up 
 the genuine head of an Apostle than this cherished 
 block of marble, the Pontiff managed to keep his counten- 
 ance, graciously declaring his readiness to despatch the 
 desired object to France. Nevertheless, having gained 
 the King's warm thanks for such generosity, it is said that 
 Leo merely sent instructions to that mediocre Florentine 
 sculptor, Baccio Bandinelli, whose copies of the antique 
 were known to be far superior to his original productions, 
 to prepare a replica of the Laocoon with all speed, where- 
 with to satisfy this importunate young conqueror. 
 
 On 1 5th December Francis quitted Bologna, not 
 over-pleased with the results of the late conference, 
 whilst three days later the Pope himself, only tolerably 
 satisfied with the French King's concessions, set out for 
 Florence, arriving there on 22nd December and re- 
 maining eight weeks. This, Leo's last visit to his birth- 
 place, afforded small pleasure either to the Pope or to 
 the Florentines, for the city was suffering from a scarcity 
 of provisions, so that the starving populace was much 
 scandalised at the daily spectacle of thoughtless luxury 
 
 1 The epitaph is quoted by Duppa (Life of Michelangelo, p. 50) : 
 Felici de Fredis, 
 Qui ob proprias virtutes, 
 Et repertum Laocoontis divinum quod 
 In Vaticano cernes fere 
 Respirans simulacrum, 
 Im mortalitatem meruit 
 Anno Domini MDXXVIII.
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 155 
 
 and extravagance in a season of dearth, which was openly 
 exhibited by the younger cardinals, such as Sauli and 
 Petrucci. In addition to the shortage of corn and disas- 
 trous floods in the Arno, the Pope was a prey to the 
 deepest anxiety concerning the deplorable condition of 
 his brother Giuliano, who was rapidly sinking into an 
 early grave. All the males of the House of Medici 
 seem to have been delicate and short-lived, and Giuliano 
 was now in the last stages of a galloping consumption, 
 "appearing utterly shrunken and spent like an expiring 
 candle," says the historian Cambi, who adds that the 
 ailing prince bore his distressing malady with exemplary 
 patience and that the whole city was filled with compas- 
 sion for his sufferings. Removed for change of air from 
 the Medicean palace to the abbey below Fiesole, the 
 dying prince was frequently visited by the Pontiff, of 
 whose presence at Fiesole there still exists a memorial 
 in the papal escutcheon that adorns the steep rocky path- 
 way leading upward from San Domenico. Nor were 
 these meetings between the two brothers rendered easier 
 or less melancholy by Giuliano's constant anxiety con- 
 cerning Leo's open intention to deprive Francesco Delia 
 Rovere of his dominions and to create the young Lorenzo 
 Duke of Urbino in his stead. The past hospitality he 
 had accepted at the court of Urbino and a personal at- 
 tachment to the reigning duke and the Duchess Elisa- 
 betta made the generous Giuliano most eager to appease 
 his brother's wrath, but though as a dying man he im- 
 plored Leo again and again to forgive Delia Rovere for 
 his manifest disobedience and hostility, he could obtain 
 no satisfactory answer to his constant plea. "Think 
 first upon getting well, my Giuliano, for this is no meet 
 time to vex thyself with politics," was ever the evasive 
 reply of the Pontiff, who besides being filled with an in-
 
 i 5 6 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 creasing rancour against the duke was likewise importuned 
 ceaselessly by his sister-in-law, the restless Alfonsina, 
 to proclaim her only son a sovereign prince in Urbino. 
 On 1 9th February, Leo, recalled to Rome by news of 
 the death of the aged Ferdinand of Spain, quitted for 
 ever Florence and his unhappy brother, who expired a 
 month later on I7th March at the abbey of Fiesole in 
 the thirty-eighth year of his age, childless save for one 
 illegitimate son, Ippolito de' Medici, the celebrated 
 Cardinal of a later period. Four days after his death 
 the body of Giuliano was interred in San Lorenzo with 
 the utmost pomp and amidst the general grief of the 
 citizens, for the handsome and liberal-minded if some- 
 what languid and extravagant prince was undeniably the 
 most popular with the Florentines of the Magnificent 
 Lorenzo's three sons. He had always shown moreover 
 a genuine aversion to all tyranny and double dealing, 
 and these rare qualities together with his deep sense of 
 gratitude towards those who had befriended him in days 
 of poverty and exile mark him as worthy of special praise 
 in an age of savage violence and selfish cunning. Alto- 
 gether, despite many moral shortcomings, "Giuliano il 
 Buono," at once the perfect courtier and judicious patron 
 of letters, the intimate friend of Castiglione and Bembo, 
 the handsome prince who was by choice a plain Floren- 
 tine burgher in the citizen's cloak, appears to us one of 
 the most attractive personalities the Italian Renaissance 
 can claim to have produced. 1 And although vexed at 
 his younger brother's lack of ambition and his simplicity 
 of character, Leo loved him dearly, so that his death, 
 though long imminent, was severely felt by the Pontiff, 
 who perhaps rightly had refused to grant a favourite 
 
 1 Giuliano's curious emblem a triangle containing the letters 
 G.L.O.V.I.S. is mentioned by Scipione Ammirato (Opuscoli, vol. iii.).
 
 TOMB OF GIULIANO DE' MEDICI
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 157 
 
 brother's dying request. For it had been to Giuliano 
 that Leo in the first flush of gratified ambition had 
 spoken those famous words, which have never been dis- 
 proved "Since God has given us the Papacy, my 
 Giuliano, let us enjoy it " ; and now half his expected en- 
 joyment had been removed by Giuliano's untimely 
 end. It was a double blow, alike to Leo's private 
 affections and to his political dreams, for undoubtedly 
 the Pope did not bear the same regard towards his 
 nephew Lorenzo, who through his uncle's death had 
 now become the sole surviving layman of his House. 
 There was of course a great display of public mourning 
 in Rome, but Leo himself was plainly admonished by 
 that papal Polonius, his own master of the ceremonies, 
 to control his natural feelings and to show no visible 
 sign of grief to those around him, "since the Supreme 
 Pontiff is not a man, but a demi-god, and ought there- 
 fore always to exhibit a serene and smiling countenance 
 on all occasions to the people V 
 
 It is wholly beyond the scope of the present work to 
 penetrate within the maze of European politics which 
 followed upon the death of Ferdinand of Spain and the 
 peaceful succession of the youthful Archduke Charles to 
 the thrones of Castile and Naples. Close upon this 
 momentous event came the treaty of Noyon and the sub- 
 sequent settlement whereby the series of wars inaugurated 
 by the League of Cambrai and originally directed against 
 the republic of Venice was at last terminated, leaving 
 Venice herself intact indeed in territory but weakened 
 by the long conflict since the evil day of Vaila. All 
 Italy was therefore once more permitted to enjoy an in- 
 
 1 Diary of Paris de Grass is.
 
 158 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 terval of precious peace with the exception of the state 
 of Urbino, which Leo, now secure from French inter- 
 vention, was preparing to crush with all the military and 
 spiritual weapons at his disposal. Three definite charges 
 were first formulated against the trembling duke, who 
 shortly after Giuliano's death was cited to Rome to 
 answer in person before the pontifical throne. Firstly, 
 Francesco- Maria Delia Rovere was reminded of his 
 assassination of Cardinal Alidosi four years before : a 
 crime which rendered him unfit to remain a vassal and 
 true protector of Holy Church ; secondly, he was accused 
 of disobedience to Julius' command to assist the return 
 of the Medici to Florence in 1512, and also of intriguing 
 with the French on several occasions ; and thirdly, he 
 was admonished concerning his refusal to serve in the 
 papal army commanded by Lorenzo de' Medici before 
 Milan in the autumn of the previous year. All these 
 charges were unanswerable, although it was true that 
 Julius had eventually condoned his nephew's murder of 
 Alidosi, and that the duke's real crime in Leo's eyes 
 did not consist so much in his past treachery towards the 
 Church as in his obvious hostility to the House of 
 Medici and its interests. Nevertheless, it is certain that 
 on two recent occasions Delia Rovere had deliberately 
 refused to obey the legitimate orders of his suzerain, the 
 Supreme Pontiff, and it becomes difficult, therefore, to 
 understand why so many historians have set themselves 
 with such ardour to blame Leo for his action in expelling 
 so undesirable a vassal of the Church from the ancient 
 patrimony of the Montefeltre, to which the Delia Rovere 
 duke could plead no real hereditary title. That Leo 
 nursed a personal grudge against the duke and also 
 harboured ulterior designs in desiring to bestow Urbino 
 itself on his own nephew, does not affect the argument
 
 MEDICEAN AMBITION 159 
 
 concerning a sovereign's right to punish or expel a danger- 
 ous and disobedient feudatory prince. Likewise, the fact 
 that the subsequent war proved tedious, expensive and 
 productive of intense misery, cannot well be imputed as 
 a crime in the Pontiff, who certainly looked for an easy, 
 if not a bloodless annexation of the duchy of Urbino. 
 
 On Francesco's refusal to betake himself to Rome to 
 answer the charges formulated, Leo pronounced a Bull 
 of excommunication against the absent duke ; despatched 
 an army under Lorenzo de' Medici into his territories ; 
 and thus speedily drove the almost friendless Delia 
 Rovere tyrant to seek refuge at the hospitable court of 
 Mantua. Urbino itself being quickly reduced, on i8th 
 August, 1516, the papal nephew was solemnly proclaimed 
 Duke of Urbino and Lord of Pesaro, and thus the first 
 definite step was taken towards creating a Central 
 Italian state to form the nucleus of that Medicean empire 
 in Italy, which was equally the fixed desire of the am- 
 bitious Pontiff and of his greater compatriot, Machiavelli.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 
 
 Godiamo d il Papato, poicht Dio ci F ha dato. . . . Je crois que la 
 etait vraiment sa mission, jouir de la Papaute dans toutes les aises de 
 ['intelligence, et toutes les satisfactions du gout. II n'etait point 
 politique ; a mon sens il etait plutot encore Athenien que catholique ; 
 Athenes d'abord, Jerusalem ensuite (Armand Braschet, La Diplo- 
 matic Venitienne). 
 
 IT was the boast of succeeding ages that the first 
 Medicean Pope in his reign revived the sunken 
 glories of classical Rome and made the Eternal 
 City once more the true intellectual and artistic centre 
 of the western world, attracting thither every poet 
 and scholar, every painter and sculptor, every scientist 
 and traveller to receive a warm welcome and a due re- 
 ward for his talents or his services to mankind at the 
 hands of the Supreme Pontiff. Certain it is that the 
 court of the Vatican under Leo X. was in reality the 
 most brilliant, the most cultured, and withal the most 
 extravagant that Europe had beheld since the days of 
 Imperial Rome, and that Leo himself moved perpetually 
 in an atmosphere of flattery and splendour such as no 
 Pontiff had hitherto experienced. The accession indeed 
 of this Medicean prince, in whom past years of indigence 
 and obscurity had only served to inflame a natural taste 
 for art, literature, amusement and magnificence in every 
 form, opened a new era in the annals of Rome ; an era 
 
 which later writers have not without reason christened 
 
 1 60
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 161 
 
 the Leonine Age ; whilst the city itself, named by con- 
 temporaries "the Light and the Stage of the World," 
 became at once the chosen seat of fashion and of learning, 
 the home of the courtier no less than the haunt of the 
 poet. Thus was Rome under Leo X. able to foreshadow 
 the position held by Paris during the most splendid years 
 of the Roi Soleil, whose personality has not a few points 
 in common with that of the first Medicean Pope. Un- 
 fortunately, magnificence can only be obtained by 
 reckless profusion, and a brilliant court has ever been 
 shown to be a corrupt one ; indeed, the patronage of 
 Leo X. and the majesty of Louis XIV. proved in each 
 case a fore-runner of disaster and humiliation at no dis- 
 tant date. 
 
 Leo may almost be described as having breathed a 
 literary and artistic atmosphere from his cradle. The 
 erstwhile pupil of the versatile Politian and the erudite 
 Demetrius of Chalcedon, and the son of a poet, Giovanni 
 de' Medici had not only been at an early age accounted 
 a perfect Latin scholar, but also an enthusiastic student 
 of Greek letters ; whilst inherited tastes led him to 
 appreciate the various writings in the Italian vernacular, 
 which the classical pedants of that age affected to despise. 
 He had a passion for all books and manuscripts, both in 
 the dead and living languages, and these he devoured 
 with avidity, remembering and quoting their contents 
 out of an excellent memory. In Rome he had long 
 been recognised as a generous patron of literature in 
 every form, and many a needy scholar had received a 
 \v;irm welcome at the Florentine cardinal's palace, which 
 latterly contained the glorious library collected by his 
 own ancestors, but later confiscated by the Florentine 
 Republic. This unique library the Cardinal had by some 
 means contrived to repurchase in 1508, in which year
 
 1 62 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 its valuable contents, twice paid for by succeeding Medici, 
 were brought to Rome and later were removed to the 
 Vatican. This historic collection, one of the most im- 
 portant and interesting in the world, was again removed 
 by Clement VII. back to Florence and placed in a build- 
 ing near the church of San Lorenzo, specially designed 
 for its reception by Michelangelo and celebrated to-day 
 as the Laurentian Library. But Leo in his youth had 
 aspired to become something more than a mere patron, 
 for he actually attempted to compose music and also to 
 produce Latin verses, which were loudly applauded by 
 the partakers of his bounty, although the only existing 
 specimen of his Muse does not offer much either of 
 originality of thought or charm of diction. Indeed, the 
 poem in question an ode in the Iambic metre upon an 
 antique statue of Lucretia, excavated in some Roman 
 ruins has only drawn the faintest of praise from Leo's 
 enthusiastic English biographer, who criticises his hero's 
 attempt "as affording a sufficient proof, that if he had 
 devoted a greater share of his attention to the cultivation 
 of this department of letters, he might not wholly have 
 despaired of success". 1 But the worst poet often makes 
 the best of patrons ; and the election of Leo X. at once 
 aroused the warmest speculation in the minds of the 
 learned world of Rome, of Italy, and even of Europe. 
 Nor were these eager hopes doomed to disappointment, 
 for that ideal reign of Minerva, for which poets and 
 scholars had long been sighing, became under Leo a 
 reality that surpassed the wildest dreams of the Human- 
 ists who applauded the Conclave's choice. For the 
 pontificate of Leo X. was in very truth the golden age 
 of classical learning ; an age wherein scribblers of choice 
 
 1 Roscoe, vol. ii. See Appendix of this book, where Leo's poem 
 is quoted with a translation into English.
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 163 
 
 Latin odes or composers of fulsome epigrams gained 
 such rewards as satisfied the most conceited ; an age of 
 generous, if indiscriminate and undiscriminating patronage ; 
 an elaborate orgy of learning and pseudo-learning ; a 
 millenium of poets and poetasters, of triflers, play-writers, 
 musicians, singers, pedants and of every sort of personage 
 who could amuse. Real native genius alone suffered 
 the danger of neglect in this ecclesiastical Parnassus, so 
 that men are nowadays only too apt to remember that 
 the three chief contemporary writers in Italy Ludovico 
 Ariosto the poet, Francesco Guicciardini the historian, 
 and Niccolo Machiavelli the unrivalled statesman ob- 
 tained but a scanty share of that golden stream of patron- 
 age which flowed like a veritable Pactolus from its fount 
 of honour at the Vatican. Yet Leo's love for learning 
 was deep and sincere, nor was his liberality, although it 
 failed to reach Ariosto, wholly confined to those medio- 
 crities, the Neo-Latinists, whose output of graceful Latin 
 verse actually exceeded in the few years of his reign the 
 total surviving mass of genuine classical literature. For 
 it was Leo who called the great Greek professor Lascaris 
 to Rome, and gave every opportunity for the editing and 
 printing of the masterpieces of ancient Greece. He pro- 
 tected the Roman Academy and revived its sunken 
 glories ; he reorganised the University of Rome, and 
 conferred such benefits upon it that his name and memory 
 were annually kept green by a special service held within 
 its precincts for nearly four centuries ; a pious practice 
 which only ceased in modern times with the annexation 
 of Rome to the Kingdom of Italy. 1 
 
 Almost the first act of Leo, dating from the Conclave 
 which elected him, was the appointment of Pietro Bembo 
 
 1 Lanciani, p. 141.
 
 164 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 and Jacopo Sadoleto as papal secretaries-of-state. These 
 two writers, both favourable specimens of the scholar- 
 ecclesiastic, who adorned the court of the cultured Leo, 
 were selected for this high position on account of their 
 ripe learning and elegant Latin rather than of their piety 
 or attention to duty. But though guilty of moral failings, 
 which the age laughed at rather than condemned in the 
 case of a court prelate, the names of Bembo and Sadoleto 
 undoubtedly shed a lustre on the reign of their master, 
 whom they served well and faithfully on many diplomatic 
 missions, and whose letters and despatches they com- 
 posed in the choicest of Ciceronian Latin. The high 
 favour shown to Bembo and Sadoleto not unnaturally 
 aroused the envy of other aspiring Neo-Latinists, who in 
 their turn easily obtained offices and preferment by 
 reason of their learned or witty conversation and their 
 capacity to produce poems and treatises in the dead 
 languages. Thus there rose to fame and affluence a host 
 of persons whose names alone would fill many pages, 
 amongst them being the Neapolitan poets, Tebaldeo and 
 the more famous Sannazzaro, who rated himself a second 
 and superior Vergil ; Vida, the author of the Ckristiad ; 
 the elegant Molza of Modena ; Fracastoro, the bard- 
 physician, who chose a most unpleasant theme for his 
 principal poem ; that conceited but inferior genius, Ber- 
 nardo Accolti of Arezzo, " the Only Aretine " Unico 
 Aretino, as Ariosto styled him at a court which would 
 have considered crazy anyone daring to prefer his own 
 impassioned cantos to the vapid productions of Accolti. 
 This last was perhaps the favourite, \heprimus inter pares, 
 of that band of fawning Neo-Latinists on whom Leo was 
 wont to shower bishoprics, canonries, governorships and 
 public offices of all kinds ; the lucky members of which 
 sometimes received a purse of five hundred pieces of gold
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 165 
 
 in return for a flattering- epigram, or an abbey for a poem 
 in the manner of Horace or Vergil to celebrate a day's 
 hunting in the Campagna. 1 1 was an age that mistook the 
 glitter of tinsel for pure gold, that deliberately preferred 
 the frigid and artificial productions of an Accolti or a 
 Bembo to the immortal stanzas of an Ariosto. For in 
 spite of natural talents, which the harshest critic has never 
 dared to impugn, Leo in his pronounced partiality for the 
 Latin tongue that bond of the literary brotherhood of 
 all Europe failed to distinguish between the excellent 
 and the mediocre ; he could pass by Ariosto's appeals 
 with benevolent but condescending praise, yet in Accolti's 
 case he must needs fling open the doors of the Vatican to 
 the crowd and proclaim a general holiday, in order that 
 the citizens of Rome might not lose an opportunity of 
 hearing the recitations of one who surpassed all the poets 
 of antiquity ; he could bestow a friendly kiss on the cheek 
 of the court-bard of Ferrara, 1 but the gold and the public 
 appreciation were reserved for a pompous pedant such as 
 "the Only Are tine ". And in this case Leo's neglect of 
 his old friend Ariosto must be adjudged ungrateful as well 
 as ungenerous ; "until the time when he went to Rome 
 to be made a leo" writes the poet with suppressed bitter- 
 ness in his Fourth Satire, " I was always agreeable to 
 him, and he himself apparently loved few better than my- 
 self. . . . Whilst the Lion was a whelp, he fondled his 
 playmate the spaniel, but when he arrived at lion's estate, 
 he found so many foxes and wolves about his den, that 
 he cared little for his former playfellow. " Various theories 
 have been propounded to account for the Pope's cold- 
 ness towards the first Italian poet of his age, and certain 
 writers have affected to find its true explanation in 
 
 1 " La mano e poi le gote ambe mi prese. E' 1 santo bacio in 1' una 
 e 1' altra diede."
 
 1 66 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Ariosto's political attachment to the House of Este rather 
 than in an obvious lack of understanding of the merits of 
 the Orlando F'urioso. But whatever the cause, it remains 
 an indisputable fact, that whilst the Vidas, the Beroaldos 
 and the Accoltis found ample encouragement and wealth 
 at Leo's court, the great poet of Ferrara was soon made 
 to realise that his presence in Rome was superfluous, if 
 not irksome to the Papal Maecenas. With regard to 
 Guicciardini, as a prominent compatriot and a supporter 
 of the Medici, the Florentine Livy obtained high diplo- 
 matic posts, although his talents as a historian were 
 ignored. Concerning Leo's recognition of Machiavelli's 
 unique genius, we have only to record that such little 
 attention as he received proceeded from the Cardinal 
 Giulio de' Medici rather than from the Pope. And the 
 same want of sympathy is to be observed in the case of 
 the leading scholar outside Italy, for notwithstanding the 
 court paid him by Erasmus, who dedicated his famous 
 Greek Testament to the Pontiff, Leo ever refrained from 
 inviting the greatest of the Humanists to Rome ; in spite 
 too of the latter 's unmistakable hints for such a favour. 
 For in April, 1515, Erasmus had written a long letter to 
 the Pontiff, first excusing himself for his assurance in ad- 
 dressing "one who is as high above Mankind, as is Man- 
 kind above the brutes " ; and concluding with the words, 
 " Oh, that it were granted me to throw myself at your 
 most holy feet and imprint a kiss thereon ! " But 
 although Erasmus was obviously so anxious to visit Rome 
 and often spoke of his longing to return thither, his desi- 
 derium Romae, His Holiness did little for him beyond 
 accepting graciously the dedication of Erasmus' Testa- 
 ment and giving him a letter to Henry VIII. of England. 
 Even granting, therefore, that Leo's indifference to the
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 167 
 
 claims of Erasmus, Machiavelli, Guicciardini and Ariosto 
 has been unfairly pressed by some modern critics, the 
 simple fact remains that the four leading men of letters 
 of that age received scant attention and less recom- 
 pense in the golden days of Pope Leo X. 
 
 Ranking below the classical scholars and literary 
 prelates of the court, but almost equally favoured by 
 this Papal Maecenas, were the musicians, buffoons and 
 improvvisatori. "It is difficult to judge," remarks 
 the satirist, Pietro Aretino, who accepted Leo's bounty 
 for some years, "whether the merits of the learned or 
 the tricks of the fools afforded most delight to His 
 Holiness." In the science of music Leo, who possessed 
 a correct ear as well as a pleasing voice, displayed an 
 intense interest, sometimes even himself condescending 
 to take part in ditties, on which occasions he used in- 
 variably to bestow purses of gold upon his lucky fellow- 
 performers ; "when he sings with anyone, he presents 
 him with 200 ducats and even more " ; so writes the 
 Venetian ambassador to his government. But usually 
 Leo preferred to listen in a state of dreamy rapture, 
 softly humming the melody to himself and gently 
 waving a white be-jewelled hand in response to the 
 rhythm of the song or to the delicate strains of Brando- 
 lini's violin. For Raffaele Brandolini, the blind musician 
 and improvvisatore, was a particular favourite with Leo 
 "he was the apple of the Pope's eye" and it was 
 one of the patron's delights to arrange friendly contests 
 between Brandolini and another violin-player, Marone 
 of Brescia, whose interesting face is so well known to 
 us from Raphael's beautiful portrait. 1 Both these 
 musicians ranked likewise as the leading improvvisatori 
 of the court, where they were wont to practise that art 
 
 1 Formerly in the gallery of the Sciarra-Colonna Palace, Rome.
 
 1 68 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 of giving expression to poetical feeling in impromptu 
 verse which is peculiar to Italy, and was at that date 
 especially appreciated by the Florentines. Leo, like 
 his father before him, loved these duels of wit and 
 poetry, which sometimes took the form of spoken argu- 
 ments in Latin elegiacs ; indeed, the Pontiff himself on 
 more than one occasion proved himself as skilful in these 
 contests as any professional member of his court. This 
 curious Italian art probably reached its height of elegance, 
 and also of abuse, at the gay court of Leo, who not only 
 applauded the choice extemporary verses and sweet 
 melodies of Marone and Brandolini, but loved likewise 
 to extract uproarious fun from the efforts of their feebler 
 and less refined imitators. An unfortunate creature, 
 Camillo Querno by name, but universally termed the 
 Arch-Poet, who had composed a ridiculous epic of 
 twenty thousand lines and had been formally crowned 
 in derision by the wits of the Roman Academy with a 
 wreath of laurel, cabbage and vine leaves in allusion to 
 his bad verses and his drunken habits, was occasionally 
 invited to improvise at the Pope's table. Plied with 
 strong wines till he could scarce stand upright and be- 
 sought to spout his halting hexameters, the poor wretch 
 was continually insulted and quizzed in the presence of 
 His Holiness, who even stooped on one occasion to 
 bandy repartee with Querno. Turning towards the 
 Arch-Poet, already hopelessly intoxicated, the Pontiff 
 in his blandest manner begged him to repeat an im- 
 promptu hexameter. 
 
 " Archipoeta facit versus pro mille poetis," 
 (Worthy a thousand poets thine Arch-Bard,) 
 
 hiccoughed Querno in reply to the Pope's challenge ; 
 whereupon Leo at once observed with mock severity
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 169 
 
 " Et pro mille aliis Archipoeta bibit." 
 (Of all the poets none e'er drank so hard.) 
 
 With throat parched from his recent recitation, the Arch- 
 Poet next addressed his host thus : 
 
 " Porrige quod faciat mihi carmina docta Falernum " ; 
 (Grant me good wine to make my songs more sweet ;) 
 
 to which sentiment Leo retorted in tones of solemn 
 warning : - 
 
 " Hoc enim enervat debilitatque pedes." 
 (Wine enervates the brain and clogs the feet.) l 
 
 This spectacle of the tipsy Arch- Poet being chaffed 
 by "the Jupiter of Earth," "the Thunderer of the 
 Vatican," "the Thirteenth Apostle" (as one clerical 
 flatterer did not scruple to address the first Medicean 
 Pope), does not afford us an edifying picture of the 
 Roman court ; but that love of low buffoonery and in- 
 satiable craving for amusement, which seem to have been 
 innate both in Lorenzo the Magnificent and in his 
 second son, were destined to lead the Pontiff into yet 
 more outrageous follies. A certain Baraballo, a priest 
 of Gaeta and a man of good family and reputation, was 
 unhappily for his own peace of mind an indifferent 
 spinner of rhymes, who fancied his own feeble composi- 
 tions fully equal to those of Petrarch, and therefore worthy 
 of special recognition from the Supreme Pontiff. 
 
 Arrived in Rome, the foolish Baraballo openly an- 
 nounced the true cause of his visit, whereupon the 
 courtiers, scenting the possibility of a merry escapade at 
 the expense of the poet's conceit and incapacity, at once 
 set to flatter the vain aspirant to the top of their bent. 
 A public coronation on the Roman Capitol, argued they, 
 
 1 Fabroni, pp. 163, 164. Roscoe, vol. ii., pp. 224, 225, note
 
 iyo THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 such as Petrarch had once received, could scarcely afford 
 sufficient recompense to such a Heaven-sent genius, and 
 the foolish old fellow swallowed all this nonsense -with- 
 out for a moment perceiving how the whole court from 
 the Pope downward was giggling with suppressed mirth 
 at the crude and inane verses he was made daily to re- 
 cite. Finally, Leo himself with honeyed words of en- 
 couragement persuaded the conceited poet to demand a 
 coronation on the Capitol, such as had been conceded to 
 his master, or rather fore-runner, the divine Petrarch. 
 In spite of the entreaties of his horrified family, who saw 
 with shame and indignation the mean trick that was 
 being played on their elderly relative, Baraballo's self- 
 sufficiency was so boundless that he fell easily into the 
 cruel trap prepared for him. He even listened to the 
 Pope's suggestion that the elephant, which King 
 Manuel I. of Portugal had recently sent as a present 
 to His Holiness and the like of which had not been seen 
 in Rome since the days of the Empire, should be gorge- 
 ously caparisoned for this very purpose, so that the unique 
 bard might ride on the unique quadruped from the Vatican 
 to the Capitol, where the coveted laurel wreath awaited 
 him. All Rome hastened to be present at so strange 
 an exhibition ; the windows and terraces of the Vatican 
 were filled with cardinals, nobles and prelates, all striving 
 to conceal their pent-up mirth; whilst "the Jupiter of 
 Earth " himself, seated in a convenient balcony, smilingly 
 surveyed the animated scene through his spy-glass. 
 With some difficulty the latter-day Petrarch, clad in a 
 scarlet toga fringed with gold, was lifted into a richly 
 decorated saddle on the animal's back, and his sandalled 
 feet thrust into a pair of gilded stirrups. The merriment 
 of court and populace alike was now at its height ; the 
 affair was, in fact, the extreme triumph of Renaissance
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 171 
 
 practical joking. "I could never have believed," writes 
 Paolo Giovio, who was an eye-witness both of the 
 splendours and the follies of the Leonine Age as well as 
 of the horrors of the sack of Rome which succeeded them, 
 " I could never have believed in such an incident, if I 
 had not seen it myself and actually laughed at it : the 
 spectacle of an old man of sixty bearing an honoured 
 name, stately and venerable in appearance, hoary-headed, 
 riding upon an elephant to the sound of trumpets ! " 
 For to the accompaniment of music and the now unre- 
 strained laughter of the whole assembly, this strange 
 procession with Baraballo in antique festal robes, perched 
 proudly aloft on an Indian elephant led by its impassive 
 oriental keeper, began its progress towards the Capitol, 
 where the eager poet looked to receive the expected 
 crown of merit. But the shouts of the populace, the 
 braying of the trumpets, and the general absurdity of 
 the whole proceeding so alarmed the sagacious beast, 
 which certainly owned more sense than the rider on its 
 back, that it positively refused to cross the bridge at 
 Sant' Angelo, whereupon Baraballo was forced to dis- 
 mount amidst roars of laughter from the Pope to the 
 meanest street-urchin. 2 So tickled with this feat was the 
 merry Pope, that he at once commissioned Gian Barile, 
 who was then engaged in carving the beautiful doors 
 and shutters in the Vatican, to introduce the elephant's 
 picture into the cornice he was at that moment design- 
 
 1 Jovius, lib. iv. 
 
 2 Alexander Pope confuses and combines the two separate in- 
 cidents connected with Querno and Baraballo : 
 
 " Not with more glee, by hands pontific crowned, 
 With scarlet hats wide waving circled round, 
 Rome in her Capitol saw QUERNO sit 
 Throned on seven hills, the Antichrist of wit ! " 
 
 (The Dunciad, book ii., 13-16.)
 
 1 72 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 ing, and even the Prince of Painters was requested to 
 confer immortality by his brush upon Baraballo's steed. 
 It is not surprising, however, to learn that graver men in 
 Rome, particularly foreign ambassadors and chance 
 visitors, were not a little scandalised by this elaborately 
 planned and unfeeling jest, as well as at the plain cir- 
 cumstance that the most august personage in Christen- 
 dom could obtain satisfaction out of such frivolity. Yet 
 Leo was a true Florentine, and this disagreeable type of 
 practical joking was prevalent in his native city, where 
 even at the present day a carefully prepared hoax at the 
 expense of a conceited compatriot is reckoned as the 
 highest form of human wit ; nor are recent instances of 
 this antiquated form of elaborate and heartless merriment 
 wanting in the provincial town which was once the 
 capital of Tuscany. 
 
 Another markedly Florentine trait in the Pope's 
 character was his intense and never-failing delight in 
 the antics and jests of dwarfs and buffoons, numbers of 
 whom haunted the Vatican, where every description of 
 silly prank was played upon human beings who are 
 nowadays regarded as the objects of pity rather than of 
 sport. Taste in viands and in amusement has changed 
 so completely, that it is difficult to realise that in Leo's 
 days the presence of the half-crazy or the deformed at 
 the banquet was reckoned fully as essential as the strange 
 indigestible dishes that no modern palate would tolerate. 
 Many and many a time was the Pope's table set in a 
 roar by the sight of these hungry sycophants greedily 
 devouring carrion that had been disguised in rich sauces 
 under the impression they were eating choice meats 
 daintily prepared ; or by the dexterity of some brutal 
 courtier, who had contrived to hit one of these poor 
 creatures full in the face with a bone or a hot batter
 
 CARVED SHUTTER WITH MED1CEAN EMBLEMS 
 
 IN THE VATICAN
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 173 
 
 pudding ; l even the very lacqueys were permitted to 
 pander to their masters' perverted sense of the ridicu- 
 lous by teasing and bullying these papal parasites. 
 
 On a higher plane than these buffoons was the arch- 
 jester of the court, the redoubtable Fra Mariano Fetti, 
 a personage of some distinction, since he had succeeded 
 the great architect Bramante in the office of #/UfM&dtor, 
 or keeper of the papal seals : an appointment that natur- 
 ally had raised most unfavourable comment in exalted 
 quarters. This strange friar, who to a certain extent pos- 
 sessed the same contradictory nature as his master, is said 
 to have been originally a barber in the household of 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent, and later to have been con- 
 verted to a serious view of life by the sermons of 
 Savonarola. Entering the Dominican fraternity as a 
 lay -brother, Fra Mariano became for a time one of the 
 most prominent of the Piagnoni, or " Snivellers," as the 
 more ardent of the followers of the prior of San Marco 
 were contemptuously nicknamed ; but it is evident 
 that by the time Leo X. ascended the papal throne, all 
 the good effects of a religious revival had long vanished. 
 His coarse but amusing sayings, his witty insolence 
 towards the grandees of Rome and his insatiable appetite 
 at table all combined to tickle the Pope's thoroughly 
 Tuscan sense of humour, so that <( the Cowled Buffoon" 
 II Buffone cucullato soon grew to be a prominent 
 and even an influential member of the Roman court, 
 where his magic gift of arousing Leo's merriment or of 
 removing his wrath at any moment and under any 
 
 1 " The Arch-poet was so disfigured by a wound given him in 
 the face by some person who had taken offence at his intemperance 
 and gluttony, that he was deterred from attending the banquets of the 
 Pontiff so frequently as he had before been accustomed to do " 
 (Roscoe, vol. ii., p. 225).
 
 174 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 circumstances was of such obvious value that many an 
 intending suppliant found it well worth his while to 
 gain the Prate's good-will. He is said to have eaten 
 forty eggs at a sitting in order to win a smile from His 
 Holiness ; and he was the constant butt of the younger 
 cardinals at the hunting-parties at La Magliana or Palo. 
 Yet Fra Mariano was in reality no fool, seeing that he 
 was also the discerning patron of that great master, Fra 
 Bartolommeo, who adored this strange being, as well as 
 of the artist Baldassare Peruzzi, who by his orders 
 decorated a beautiful chapel in the church of San 
 Silvestro, adjoining the Dominican convent wherein the 
 Cowled Buffoon usually resided. It would not prove 
 a difficult task to moralise at length upon the curious 
 character of Fra Mariano and upon this highly un- 
 pleasant aspect of Leo's court and daily life, as also 
 upon the sharp contrast afforded by the Pope's praise- 
 worthy patronage of letters and the fine arts thus 
 counterbalanced by the gross pleasure derived from 
 such disgusting exhibitions of human folly and weakness. 
 But the Medici was a true child of his age ; a true 
 Florentine in his tastes. Moreover, every prince, and 
 almost every prelate, of the Italian Renaissance possessed 
 in varying degree the same love of letters, art, amuse- 
 ment and ribaldry ; it was Leo's peculiar fault that he 
 allowed his natural bent for frivolity and low company 
 to obtain an undue ascendancy in the daily life of his 
 court. 1 
 
 Far less culpable than this passion for silly jesting 
 was Leo's delight in dramatic performances, the proper 
 development of which was not a little enhanced by his 
 patronage. The Sophonisba of Gian-Giorgio Trissino 
 
 1 Pastor, chap, x., pp. 350-424; Jovius, lib. iv. ; Roscoe, vol. ii., 
 chap, xvii., etc., etc.
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 175 
 
 and the Rosmunda of his own cousin, Giovanni Rucellai 
 two of the earliest of historical tragedies in blank verse 
 (versi scolti] and therefore the Italian fore-runners of the 
 Shakespearean plays had drawn the highest of praise 
 from the fastidious Leo, whose perpetual craving for 
 amusement, however, led him to prefer the broad comedies 
 of Ariosto, Machiavelli and the Cardinal Bibbiena. The 
 last-named, as the author of the Calandria, has some- 
 times been styled "the Father of Italian comedy," 
 although the real merit of invention undoubtedly rests 
 with Ariosto, who had already written the Cassaria and 
 the Suppositi some years before the Cardinal composed 
 his all-too-famous farce. The author of the Calandria, 
 which is largely adapted from a classical model, the 
 Menoechmi of Plautus, in the prologue excuses his use 
 of the Italian language ; " because the tongue that God 
 and Nature have given us is worthy of no less esteem 
 than Latin, Greek and Hebrew" a patriotic sentiment 
 which can hardly have been relished by the many 
 pedantic Neo-Latinists who witnessed it. The plot 
 of the play, which was arranged to suit existing conditions 
 of life in Italy, centres round the crass stupidity of a 
 certain Calandro, desperately in love with a charming 
 girl, who has a twin-brother so closely resembling her- 
 self in voice, figure and general appearance, that the 
 eager lover is completely mystified, when sister and 
 brother for a freak exchange their garments. The 
 delicate situations, most indelicately treated, that are 
 caused by this premeditated confusion form the chief 
 incidents of the Cardinal's play, which is full of the 
 coarsest of Tuscan humour and "little more than a farce 
 stuffed with gross and obscene jests". 1 Yet with the 
 best actors procurable to present the piece, with the 
 
 ri, vol. ii., p. 341.
 
 1 76 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 illustrious author himself superintending, with the first 
 artists of the day engaged to arrange and paint the stage- 
 scenery, and with a brilliant audience composed largely 
 of Florentines, it is easy to understand how the Calandria 
 was received with rapturous applause when it was acted 
 at the Vatican for the special entertainment of Isabella 
 d' Este in the autumn of 1514. For it was not only 
 the absurdity and nastiness of the comedy that entranced 
 the Pope, his guest the Marchioness of Mantua, and the 
 cardinals, courtiers, prelates and maids-of-honour, but 
 likewise the excellent acting, the interludes of choice 
 music, and most of all the marvellous and novel effects 
 of perspective, which Baldassare Peruzzi had introduced 
 into the scene-painting and which in after-years drew a 
 well-merited tribute of praise from Giorgio Vasari, the 
 Plutarch of Italian painters. Since, therefore, the Calan- 
 dria may fairly be ranked as the first comedy, acted in 
 the vulgar tongue, adapted to the uses and customs of the 
 day, and fitted with proper stage effects and accessories, 
 Vasari's brief description of this historic performance at 
 the Vatican ought not to be omitted here : 
 
 " When the Calandria, a drama written by the 
 Cardinal da Bibbiena, was performed before Pope Leo, 
 Baldassare prepared all the scenic arrangements for that 
 spectacle in a manner no less beautiful'. . . and his 
 labours of this kind deserve all the more praise from the 
 fact that these performances of the theatre had long 
 been out of use, the festivals and sacred dramas having 
 taken their place. But either before or after the re- 
 presentation of the Calandria, which was one of the first 
 comedies seen or recited in the vulgar tongue, in the 
 time of Pope Leo X., that is to say, Baldassare painted 
 two of these scenic decorations, which were surprisingly 
 beautiful, and which opened the way to those of a
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 177 
 
 similar kind, which have been made in our own day. 
 Now it appears difficult ever to imagine how this artist 
 has found it possible, within the closely limited space to 
 which he was restricted, how he has found it possible, I 
 say, to exhibit such a variety of objects as he has depicted ; 
 such a number of streets, palaces, temples, toggle and 
 fanciful erections of all kinds, so perfectly represented 
 that they do not look like things feigned, but are as the 
 living reality. Neither does the piazza, which is the 
 site of all these edifices, appear to be, as it is, a narrow 
 space merely painted, but looks entirely real and of noble 
 extent. In the arrangement of the lights also, Baldassare 
 showed equal ability in those of the interior, which are 
 designed to enhance the effect of the views in perspective 
 more especially. Every other requisite demanded for 
 the occasion was added with similar judgment, and this 
 is the more remarkable, because the habit of preparing 
 such things, as I have said, had been totally lost." 1 
 
 The marked success of the Calandria paved the 
 way for further representations of sprightly but indecent 
 farces, which even included a performance in the year 
 1519 of Machiavelli's Mandragola (sometimes called the 
 Nicias), which is still accounted one of the most witty 
 comedies ever written in the Italian tongue, although its 
 main action revolves around a plot that is absolutely 
 revolting to modern taste. 2 The fun, moreover, that the 
 great Florentine satirist openly pokes at the hypocrisy 
 and covetousness of the Italian clergy would seem to 
 
 1 Vasari, Life of Baldassare Peruzzi of Siena, Bohn's edition, vol. 
 iii., pp. 165, 166. 
 
 2 Performances of the Mandragola (to which young persons are 
 never admitted) are still given in Machiavelli's own city of Florence, 
 where his masterpiece was acted in the autumn of 1906. For an 
 English appreciation of the Mandragola, see Lord Macaulay's Essay 
 on Machiavelli. 
 
 12
 
 I 7 8 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 mark this drama as more likely to offend than to amuse 
 the chief priest of Christendom ; yet we learn on the 
 authority of Paolo Giovio that the reported success of 
 the Mandragola in Florence and its perusal in manuscript 
 induced Leo to command a repetition of the play in 
 Rome, with the same Florentine actors and the same set 
 of stage scenery, "in order that the City might also 
 participate in its delights " ; these delights including of 
 course the amusing but shameless sayings of its leading 
 character, Fra Timoteo, the canting parish-priest. 1 
 Nevertheless, Leo X. was a true son of his House, the 
 very personification of the versatile spirit of his native 
 Florence, so that in his particular case nothing, however 
 incredible, could be deemed impossible, although if any 
 further proof were needed to testify to the appalling and 
 universal corruption of Italian society, priestly and secular, 
 it would be found in the circumstance that this cynical 
 exposure, in the guise of comedy, of rottenness in Church 
 and State was permitted openly with the approval of the 
 Supreme Pontiff. Less objectionable, if less witty than 
 Machiavelli's famous farce, was Ariosto's Suppositi, 
 which by papal command was represented on a cele- 
 brated occasion in the great hall of the castle of Sant' 
 Angelo on the Sunday preceding the Carnival of 1519, 
 within a few weeks, that is to say, of the young Lorenzo's 
 death and of the consequent extinction of Leo's own 
 family. The immense frescoed saloon was crowded with 
 a jostling audience of bishops and priests, of courtiers and 
 nobles, so that even the ambassadors with their trains 
 came to be hustled somewhat in the assembly, which is 
 said to have numbered nearly two thousand persons. 
 Seated on a dais above the struggling throng of his 
 guests, the Pope from beginning to end expressed his 
 
 1 Villari, vol. ii., p. 342, note 2.
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 179 
 
 liveliest satisfaction in the entertainment. First extend- 
 ing his hand in benediction above the distinguished 
 crowd below, His Holiness after making a prolonged ex- 
 amination of the drop-scene which concealed the stage, 
 suddenly burst into unrestrained mirth, as his spy-glass 
 revealed to him a clever representation from the brush 
 of Raphael of poor Fra Mariano being teased by a 
 number of tiny devils with horns, hoofs and spiky tails. 
 To the softest strains of music the painted curtain was 
 then slowly raised, whereupon the stage appeared to 
 view, fantastically lighted by means of numerous lamps 
 placed in clusters so as to form the official papal cipher. 
 But more effective than this artistic illumination was the 
 scenery itself, for the divine Raphael had been actively 
 employed in painting a picture of the town of Ferrara, 
 which must have eclipsed easily the earlier marvels of 
 his inferior rival, Peruzzi. After gazing long and lovingly 
 at this triumph of scenic art, the Pope's attention was 
 next attracted by the appearance on the boards of a 
 herald, who recited a prologue, so comical that it sent 
 the papal court into hearty fits of laughter, and so highly 
 indecorous that the foreign envoys, even those of the 
 Italian states, were quite scandalised; "what a pity 
 such an unseemly prologue should be spoken in the 
 presence of so august a sovereign ! " was the comment 
 of the none-too-particular Alfonso Paolucci, the re- 
 presentative of Ferrara at the papal court. In the play 
 itself, however, which as the work of his own compatriot, 
 Messer Ludovico Ariosto, this Ferrarese censor of Roman 
 morals was bound to admire, Paolucci found nothing ob- 
 jectionable, which was fortunate, since Innocenzo Cybb, 
 Leo's own nephew and youngest cardinal, was actually 
 taking a prominent part in the dialogue. Paolucci 
 likewise admired the dances and the moresca with which
 
 i8o THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 the entertainment concluded ; also the incidental music, 
 and particularly the sweet tones of an organ that the 
 Cardinal of Aragon had lately presented to His Holiness, 
 "although they were not to be compared with the 
 performances at your Majesty's own court of Ferrara ". 
 Perhaps the Ferrarese envoy's praise would have been 
 less faint had he not nearly broke his leg, in spite of the 
 Pope's preliminary benediction, in the ugly scramble 
 that ensued at the close of the entertainment, whilst the 
 vast audience was forcing its way into an adjoining 
 room where a splendid collation was laid out for the 
 papal guests ; even a pleasant conversation at the supper- 
 table with the Cardinals of Aragon and Salviati, who 
 of course lauded Messer Ariosto to the skies before his 
 countryman, failed to remove Paolucci's chagrin. 1 
 
 Performances of the newly-invented comedy appear 
 however somewhat rare when compared with the fre- 
 quent masques, ballets, processions, mummings and 
 moresche, which the new dramatic revival was destined 
 later to supplant in popular favour. These older-fashioned 
 diversions were constantly given on the most lavish scale, 
 especially at Carnival time or during any state visit to 
 the city, which was thus ever kept interested and amused 
 in accordance with the policy formerly pursued by Lorenzo 
 the Magnificent in Florence. Nevertheless the moresca 
 and the ballet were sometimes made the vehicle for ex- 
 pressions of popular opinion, since Leo's notorious levity 
 and intense sense of humour served to embolden the 
 contrivers of these entertainments, who thus wished to 
 notify their views on passing questions of the day. In- 
 stead of a trite classical theme, such as the Labours of 
 Hercules or the story of Ariadne, some burning topic of 
 
 1 Reumont, Geschichte der Stadt Rom, vol. iii., pp. 133, 134; 
 Pastor, chap, x., etc.
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 181 
 
 the hour would be treated in an allegorical fashion, and 
 the easy-going Pope led to draw his own conclusions 
 from the incidents represented. Perhaps the most re- 
 markable of these mummings with a purpose was a certain 
 moresca undertaken by Sienese actors in the courtyard 
 of Sant' Angelo during the spring of the very year that 
 witnessed Leo's own death. The schism of Luther and 
 the subsequent religious struggle in Germany were in 
 everyone's thoughts, and all reflecting Christians had 
 lately been much excited by the action of the monks of 
 Wittenberg, who had openly and with intent broken their 
 monastic vows. That this heinous behaviour was not 
 altogether reprobated, even in Italy, would appear evident 
 from the extraordinary spectacle which Leo and his court 
 witnessed apparently without protest or annoyance 
 and which Castiglione has described in a letter addressed 
 to the court of Mantua. On an empty stage is placed 
 a pavilion of sad-coloured drapery, from which emerges 
 a beautiful young female, who in elegant verses calls 
 upon the Goddess of Love to procure her a husband. A 
 blast from an unseen trumpet is supposed to announce 
 that Venus has granted her fair suppliant's natural re- 
 quest, whereupon eight hermits in flowing robes of dark 
 grey rush upon the boards. Suddenly perceiving a 
 statue of Cupid, the grey-clad figures, who presumably 
 are intended to personate cloistered monks, shoot with 
 arrows at the son of Venus, who promptly comes to life 
 on his pedestal and runs for protection to his mother, at 
 that moment advancing on to the stage. The hermits 
 next accept an opiate from the hands of the rejected 
 damsel, and immediately sink to sleep on the floor. 
 Venus then supplies bow and arrows to her son, who in 
 his turn transfixes the prostrate bodies of the sleeping 
 hermits. The slumberers thereupon awaken, and at
 
 i8 2 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 once proceed to make frantic demonstrations of love 
 towards the lady that they have hitherto spurned. 
 Circling madly round her, they fling aside their dusky 
 weeds to appear as handsome youths, who dance a 
 graceful measure to soft and seductive music. Having 
 performed their measure, they invite the damsel to 
 select a husband out of their number, bidding her shoot 
 seven and accept the survivor ; a suggestion that the 
 charming creature acts upon without further ado. The 
 naive moral, that it is better for a young man to be dead 
 than living as a cloistered monk, and better still to be 
 married than dead, must have been thus made obvious 
 to the quick intelligence of the Pontiff, who seems to 
 have been amused and by no means scandalised by this 
 thinly veiled satire upon the evils of clerical celibacy. 1 
 
 Whilst a Cardinal residing in Rome, Leo had lived 
 in a chronic state of debt, so that his subsequent extra- 
 vagance can have caused small surprise amongst the 
 princes of the Church who had elected him. Indeed, 
 one of the earliest acts of his reign had been to squander 
 100,000 ducats, nearly a quarter of the whole public 
 treasury, upon the empty pageant of the Sacro Possesso ; 
 nor had many months elapsed before the papal coffers, 
 filled with the savings of the frugal Julius, were practic- 
 ally emptied ; in the words of a critic of the day, Leo 
 managed to consume within a twelvemonth the whole 
 revenues of his predecessor, of himself and of his suc- 
 cessor. He was naturally a bad financier, but he seems 
 in addition to have had a sovereign contempt for all 
 forms of economy, public or private ; " the Pope could 
 no more save a thousand ducats than a stone could fly 
 
 ^Letter of Count Baldassarc Castiglione to the Marchioness of 
 Mantua, 1521. Pastor, chap. x.
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 183 
 
 up into the sky," was the caustic comment of Francesco 
 Vettori upon his master's reckless expenditure. It was 
 lucky for Leo's personal popularity in Rome that the 
 Romans themselves were inclined to attribute the in- 
 creased extravagance flaunted openly on all sides to the 
 malign influence of his many Florentine dependants 
 rather than to the Pope's own inclination. For city and 
 court alike had been overwhelmed in the late irruption 
 of sharp-witted, commercial-spirited Tuscans, high and 
 low, rich and poor, who had crowded into Rome on the 
 election of their Medicean ruler to the pontifical throne. 
 Previous Popes certainly had favoured their own country- 
 men, but never within living memory had the Eternal 
 City beheld such a horde of alien adventurers descending 
 upon her, all bent on obtaining offices and grants of 
 monopolies, so that grumblers in Rome loudly declared 
 their city had sunk to the condition of a Florentine 
 colony. On the other hand, it is fairly certain that the 
 Pope must ere long have been made bankrupt, had it 
 not been for the assistance of the Florentine bankers 
 the Strozzi, Altoviti, Salviati and other families, who 
 were shortly in possession of some thirty houses of 
 business on the left shore of the Tiber and were ever 
 ready to lighten the Medici's heavy financial burdens 
 by advancing money at an exorbitant rate of interest, 
 sometimes rising to forty per cent. Lack of funds seems 
 to have been the root of all evil in Leo's case, for almost 
 every illegal or unscrupulous act that disgraced his reign 
 can generally be traced to the Pope's thriftless methods 
 and inordinate love of splendour ; for never perhaps has 
 any prince, outside an Eastern tale, indulged in greater 
 magnificence or scattered more profuse largesse. The 
 gentlemen and clerks of the court amounted to over six 
 hundred, whilst the full number of attendants, valets,
 
 184 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 scullions, grooms, keepers of hawk and hound must have 
 been truly prodigious, to judge from the contemporary 
 accounts of the papal mode of life. But the normal ex- 
 penses of the court with its daily banquets and its frequent 
 entertainments were immeasurably swollen by the vast 
 additional sums spent on objects so varied as the lavish 
 decoration of the Apostolic palace itself; the re-building 
 of St. Peter's that fatal legacy of the grandiose Julius 
 to his successors ; the buying of ancient manuscripts ; 
 the endless stream of charities to the old, the poor and 
 the religious ; the innumerable commissions to artists and 
 goldsmiths, and the purchase of French hound and Ice- 
 landic falcon for the Pope's sport. Nor in this list of 
 expenses must mention be omitted of the money 
 squandered at the gaming-table, where Leo was often 
 wont to play for hours at his favourite primiero, 1 punctu- 
 ally paying his losses, but carelessly flinging his winnings 
 over his shoulder to the surrounding crowd of parasites. 
 A medley of intricate politics and of unseemly frivolities, 
 of indecorous farces and of elaborate Church ceremonies, 
 of jovial hunting-parties and of intellectual discussions, 
 of extravagant entertainments and of theological debates, 
 of grave discourse with foreign ambassadors and of ob- 
 scene jesting in low company ; such was that "enjoy- 
 ment of the Papacy," which Leo had once invited his 
 brother Giuliano to share with him on his election. For 
 nothing which might tend either to his amusement or in- 
 struction came amiss to this true child of the Florentine 
 House of Medici; "the masterpieces of antiquity and 
 the admirable creations of contemporary artists did not 
 interest him less than the accounts of newly-discovered 
 lands, the elegant poems and tasteful speeches of the 
 
 1 Primiero, a simple game with cards, somewhat resembling the 
 English game of " Beggar-my-Neighbour ".
 
 CARDINAL BERNARDO DOVIZI DA BIBBIKNA
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 185 
 
 Humanists ; the frivolous comedies of a Bibbiena and 
 an Ariosto ; the delightful concerts of choice music ; the 
 clever verses of improvvisatori and the coarse jokes of 
 the only too-welcome buffoons of the courts of that 
 period. He avoided all unpleasantness as a fundamental 
 rule, and gave himself up without restraint to amusement : 
 a trait that was peculiar to his family, and was increased 
 by his surroundings. He enjoyed all with the delight 
 of a spoiled child of the world." 1 
 
 Perhaps our clearest conception of these golden days 
 of the first Medicean Pope can best be obtained from ex- 
 isting accounts of the visit which the celebrated Isabella 
 d' Este, Marchioness of Mantua, paid to the papal court 
 during the winter of 15 14-5, 2 when the Marchesa, to 
 whose infant son Ferrante the Pontiff had stood god- 
 father some eight years before, resided for four months 
 in Rome. The wit and beauty of this typical great lady 
 of the Italian Renaissance immediately won the hearts 
 of all the princes of the Church in Rome, who were only 
 too pleased to welcome into their midst that female 
 element, the absence of which the gallant Bibbiena was 
 wont so often to deplore. Received in full state at the 
 papal frontier by her old friends Bibbiena and Giuliano 
 de' Medici, Isabella made her way to the Vatican, where 
 Leo received the fair diplomatist (for the Marchesa was 
 combining political business with enjoyment on this occa- 
 sion) in his suavest and most paternal manner, albeit the 
 princes of the Houses of Este and Gonzaga, old Medicean 
 friends in days of poverty and exile, were no longer held 
 in good odour by the ambitious Pontiff. He even re- 
 fused to permit his graceful suppliant to remain on her 
 
 1 Pastor, chap. x. 
 
 2 'For this incident see Signer Alessandro Luzio's study, Isabella tf 
 Este ne primordi del Papato di Leone X., etc. (Milano, 1907).
 
 1 86 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 knees at his throne, but bade her sit beside him like a 
 queen, and was lavish of gifts, promises and expressions 
 of good-will towards herself, her husband and her charm- 
 ing children. The Pope's cordial reception was the sig- 
 nal for an endless stream of invitations to the Marchesa 
 and her sprightly maids-of-honour, who during their so- 
 journ in Rome found themselves plunged into a positive 
 whirlpool of banquets, balls, processions, hunting-parties, 
 popular festivals and dramatic performances (amongst 
 the last-named being the historic production of Bibbiena's 
 Calandria, already mentioned). In the rare intervals 
 permitted by this sequence of gaieties, the Marchesa, 
 escorted by Raphael, was wont to visit the antiquities of 
 the city or to inspect the many treasures of ancient and 
 contemporary art in its principal palaces. Of a truth, 
 however, there was very little leisure to spare for such 
 matters, seeing that the entertainments organised in her 
 honour scarcely allowed her sufficient time for sleep, still 
 less for intellectual study. " Yesterday," writes Isabella's 
 secretary to his master in Mantua, "the very reverend 
 Cardinal Riario gave us a supper so extraordinarily 
 sumptuous that it might suffice for all the queens in the 
 world. We sate for four full hours at table, laughing 
 and chatting with those most reverend Cardinals." 3 
 Contemporary accounts of these banquets leave modern 
 readers astounded at the variety, quantity, and incon- 
 gruity of the viands offered on state occasions. Sweet 
 and savoury, pastry and game, were all served at one 
 and the same time, whilst the spirit of vulgar ostentation 
 was satisfied by endless courses of rich dishes, so that 
 only the trained gluttons of the period, such as Fra 
 Mariano, were able to do them justice. Merriment 
 amongst the guests was commonly aroused by some 
 
 1 A. Luzio, Isabella d" Este, etc.
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 187 
 
 such device as a huge pie filled with blackbirds or 
 nightingales, which, in the manner of the old nursery 
 ditty, flew twittering up to the ceiling when the host 
 cautiously cut the enclosing crust. At other times ap- 
 plause was easily evoked by such puerile absurdities as 
 a dish of peacocks' tongues or by a monster pasty, 
 whence a child would emerge to lisp some complimentary 
 or indelicate verses to the assembled guests. Loud and 
 often uncouth music was kept up incessantly throughout 
 these long-drawn-out feasts, a tolerable idea of which 
 can be gleaned from the Venetian envoy's description 
 of one of Cardinal Cornaro's dinners. "The meal was 
 exquisite," writes the astonished ambassador; "there 
 was an endless succession of dishes, for we had sixty- 
 five courses, each course consisting of three different 
 dishes, all of which were placed on the board with mar- 
 vellous speed. Scarcely had we finished one dainty, 
 than a fresh plate was set before us, and yet everything 
 was served on the finest of silver, of which his Eminence 
 has an abundant supply. At the end of the meal we 
 rose from table gorged with the multiplicity of the 
 viands and deafened by the continual concert, carried 
 on both within and without the hall and proceeding from 
 every instrument that Rome could produce fifes, harp- 
 sichords and four-stringed lutes in addition to the voices 
 of hired singers." l Nevertheless, Cornaro's festal dinner 
 must have been far inferior to the banquet provided for 
 the Marchioness of Mantua by Raffaele Riario, who had 
 the finest palace and the largest revenue of all the 
 cardinals in Rome, and whose wealth was only surpassed 
 by the income of the Sienese banker, Agostino Chigi. 
 This famous merchant-prince and patron of the fine 
 arts had himself on one occasion given a memorable 
 
 1 Relazioni degli Oratori Veneti.
 
 i88 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 entertainment to the Supreme Pontiff, whereat the feast 
 was prepared in a new building fitted out for a stable. 
 The walls of this beautifully proportioned hall had how- 
 ever been hung with the finest of tapestry so that the 
 general effect was pleasing in the extreme. The Pope 
 and the distinguished guests present were astonished not 
 only at the luxury of the meal and the splendid hangings 
 of Chigi's supposed new dining hall, but were also amazed 
 to find every piece of plate in use already engraved 
 with the armorial bearings of the persons invited. At 
 the conclusion of so sumptuous a feast, the Pontiff him- 
 self began to congratulate his host on his magnificent 
 chamber, regretting that even the Vatican could show 
 no room equally spacious or richly furnished ; whereupon 
 Chigi, who was evidently expecting the expression of 
 some such sentiment, gave the signal to his servants to 
 unfasten the cords supporting the arras, which imme- 
 diately fell in a mass to the floor, exhibiting to the 
 astounded Pope the empty racks and mangers of the 
 steeds that were shortly to be installed in the vast 
 apartment which had so excited the envious admiration 
 of the splendour-loving Medici "Your Holiness, this 
 is not my banqueting hall ; it is merely my stable ! " 
 
 As Carnival approached, the fun waxed faster and 
 more furious, since each cardinal in Rome strove to in- 
 vent some fresh pastime for the fair stranger, who could 
 bandy repartee with the witty Bibbiena or discourse well 
 of Greek letters with the cultured Leo. " Yesterday," 
 so writes Isabella on the 2Qth January, 1515, to her 
 lord, "to make a beginning of the festivals and merry- 
 making of Carnival, His Magnificence Lorenzo de' 
 Medici invited us to dine at his house . . . where we 
 saw a splendid bull-fight in which four bulls were killed. 
 The performance lasted about three hours. When dusk
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 189 
 
 set in, we fell to dancing for about three hours' space. 
 At the festival appeared the most reverend the Cardinals 
 of Aragon, Este, Petrucci and Cybb, all masked ; but 
 the Cardinals Bibbiena and Cornaro, who were likewise 
 supping there, went unmasked. The sisters and nephew 
 of the Pope were present. The banquet was very fine 
 and choice, and lasted about two hours, after which we 
 again set to dancing, and enjoyed ourselves thus until 
 eight of the clock. " l 
 
 The Papal court moreover was not too proud to 
 attend at such a season the humbler diversions of the 
 people, which included processions of triumphal cars, a 
 regatta on the muddy Tiber and the time-honoured 
 ceremony at the Monte Testaccio that grass-grown 
 mound near the Porta San Sebastiano, which was once 
 the public dumping-ground of Imperial Rome. This 
 sport consisted in the rolling of barrels containing fat 
 pigs down the steep slopes of the hillock, whilst on the 
 flat sward at its base, peasants fought like wild beasts 
 for the heavy casks which were hurled with appalling 
 velocity into their midst from above. Members of the 
 Roman court found pleasure in this squalid spectacle, 
 and from their safe post on the crest of the Testaccio 
 were greatly diverted by the quarrelling and knife- 
 thrusting of the contadini in their efforts to obtain these 
 prizes. To "a battle of oranges," which it seems Leo 
 himself with his keen Tuscan sense of humour had 
 suggested as a suitable novelty for Carnival-tide, the 
 Marchesa received a special invitation from the Pope. 
 "I was requested by His Holiness," she writes, "to go 
 to the Castle of Sant' Angelo to see a regatta on the 
 Tiber . . . after which there was a battle of oranges, 
 that would have been a delightful spectacle but for the 
 
 1 A. Luzio, pp. no- 1 1 2.
 
 1 9 o THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 rain and storm stopping all the fun. At the end of the 
 entertainment I was received most affectionately by 
 His Holiness, who provided us with a most sumptuous 
 collation." 1 The battle of oranges, which the inclement 
 skies of February so cruelly spoiled for the Marchesa, 
 seems to have raged round a fortress, and barricades 
 constructed of wood, which was defended by one party 
 of the papal lacqueys against the attacks of their fellow- 
 servants, both sides pelting each other vigorously with 
 the yellow fruit, of which an unlimited supply had been 
 provided to serve as missiles. Isabella and her august 
 host were also much pleased with the time-honoured 
 feste di Piazza Navona, which were on this occasion 
 marked by special expenditure. Cars representing Italy, 
 the Tiber, the She- wolf of Rome, Alexander the Great 
 on horseback, and several of the pagan divinities slowly 
 filed past the admiring eyes of the court amidst wild 
 cheering from the populace, which was particularly 
 attached to this local festival. Two hundred youths, 
 selected for their graceful bearing and good looks, took 
 part in the affair habited as Roman soldiers, whilst two 
 camels and other strange animals from the gardens of 
 the Vatican were also made to figure in this incongruous 
 and tasteless procession, at the rear of which followed a 
 huge globe surmounted by an angel to symbolise the 
 triumph of Christianity. 
 
 These costly pageants in the city were varied by 
 occasional hunting-parties in the Campagna, of which 
 that arranged by the Pope on his preserves at La 
 Magliana was the most remarkable, seeing that 3000 
 horsemen took part in this gigantic beat (caccia), and 
 the game killed included fifty stags and twenty wild boar. 
 But so important a feature was the chase in Leo's daily 
 
 1 A. Luzio, p. 113.
 
 ARMORIAL TROPHY OF LEO X 
 
 J.V THE VATICAN
 
 THE COURT OF LEO X 191 
 
 existence, that an account of the papal hunting and its 
 incidents has been reserved for the following chapter. 
 
 On 27th February, Isabella d' Este regretfully left 
 Rome to return to her impatient husband at Mantua. 
 Her departure, as may well be imagined, was the cause 
 of genuine grief to her special friend, Bibbiena, as also 
 to Petrucci d' Aragona, Cybo and the younger and less 
 reputable members of the Sacred College, who had 
 thoroughly appreciated the prolonged visit of the 
 Marchesa and her maids-of-honour. The gaiety, the 
 vice, the paganism, the cynical indifference to religion 
 and morality, the extravagance in every form of the 
 Leonine Age, all were thus seen at their worst and at 
 their brightest by the pleasure-loving but shrewd Isabella 
 d' Este, who is herself the female incarnation of that 
 fascinating but corrupt period. Little could she have 
 foreseen, when she quitted the Eternal City that Febru- 
 ary morning to the deep concern of Leo's frivolous 
 cardinals, that twelve years later she was destined to 
 behold with her own eyes the carnage and desolation 
 which were the inevitable consequence of all those 
 meretricious and illicit splendours. For the Marchesa 
 was actually residing in Rome during that terrible 
 summer of 1527, when her own residence, the Colonna 
 Palace, was almost the only house in the whole city that 
 escaped the frenzied onslaught of bloodthirsty Spaniards 
 and heretical Germans. 1 It was indeed a strange irony 
 of fate that allowed the Marchioness of Mantua to 
 participate in the glories of Leo's semi-pagan rule, and 
 later to become an eye-witness of the fearful and total 
 collapse of all that glittering but insecure fabric of 
 magnificence which the Medici had contrived to erect 
 upon the ruins of Imperial Rome. 
 
 1 See chapter xiii.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 1 
 LEO'S HUNTING 
 
 Taxing the folly and madnesse of such vaine men that spend 
 themselves in those idle sports, neglecting their business and necessary 
 affairs, Leo Decimus, that hunting Pope, is much discommended by 
 Jovius in his life, for his immoderate desire of hawking and hunting, 
 insomuch that (as he saith) he would sometimes live about Ostia 
 weeks and months together, leave suters unrespected, Bulls and 
 Pardons unsigned, to his own prejudice, and many private mens loss. 
 " And if he had been by chance crossed in his sport, or his game 
 not so good, he was so impatient, that he would revile and miscall 
 many times men of great worth with most bitter taunts, look so 
 sowre, be so angrie and waspish, so grieved and molested, that it is 
 incredible to relate it." But if he had good sport, and bin well 
 pleased on the other side, incredibili munificentia, with unspeakable 
 bounty and munificence he would reward all his fellow-hunters and 
 deny nothing to any suter, when he was in that mood (Burton's 
 Anatomy of Melancholy, Part I., sect. 2, subsec. 13). 
 
 IT is rarely that we find in the same individual a 
 pronounced taste for letters combined with an 
 insatiable passion for the chase ; indeed, in our 
 own times the breach between the spheres of sport and 
 of learning has been yet further enlarged, so that now an 
 almost bridgeless chasm seems to yawn between the 
 scholar and the sportsman. Nevertheless, Leo contrived 
 to become known to posterity not only as the Papal 
 Maecenas, but also as the Papal Nimrod. As a cardinal 
 Giovanni de' Medici had been much addicted to hunt- 
 
 1 Throughout this chapter considerable use has been made of 
 Count Domenico Gnoli's charming and valuable study Le Caccie di 
 Leone X., in La Nuova Antologia, vol. cxxvii. 
 
 192
 
 LEO'S HUNTING 193 
 
 ing in the Roman Campagna, often forming one of the 
 large parties arranged by his wealthy colleagues, Ascanio 
 Sforza and Alessandro Farnese. Indulgence in the 
 chase had never been considered improper in the case 
 of a cardinal, but as yet no Pontiff had ever condescended, 
 either by reason of choice or sense of official dignity, 
 to take more than a passing interest in this form of 
 amusement. Leo must be adjudged therefore the first 
 Pope regularly to abandon himself to sport, to organise 
 hunting-parties on a scale hitherto unsurpassed and to 
 preserve whole districts in the Campagna to supply 
 himself and his guests with the necessary game. But 
 even in this case precedent was strong, and there can be 
 little doubt that at first Leo X. hesitated to persist in a 
 practice that had not been seriously condemned in the 
 Cardinal de' Medici. For in July, 1513, only a few 
 weeks after his accession, we find him sending a regret- 
 ful refusal to a tempting invitation from that inveterate 
 sportsman, Cardinal Farnese : " Oh, that I could but 
 enjoy your own freedom, so as to accept your offer ! " 
 But if his refusal was really due to ecclesiastical scruples 
 (as seems highly probable) these had certainly been over- 
 come by the close of the year, since in January, 1514, 
 that is within a twelvemonth of his election, we find Leo 
 openly engrossed in his favourite occupation. The 
 Pope's nominal excuse for this changed attitude was the 
 advice of the court physicians, who insisted on a life in 
 the open air as beneficial and even essential to his health. 
 Yet, assuming that the doctors of their own free will 
 were urging this point without merely recommending 
 what was agreeable to Leo's obvious wishes, it is im- 
 possible to imagine the Pope ignorant of the strict pro- 
 hibition of such a form of recreation by the canon law, 
 and indeed we find the Papal Nimrod in the course of 
 13
 
 i 9 4 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 his reign forbidding the Portuguese clergy to indulge in 
 those very pursuits to which he himself was so notoriously 
 addicted. 
 
 The chief scene of Leo's hunting expeditions was his 
 favourite residence, the Villa Magliana, 1 situated on the 
 road to Porto, at about five miles' distance from the 
 city. Erected by Innocent VIII. and embellished by 
 Julius II., the Magliana had for some time served as an 
 occasional country retreat for the Popes, who seemed 
 quite careless or ignorant of the unhealthy nature of its 
 site ; a flat meadow reeking of fever at no great distance 
 from the Tiber. To-day the old papal hunting-lodge, 
 which is utilised as a farm building, though standing un- 
 inhabited, presumably on account of the local malaria, 
 consists of a range of low stone buildings in a fair state 
 of preservation, enclosing a courtyard with a broken 
 fountain, at present used as a watering trough. A 
 graceful little balcony of marble looking eastward 
 across the grassy plains of the Tiber towards the purple- 
 hued range of the Alban Hills, as well as a loggia and a 
 broad staircase on its northern side remain intact. 
 Everywhere are to be seen escutcheons of the Cybo and 
 Delia Rovere Popes, but by a strange coincidence not a 
 single Medicean emblem has survived the ravages of 
 time. From the damp dilapidated chapel and the dis- 
 mantled halls the fading frescoes of Raphael and Lo 
 Spagna have long since been abstracted, but it is still 
 easy to trace the tinello or dining-hall, the great kitchen 
 and other domestic arrangements of this tiny palace, 
 "this Vatican in miniature," as contemporaries named 
 the Magliana. Mulberry and acacia trees occupy the 
 space once covered by the admired pleasaunce of the 
 
 1 La Magliana stands within a stone's throw of the main line 
 running north to Genoa.
 
 LEO'S HUNTING 195 
 
 first Medicean Pontiff with its aviaries and fountains ; 
 otherwise a flat thistle-grown expanse follows the curves 
 of the river towards distant Ostia. Close to the deserted 
 villa the muddy, turbulent stream of the Magliana 
 rushes past through thickets of willow and aspen to join 
 the yellow Tiber, whilst northward extends for miles and 
 miles a scrub-covered undulating country, which even 
 to-day affords ample shelter both for winged and ground 
 game. The Magliana was of course papal property, 
 and as all the neighbouring territory belonged to the 
 Orsini family, his own relatives, it was no difficult matter 
 for Leo to obtain an immense tract of land suitable for 
 purposes of sport ; indeed this papal hunting estate 
 stretched from the Tiber on the south into the Campagna 
 as far north as the Isola Farnese, its boundary to west- 
 ward being the sea-coast and to eastward the ancient 
 Via Cassia. At the villa itself the Pope, whose love of 
 venary was by no means confined to the chase, had 
 erected an enormous gazzara, or netted enclosure, where- 
 in hundreds of jays (gazze], doves and herons were kept 
 ready for the sport of hawking, of which Leo was pas- 
 sionately fond. By thus reserving birds in confinement, 
 the trouble and delay of finding the necessary quarry in 
 the open were saved, so that the Pontiff could at any 
 moment, when the desire seized him, follow with his 
 spy-glass from the balcony of the villa or from a shady 
 seat in the garden the spectacle of a favourite falcon 
 and its destined prey mounting upward in graceful 
 spirals into the clear blue of the Roman sky. 1 At the 
 papal mews hard by were housed numerous hawks from 
 the tiny merlin to the powerful goshawk ; whilst a neigh- 
 bouring structure was reserved for the ferrets. The 
 Pontiff seems to have been devoted to ferreting, since 
 1 Jovius, lib. iv.
 
 196 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 he had at great expense caused a large area of sandy 
 waste near Palo to be surrounded by a palisade and then 
 well-stocked with rabbits. The interior of this conigliare 
 (which must have closely resembled the modern rabbit- 
 warren constructed on so many English estates) was 
 thickly planted with myrtle and juniper scrub, and large 
 quantities of meal and fodder were also supplied to the 
 captive coneys, as sundry entries in the papal accounts 
 of the period testify. As both the rabbits in the coni- 
 gliare, the birds in the gazzara and even the valuable 
 French hounds suffered much from the attacks of 
 scorpions and snakes, high rewards were always paid to 
 the peasants for any noxious reptiles killed near La 
 Magliana or the warren at Palo. 
 
 The hunting season for ground game usually opened 
 in the middle of September, and continued throughout 
 the whole of the autumn and winter, during which period 
 the Pope was often absent from Rome for so long a 
 space as six weeks at a stretch. Popular as Leo un- 
 doubtedly was and lax as was the age, yet this craving 
 for sport and open indulgence in hunting at first aroused 
 a certain degree of opposition at the Roman court. 
 Paris de Grassis, whose varied experiences under the 
 two last Pontiffs could not have rendered him particularly 
 strait-laced, was horrified, at least in the opening year of 
 his reign, by Leo's total disregard for papal etiquette and 
 by his hunting costume which, though no doubt con- 
 venient for the purpose, appeared highly indecent to his 
 master of the ceremonies. "He left Rome without his 
 stole, and what is worse without his rochet, and what is 
 worst of all, he wore long riding boots (stivali), which is 
 most improper, seeing that then the people cannot kiss 
 the Pope's feet ! " But in reply to the anxious de 
 Grassis' expostulations, the Medici only assumed his
 
 LEO'S HUNTING 197 
 
 blandest smile without taking further trouble to excuse 
 or justify his queer apparel. And if the garb of their 
 master appeared uncanonical and unsuited to his lofty 
 position, that of his accompanying cardinals showed even 
 less regard for what was seemly in princes of the Church, 
 so that we read of the observant Venetian, Matteo 
 Dandolo, commenting severely upon Cornaro's unclerical 
 appearance in a close-fitting jacket of brown Flemish 
 cloth and with a broad ungainly Spanish hat. 
 
 The name of Domenico Boccamazzo, the Pope's 
 trusted head-keeper, who was responsible for the pre- 
 servation of game in the papal hunting zones at La 
 Magliana, Palo, Cervetri, Toscanella and elsewhere, 
 frequently occurs in the chronicle of the private expenses 
 of the papal household, and Boccamazzo has a still 
 further claim on our remembrance, if not on our grati- 
 tude, as the author of a treatise composed quarter of a 
 century after Leo's death, wherein he laments the passing 
 of the golden days of the Papal Nimrod and relates 
 some of his own experiences as papal huntsman. 1 This 
 keeper of the Italian Renaissance, who as an author 
 must certainly be reckoned unique in his profession, de- 
 scribes with commendable exactness the terms and 
 methods of the hunting of his own day, and thereby 
 quite unconsciously draws for us a most valuable picture of 
 that brilliant society of the Leonine Age amusing itself 
 in the free air of the Campagna after a long spell of 
 indulgence in the political, learned and artistic atmos- 
 phere of the city. " Finding myself in a declining old 
 age," writes Boccamazzo in the opening sentences of his 
 modest work, " after having spent all my life and all my 
 substance in thechace, ... I thought it suitable to in- 
 
 1 The title of this curious little work seems to have been // 
 Cacciatore Signorile di Domenico Boccamazzo.
 
 i 9 8 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 scribe in this my book the ways of hunting and of hunt- 
 ing parties in my prime ; " and it is from the pages of Leo's 
 literary keeper that we are enabled to learn many in- 
 teresting details of the Papal Nimrod and his court. 
 
 On the day previous to the hunt an under-keeper, 
 skilled in the lore of wild animals and assisted by a well- 
 trained dog, would select a convenient spot, teeming with 
 game of every description, from hares and porcupines to 
 stags and wild boar. Under the eye of the capo-caccia, 
 that is of Boccamazzo himself, the chosen area, which 
 was probably a small woody valley debouching on the 
 plain, would be wholly enclosed by immense strips of 
 stout sail-cloth (tele), each piece some twenty feet long 
 by six feet high and fastened together with hooks, for 
 in the days of Leo the old Italian use of nets (reti) for 
 this purpose had been superseded by the new French 
 hunting fashions. These tele were firmly secured by 
 stout poles driven into the earth and were watched 
 during the progress of the day's sport by soldiers of the 
 Swiss Guard aided by peasants, whose duty it was to 
 prevent the terrified boars from breaking through the 
 enclosing material, or the stags from leaping bodily over 
 it in their frantic endeavours to escape. Next day at 
 the appointed hour for the hunt, the armata, or armed 
 sporting party, was carefully marshalled on the plain 
 outside the enclosed space, the principal post of vantage 
 being reserved for the Principe Cacciatore, or Master of 
 the Hunt, that is for the Supreme Pontiff himself. The 
 cardinals and nobles of the papal court were next led to 
 suitable positions so as to obtain the cream of the sport ; 
 riders on horseback were disposed in such a manner as 
 to prevent the on-rushing game from escaping into 
 neighbouring marshes or thickets ; whilst the grooms 
 holding the greyhounds and mastiffs in leash were like-
 
 LEO'S HUNTING 199 
 
 wise appointed to their proper places. When all was 
 ready, the Principe Cacciatore gave the signal to begin 
 by waving aloft a white kerchief, whereupon a long blast 
 on the horn was sounded, and the under-keepers with 
 peasants to act as beaters entered the enclosure with 
 fearful yells, shouts, blowing of horns and even explo- 
 sions of gunpowder in order to drive the imprisoned game 
 out of cover towards the open, where the company was 
 awaiting its appearance. Amidst the wildest excitement 
 and a deafening chorus of shouting, barking and cheer- 
 ing the frightened beasts rushed pell-mell hither and 
 thither, being skilfully guided towards the fatal opening 
 ready prepared for them. With a roar of delight 
 cardinals, nobles, knights and prelates with their at- 
 tendants flung themselves upon the half-stupefied prey, 
 attacking with energy, but apparently without much 
 science, boar, wolf, goat, deer or hare with every kind 
 of weapon save the musket, which for obvious reasons 
 was forbidden on these occasions. 
 
 Whilst some of the sportsmen tried to spear the 
 flying hart or, sword in hand, to face the enraged boar, 
 others would follow the greyhounds on horseback across 
 the open plain in pursuit of hare or bustard. Meanwhile 
 His Holiness, the Master of the Hunt, a conspicuous 
 figure on the white horse that had borne him at Ravenna, 
 was smilingly surveying from his secure and lofty position 
 the general tumult through the inevitable glass : now 
 applauding the Herculean Cardinal Sanseverino (who 
 in imitation of his favourite antique god constantly bore 
 a lion's skin on his broad shoulders) for his pluck in 
 meeting the on-rush of a wounded boar, now warning 
 some favourite page to keep clear of the fray, and anon 
 laughing consumedly at the absurd antics of Fra Mariano 
 struggling with a refractory mule, or at Paolo Giovio,
 
 200 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 his own historian, who in the excitement of the chase 
 had come to grief in some muddy ditch and was flounder- 
 ing in the oozy slime. 
 
 Yet even more important than Boccamazzo in the 
 management of the papal hunts was Leo's private 
 chamberlain, Giovanni Lazzaro de' Magistris, universally 
 known by his nick-name of Serapica, "the Mosquito," 
 which he presumably owed to his small shrill voice. A 
 hard-bitten wiry little fellow, originally a parish priest at 
 Aquila in the kingdom of Naples, Serapica had gained 
 the confidence of Leo equally by his tact at court and 
 by his indomitable pluck in the field, where he would 
 face a charging boar, and even on one occasion was 
 badly tossed by a stray bull before his master's eyes. 
 Both as a courtier in the palace and as custodian of the 
 papal kennels, this Neapolitan sporting priest served his 
 magnificent patron faithfully during his life and mourned 
 him with sincerity after death. It is not difficult, however, 
 to understand why Serapica's undeniable influence with 
 the Pontiff became the cause of much jealousy amongst 
 the more prominent members of the Roman court, whose 
 outraged feelings were expressed in the foul-mouthed 
 Aretino's sarcastic epigram upon Serapica's strange ad- 
 vancement from the papal kennels to the papal presence. 1 
 Whilst Boccamazzo was held answerable for the constant 
 supply of game, Serapica was responsible for all the 
 arrangements of the hunt, a matter of no small concern 
 when Leo penetrated into the more remote districts of 
 the Campagna, where only a few fever-stricken hamlets 
 existed to afford shelter for the Pontiff and his luxurious 
 suite, which often contained a hundred or more guests, 
 to say nothing of the ruck of humbler followers, such as 
 beaters, grooms, and dog-keepers. In fact, the expected 
 
 1 Serapica stregghio i cani ; e poi fu papa.
 
 ALKSSAXDRO FARNKSK (PAUL III)
 
 LEO'S HUNTING 201 
 
 arrival of the Papal Nimrod brought no little anxiety to 
 the local governors of the small towns of the Roman 
 
 o 
 
 State, so that we can easily imagine the mixed feelings 
 wherewith the Castellan of Civitta Vecchia must have 
 received the ensuing communication from His Holiness 
 on the 1 8th October, 1518 : 
 
 " MY BELOVED CASTELLAN, 
 
 " I shall be at Civita Vecchia on the 24th day 
 of this month with a large suite. You must arrange for 
 a good dinner with plenty of fish for me, as I am most 
 anxious to make a display of state before the men of 
 letters and others who will be my companions. I shall 
 reimburse all your expenses on our behalf. I command 
 you to let nothing be wanting at this banquet, since I 
 wish to entertain thereat persons of the highest consider- 
 ation, who are very dear to my heart We shall be 140 
 in number, and that will serve to guide you, so that there 
 may be no mistakes nor deficiencies through ignorance. 
 I bestow my blessing upon you. 
 
 "Your most loving 
 
 "SOVEREIGN" l 
 
 But this number, large as it appears, was moderate 
 in comparison with the immense crowds which attended 
 the hunts of Cardinal Farnese, when he entertained the 
 Pontiff on his estates at Viterbo or Cannino. These 
 visits to the feudal domains of the Farnesi, made usually 
 in the summer months, gave occasion to immense holo- 
 causts of feathered game, chiefly pheasants, partridges and 
 quails, which were captured by most elaborate and in- 
 genious devices, whilst smaller birds, such as thrushes, 
 ortolans and larks, even robins and goldfinches, were 
 snared in thousands by means of the uccellare, the 
 
 1 Quoted by Count Gnoli (Le Caccie di Leone X.}.
 
 202 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 historic bird-snare of Italy. The warm weather likewise 
 drew Leo to the beautiful wooded shores of the Lake of 
 Bolsena, which had long been familiar to him, since as 
 legate of the patrimony of St. Peter he had occasionally 
 resided at the town of Bolsena, where a stately palace and 
 a fountain enriched with Florentine coloured terra-cotta 
 still proclaim to-day the taste and bounty of the 
 Medici. The Pontiff bore such an affection for this smil- 
 ing district, partly from old associations but chiefly on ac- 
 count of the splendid fishing afforded by these prolific 
 waters, that a summer rarely passed unmarked by his 
 presence on these shores. " Every year," sings the house- 
 poet of the Farnesi, "doth Leo condescend to visit our 
 domain and to bathe his holy countenance in our waves." 
 Taking up his residence in a villa belonging to his host on 
 the islet of Bisentina, Leo was frequently rowed over the 
 shining expanse of Bolsena in a specially constructed 
 barge manned by sixteen oarsmen ; sometimes to in- 
 dulge in a long day's fishing or sometimes to visit his 
 own preserve of pheasants on the island of Martana. 
 Owing to the sparse population on the shores of Bolsena, 
 boatmen and fishermen had to be brought from Lake 
 Trasimeno to minister to the pontifical pleasure and to 
 assist in the immense hauls of fish, and particularly of 
 the famous eels of Bolsena, which, according to Dante, 
 had caused the death of Leo's predecessor Pope Martin 
 IV., whose gluttony for eels and white wine was punished 
 by a course of starvation in Purgatory : 
 
 " E purga per digiuno 
 L' anguille di Bolsena e la vernaccia." 1 
 
 Nevertheless, in addition to his fishing preserves at sylvan 
 Bolsena, Leo had constructed near Ostia a huge bacino, 
 
 1 Purgatorio, canto xxiv.
 
 LEO'S HUNTING 203 
 
 or artificial pond of salt water, teeming with all kinds of 
 Mediterranean fishes, wherein the Pope and his guests 
 frequently diverted themselves. 1 
 
 These expeditions at Bolsena and Ostia, however, 
 were reckoned as simple amusements, which could not 
 be compared with the sterner pleasures of the chase, 
 which afforded Leo far keener enjoyment. But although 
 the author of these hunting-parties and their most devoted 
 observer, we must ever bear in mind that Leo was seldom 
 anything but a spectator or an umpire of the exciting 
 scenes and personal encounters around him. His chronic 
 malady forbade him to indulge in vigorous exercise either 
 on horseback or afoot, assuming moral or official scruples 
 were insufficient of themselves to restrain him ; in boggy 
 or dangerous places even His Holiness had to be carried 
 in a litter in order to reach the proposed scene of opera- 
 tions. More than one contemporary poet has fortunately 
 left us accounts of these papal hunts, and though their 
 Latin verses are full of pedantic allusions and of fulsome 
 praise of the Pontiff, his cardinals, his courtiers, his dogs, 
 his very buffoons, we have been presented with striking 
 glimpses of a day's hunting in the golden age of the first 
 Medicean Pope. Through the Palietum? for example, 
 of Baldassare Molosso, commonly called Tranquillo and 
 known to history as the tutor of that human fiend, Pier- 
 Luigi Farnese, first Duke of Parma (then a stripling 
 described by Leo himself as "possessing high courage, 
 praiseworthy manners and a good disposition "), we are 
 
 1 Jovius, lib. iv. Paolo Giovio was himself the author of one of the 
 earliest Italian treatises on the natural history of fish ; his De Piscibus 
 Romanis being published shortly after Leo's death. It is probable 
 that the historian obtained his information on this subject during 
 these fishing expeditions at Bolsena and Ostia. 
 
 " Tranquilli Molossi Palietum, Bossi-Roscoe, vol. xii., pp. 129-
 
 20 4 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 able to obtain a valuable picture of an event of this 
 nature which took place on lyth January, 1514, when 
 Leo was the guest of the poet's patron, Cardinal Ales- 
 sandro Farnese, afterwards Pope Paul III. In graceful 
 flowing hexameters Tranquillo salutes the Pontiff as 
 "the Jupiter of Earth," and then alludes to the young- 
 Cardinal Petrucci of Siena as "that most beautiful of 
 youths, to whom Cupid has yielded his bow, his arrows, 
 and his very quiver, whereby to make havoc in the 
 hearts of the nymphs and tender maidens ". Innocenzo 
 Cybb, the Pope's own nephew, the poet flatters by 
 professing to foresee in him a future Pontiff, a curious 
 and rather dangerous compliment, seeing that Leo him- 
 self had barely reached his thirty-ninth year. All names, 
 however, are presented to us in classical guise, with the 
 result that not a few of them can no longer be identified ; 
 yet it is easy to recognise the intrepid little Serapica in 
 the line 
 
 Fortis equo sumptisque minax Serapitius armis. 
 
 In the midst of this brilliant array of nobles and prelates, 
 all bent on amusement, appears Leo with the genial 
 smile, prominent like Jove himself surrounded by the 
 minor deities of Olympus. Beside him rides Farnese, 
 unarmed and only intent on his august master's wishes ; 
 but the other cardinals all bear lances, swords or darts, 
 which they employ with varying degrees of skill upon 
 the big game that is driven for them out of the enclosed 
 thickets. The gigantic Sanseverino, who once bore 
 Alexander VI. in his arms like a baby and who can still 
 despite his years vie in bodily strength with the younger 
 cardinals, deftly transfixes with his short sword a charging 
 boar of prodigious size : a daring feat which wins for him 
 the warm approbation of His Holiness, who at the same
 
 LEO'S HUNTING 205 
 
 time implores his host not to allow his precious heir, the 
 little Pier-Luigi, to mingle in the sport for fear of some 
 injury. Meanwhile Fra Mariano purposely, perhaps, 
 who can tell? manages to fall off his mule within sight 
 of the Pontiff's glass and thus arouses his patron's mirth 
 by his comical struggles and shrill appeals for assistance. 
 And thus for hours the merry-making proceeds apace to 
 the united sounds of beaters calling, dogs giving tongue 
 and wild beasts screaming with fear or agony. The 
 sun declines towards the western horizon ; all are grown 
 weary of the sport ; the enclosed space is well-nigh de- 
 nuded of its game ; so that the papal command to cease 
 is received with general satisfaction. In the picked 
 phrases of the poet thus does the great Leo now address 
 his brother prelates and sportsmen. " The Gods have 
 granted our prayer, for this day's hunting has been most 
 prosperous, although at the first uprising of the sun the 
 morn was dim with clouds and showers. But later 
 Phoebus Apollo changed his aspect and shone out 
 radiantly with face serene as on a day in springtime. 
 Thus do the Gods show favour to such as never despair. 1 
 Enough of dart and hound! Our slaughter for to-day 
 is sufficient. Lay aside your weapons, and tie again 
 the swift hounds to the leash. Whatever game remains 
 in cover will afford us sport another season." 
 
 With the setting sun the long train slowly proceeds 
 homewards to Farnese's castle at Cannino, where at the 
 gates of the little town groups of peasants applaud the 
 returning Pontiff, who smiles genially in response and 
 flings handfuls of coins from the purse of crimson velvet 
 at his girdle, which it is Serapica's duty constantly to 
 replenish. For Leo is very popular with the people of 
 the Campagna, whom he loves to converse with and also 
 
 1 Compare with this, chapter iii., p. 55.
 
 206 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 pays handsomely in return for any forced labour he 
 may exact. Moreover, he constantly bestows largesse 
 upon whole families, and gives dowries to enable pretty 
 sunburnt girls to marry their sweethearts ; his very 
 coming enriches the fields and brings a golden harvest, 
 so aver the grateful contadini not without reason. 1 
 Leaving the cheering crowd and the improvised festal 
 arches of the town, Farnese's guests enter the castle 
 hall, where an elaborate supper is being prepared. 
 The interval of waiting is passed in animated con- 
 versation concerning the incidents of the past day's 
 sport, or else in admiring the fine tapestries and pictures 
 of the chamber. At the conclusion of the meal, Grapaldo 
 of Parma sings to his lute Latin hexameters, of which 
 the theme is Diana surprised in her naked loveliness by 
 the rash hunter Actseon, whom the indignant goddess 
 forthwith changes into a stag that is straightway torn to 
 pieces by his own hounds. By midnight all have grown 
 weary from their past fatigues or sleepy from the effects 
 of the Cardinal's choice wines, and on Leo giving the 
 signal to retire all gladly seek their couches. For ten 
 days this life is pursued at Cannino without a break, 
 and then with hundreds of happy and enriched peasants 
 wishing him God-speed, the Jupiter of Earth returns 
 once more to Rome, where the citizens hasten to the 
 gates to meet the papal cavalcade and to admire the 
 trophies of the late hunt proudly displayed ; particularly 
 the huge tusker slain by the hand of the Cardinal 
 Sanseverino. Before the portals of the Vatican His 
 Holiness turns to address his erstwhile companions of 
 the chase : " Fellow-hunters, it is not meet that I alone 
 should obtain the whole of the booty, which has been 
 secured by your own exertions. Take it therefore away 
 
 1 Jovius, lib. iv.
 
 LEO'S HUNTING 207 
 
 with you, and suspend the horns of the stags as votive 
 offerings above the temple doors. All the spoil belongs 
 to you ; the sight of it affords sufficient pleasure to Leo." 
 And with these words each sportsman selects his share 
 out of the mass, and triumphantly bears it through the 
 streets of Rome to his own palace. 
 
 But a yet more lively and realistic account of one of 
 these expeditions, which took place at Palo in the 
 autumn of 1520, a year before the Pope's death, has 
 been handed down to us from the pen of Guido Silvester, 
 commonly called Postumo, a poet in the train of Cardinal 
 Rangone of Modena, highly praised for his talents by 
 the generous Ariosto, who speaks of this Postumo as 
 doubly crowned by Minerva and Phcebus Apollo. 1 The 
 writer first indites of the gay procession issuing from the 
 town for the day's sport. There is the Earthly Jove, 
 "the Thunderer of the Vatican," with his portly form 
 enveloped in a robe of rich white brocade albo insignis 
 amictu and surrounded by the Cardinals Giulio de' 
 Medici, Cybo, Ridolfi and Salviati, all his near relations, 
 and also by Bibbiena and Rangone, his tried and devoted 
 friends. There is Bernardo Accolti, " the Only Aretine," 
 swaggering and brandishing a spear, which to do full 
 justice to that mediocre genius he was wont to employ 
 more skilfully than his quill. That perfect courtier with 
 grave face, dark hair and cold blue eyes, Baldassare 
 Castiglione ; the poets Molza, Vida and Tebaldeo, with 
 a host of learned members of the Roman Parnassus are 
 present ; but the renowned Bembo and his colleague 
 Sadoleto, being absent on their master's political mis- 
 sions, are sadly missed by the remainder of the company. 
 Again the poet describes for us the driving of the game 
 from the enclosed area ; the tense expectation of the 
 
 1 Ad Petrum Pactium, Bossi-Roscoe, vol. viii., Appendix CLXIX.
 
 208 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Pope and his guests at the entrance of the plain ; and 
 the ensuing scenes of confusion and slaughter. But 
 Postumo mentions also certain incidents of the day's 
 sport ; how he himself is knocked down and nearly 
 killed by a savage boar to the momentary alarm of the 
 Pontiff, who has perceived the poet's danger ; and how 
 one of the knights, Licaba by name, actually spears a 
 valuable shaggy hound in mistake for a wolf, which 
 causes much mirth to His Holiness, when shown the 
 carcase of the stupid blunderer's " wolf ". Postumo too is 
 greatly diverted at witnessing a fierce duel between a 
 certain Falloppio of Modena (an exile from his native 
 city on account of a murder committed there) and a 
 soldier called Lica, who quarrel and finally come to 
 blows over the disputed possession of a slain wild boar. 
 In the ensuing fight Lica loses an eye and is rescued 
 with no little difficulty from the clutches of the brutal 
 Falloppio, to be led away to his patron's tent blinded, 
 limping and howling with the pain. But even more 
 amusing in Postumo's opinion than poor Lica's fate 
 appears the merry accident (jocus) which terminated the 
 career of Lancetto, Cardinal Cornaro's favourite kennel- 
 man, celebrated equally for his skill in training dogs and 
 for his drunken habits (quo non vinosior}. Lancetto, 
 evidently in his cups at the time, contrives to transfix 
 with the spear one of his best hounds, Argo by name, 
 whilst close upon the heels of a wounded boar. Hor- 
 rified at his own clumsiness and maddened by the fumes 
 of the wine he has lately swallowed, Lancetto with a 
 mighty effort must needs leap right upon the back of the 
 flying boar, and try to strangle it by squeezing its gullet 
 with both his sinewy hands. But the tortured quarry 
 soon succeeds in flinging its human rider to earth, where- 
 upon it gores the prostrate body from head to foot, till
 
 LEO'S HUNTING 209 
 
 life is extinct. Lancetto's companions at length slay the 
 infuriated animal and carry the mangled corpse of 
 Cornaro's kennel-man to his master's pavilion, where 
 the Venetian cardinal orders his dead servant's visage 
 to be washed with the best of old wine, whilst he pauses 
 for a moment to compose a suitable epitaph to place on 
 Lancetto's tomb : " Here lies Lancetto, whose death- 
 wound was the work of a wild boar, or rather of the 
 wine-cup "- 1 Such a jovial adventure as this quite throws 
 into the shade the drolleries of Fra Mariano (Charmides), 
 who is engaged in quizzing that handsome but petulant 
 youth, Valerio Orsini, for being unable to restrain his 
 tears at losing the stag he has been pursuing. But the 
 bag is enormous, and as the party returns to Palo, His 
 Holiness can be overheard muttering to himself from 
 time to time, " What a glorious day ! " 
 
 Now is the right moment for a prelate desiring 
 another eommendam, or the courtier with a hankering 
 after some coveted lordship, to approach and present the 
 ready-drawn parchment, which requires the pontifical 
 signature alone to make its terms binding. Leo is in 
 high good humour, and therefore signs anything and 
 everything that is placed before him, nor is he sparing 
 of genial smiles to his cunning suppliants. How different 
 is the behaviour of His Holiness on an evening when 
 the day's sport has been poor ! Scowls and bitter 
 sarcasm followed by a sharp refusal are pretty sure to 
 fall upon any indiscreet applicant on such an occasion, 
 no matter how simple or necessary the request. " It is 
 quite incredible," observes the learned Paolo Giovio, 
 who elsewhere comments on his master's invariable 
 courtesy, "that after an ill day's hunting he should 
 
 1 ... Hie Lancettus ab apro 
 Sed magis a vino saucius ora jacet.
 
 210 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 exhibit so much disappointment and annoyance both in 
 his face and in -his temper." But sport and weather 
 have alike proved propitious this fine November day, so 
 that Leo will grant all demands with his accustomed 
 grace and generosity. 
 
 Nevertheless, the day's adventures are not quite 
 exhausted, although the shades of evening are beginning 
 to fall, for suddenly a buzzard is spied aloft hovering 
 against the gold and crimson of the western sky. 
 Promptly the falconer of Cardinal Orsini releases his 
 master's best peregrine, which darts upward in pursuit 
 of the bigger hawk and sets to attack its less active 
 opponent with beak, wings and talons. But whilst the 
 whole party is gazing rapturously at this aerial combat, 
 suddenly there sails into ken an immense eagle, which 
 in its turn assails the Cardinal's falcon. In vain does 
 the anxious strozziere sound the accustomed call of 
 return ; the plucky falcon engages in battle with the 
 king of birds, and is incontinently slain. Headlong 
 falls the lifeless mass of blood-stained feathers with a 
 thud to the ground at the feet of its weeping trainer, 
 whilst Orsini himself proceeds to moralise on the high 
 spirit of his unfortunate pet. The gallant falcon shall 
 be buried, he declares, with full honours of war upon 
 the battlement of some lofty tower. Her chains and 
 jesses shall lie beside her in the tomb, and an achieve- 
 ment bearing the proud arms of Orsini shall mark the 
 spot, above which skulls of doves and herons shall yearly 
 be suspended for a votive remembrance of the bird's 
 past victories. 
 
 As in Molosso's poem, the banquet, the jest, the 
 music and the recitation, which crown the labours of the 
 day, are duly recorded ; but in this case it is Messer 
 Tiresia, a canon of Bologna and a papal secretary, who
 
 LEO'S HUNTING 211 
 
 delights the august company with choice verses composed 
 by the absent Bembo, whose genial presence and witty 
 conversation are so sorely missed. 
 
 However interesting they may be deemed from an 
 historical or social point of view, these contemporary 
 accounts of Leo's hunting-parties must inspire disgust 
 in modern minds and serve to prejudice us against a 
 Pope, who not only delighted in these crude exhibitions 
 of wholesale slaughter, but also squandered vast sums 
 of the public revenue upon their arrangements. We 
 are shocked, and rightly so, by the callous descriptions 
 of Postumo and Molosso, and still more so by the 
 account of a certain driving of big game at Santa 
 Marinella on the coast, whereat numbers of stags, goats 
 and boar were hurried down a steep bosky ravine head- 
 long into the sea. Close to the shore the papal court, 
 stationed in boats, was awaiting the appearance of the 
 game, which was slaughtered amidst the wildest scenes 
 of noise and confusion, whilst His Holiness, seated 
 comfortably in a luxurious barge amidst the blood- 
 stained surf, eagerly followed every detail of a revolting 
 spectacle, worthy the eyes of a Nero or a Commodus. 
 Nevertheless, we must digress for a moment to remark 
 that the cruelty and barbarism we so condemn were 
 necessarily inseparable from the hunts of the Renais- 
 sance ; nor must we forget that the dexterous use of 
 modern fire-arms has deprived sport on a large scale 
 of some of its objectionable features, seeing that the 
 breech-loading, self-ejecting guns of to-day kill with 
 merciful precision, whereas four centuries ago the victims 
 of large hunting-parties, such as Leo attended, were torn 
 or hacked for hours with clumsy sword or spear. As 
 a son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the Pope had in-
 
 2 i2 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 herited a natural taste for sport in the brutal forms then 
 of necessity prevalent ; and as a Cardinal there were 
 none to forbid, and very few to censure the Medici's 
 open indulgence in this form of amusement, however 
 unseemly in a Churchman. And again, most of the 
 younger cardinals of princely rank, his own friends and 
 companions, were inordinately devoted to sport in every 
 form, so .that Medici was only too ready from natural 
 inclination to follow their bad example. But as Supreme 
 Pontiff he might and should have set his face firmly 
 against such waste of time and treasure, to say nothing 
 of loss of reputation, by refraining from pastimes which 
 were expressly forbidden by the canon law and were 
 highly indecorous in one holding the most exalted office 
 in Christendom. But instead of setting a good example, 
 Leo, after one feeble effort at self-control, yielded 
 completely to a temptation which his wealth and position 
 now offered. Nor was there a shadow of excuse for 
 his doing so, since on account of his physical infirmity 
 he was unable to engage actively in the sport which he 
 patronised, or to share in its real dangers or fatigues, 
 which form the usual excuses urged for an excessive 
 devotion to the chase. On the contrary, seated in 
 comfortable security he used invariably to obtain his 
 satisfaction from watching thus the scenes of torture and 
 massacre enacted below, whilst his active participation 
 was confined to giving the required coup de grace to 
 some stag or boar that had become entangled in the 
 enclosing bonds. 1 On such occasions, Leo would de- 
 scend from his palfrey and be led in state to the spot 
 where the wounded beast was struggling hopelessly 
 in the toils. With spear poised in his right hand, and 
 with the left hand employed in holding the spy-glass to 
 
 1 A. Luzio, p. 64, note 3.
 
 LEO'S HUNTING 213 
 
 guide the coming thrust, His Holiness amid applause of 
 sycophants and servants would advance to deliver the 
 final death-blow to the exhausted animal. It is therefore 
 obvious that it was the actual bloodshed and brutality 
 of the chase rather than its attendant risks and hardships, 
 which urged Leo to these hunts ; it was the constant 
 spectacle of indiscriminate slaughter and not any genuine 
 desire for the pure air and free life of the open country 
 (as his eulogistic biographer Giovio asserts), which in- 
 duced the Pontiff to waste so much time due to public 
 business and his holy office. And yet Count Bossi, the 
 able Italian commentator of Roscoe's biography of Leo 
 X., expressly defends the Pope's conduct for this very 
 reason ; declaring him blameless, since he only honoured 
 the sport by his august presence, "with all the dignity 
 appertaining to his exalted office ".* Such is a modern 
 Italian view of the ethics of papal hunting. 
 
 But if it was unseemly, as we have already shown, 
 for the Supreme Pontiff to be hunting at all, how much 
 the more severely is Leo to be judged for allowing this 
 forbidden pastime to become a positive craving, an 
 obsession, pervading his very existence, diminishing the 
 papal revenues, of which he was but the temporary 
 guardian, and setting a terrible example of selfish frivolity 
 to the whole Christian world, of which he was the ac- 
 knowledged Head, and thereby helping not a little to 
 foment that growing spirit of disaffection and schism which 
 was so soon to rend in twain Western Christendom? 
 As Leo's brilliant, merry, cultured life draws towards its 
 close, it becomes instructive and also sad to observe 
 this desire for sport assuming proportions that would 
 have been reprehensible in a secular prince, and there- 
 fore tenfold more culpable in the case of a Supreme 
 
 1 Bossi-Roscoe, vol. xii., p. 130.
 
 214 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Pontiff. Like the bad King Rufus of England who 
 loved the brave red deer like his own children (and 
 certainly far better than his own subjects), did Leo grow 
 more and more enamoured of venary in its most brutalising 
 forms. There appears something ominous in the simple 
 circumstance that during the very last days of Leo's 
 reign, at a moment when all Europe was seething 
 with ecclesiastical revolt and secular aggression, the 
 Supreme Pontiff can yet find leisure and means to 
 squander large sums on hawks for the papal mews. On 
 2oth November, 1521, the faithful Serapica makes his last 
 entry in the private spese of his magnificent patron : 
 "To John Brand of Malines, 30 ducats apiece for 
 six jer-falcons ; 10 ducats each for two goshawks ; 
 15 ducats for a tiercel jer-falcon, and 10 for a young 
 goshawk ; that is in all 225 ducats V Eleven days later, 
 and the Papal Nimrod is lying dead in a chamber of 
 the Apostolic Palace. 
 
 1 Gnoli, Le Caccie d' Leone X.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 
 
 During my residence in Rome, I often saw the great Raphael 
 on public occasions walk from his house, near the rising edifice of 
 St. Peter's, to the court of Leo X., followed by forty or fifty artists, so 
 generally was his superiority acknowledged. I also frequently met 
 him at the Vatican. His celebrity made every stranger seek his ac- 
 quaintance. His elegant figure and interesting physiognomy at- 
 tracted attention, while the fulness of his conversation and the amenity 
 of his manners fascinated the spectators of the divine creations of his 
 pencil. I observed with pleasure his manner of communicating in- 
 formation to his pupils. It was neither the condescension of the 
 pride of knowledge, nor the forced and brief precepts of the hired 
 lecturer, but the ample and generous communication of a mind as 
 liberal as it was enlightened. He not only quitted his own perform- 
 ances to instruct theirs, but he freely gave his pupils designs of his own 
 composition, and hence it was that in my travels through Europe I 
 found so many of his sketches in the cabinets of the curious. The 
 kindness of Raphael's disposition diffused itself among his scholars. 
 They copied his manners as well as his mind, and this honourable 
 emulation therefore never degenerated into illiberality or envy (The 
 Travels of Theodore Ducas). 
 
 E~ X. was undoubtedly "the incarnation of the 
 Renaissance, not in its purest but in its most 
 brilliant form," and the world in consequence 
 still owes a deep debt of gratitude to the liberality and 
 fine taste of the first Medicean Pontiff, whose name will 
 ever remain associated with that of the divine Raphael 
 of Urbino. Yet the same carping criticism that has 
 been passed upon his choice in literature has been even 
 applied to the Pope's patronage in the domain of art. 
 The ostensible reason for this dissatisfaction is to be 
 
 215
 
 zi6 THE MEDICI .POPES 
 
 found in the continued absence from the Roman court 
 during his reign of two out of the three leading Italian 
 artists of the day, namely, Lionardo da Vinci and 
 Michelangelo Buonarotti. Neglect of the latter, the 
 Pope's own fellow-citizen, has been constantly urged by 
 modern writers as an instance of Leo's conspicuous lack 
 of real artistic insight or knowledge. Nevertheless, it 
 is not hard to comprehend the Medici's failure to ap- 
 preciate the stupendous genius of Michelangelo, whose 
 gigantic conceptions in stone or marble possessed small 
 attraction for this papal patron, who seems to have been 
 less partial to sculpture than to the sister arts of painting, 
 engraving and architecture. Like most short-sighted 
 persons, Leo found a surer delight in the minute and 
 delicate productions of jewellers and goldsmiths such as 
 Tagliacarne and Caradosso, which he loved to examine 
 closely with spy-glass or spectacles, than in the vast 
 naked groups of statuary which the Florentine master 
 was then devising for the monument of the late Pope 
 Julius. Nor was Leo's antipathy due merely to artistic 
 reasons, for the two qualities which he specially demanded 
 in the recipients of his bounty, alacrity and an unques- 
 tioning obedience, were utterly absent in the egotistic 
 temperament of the fierce Michelangelo. The genial 
 but erratic Pope had therefore small sympathy with the 
 conscientious but morose Florentine, ever nursing some 
 grievance, real or imaginary, against his employer for 
 the time being, and resenting the scant deference that 
 was usually displayed towards the leading artists of the 
 period, who were then held on a lower level than the 
 scholars and poets of the court and were treated as 
 skilled decorators rather than as distinguished men of 
 genius. With the fiery Julius II., himself of plebeian 
 origin, Michelangelo had been more content, for in that
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 217 
 
 case both patron and sculptor were moved by the same 
 combative and impatient spirit ; both shared some 
 measure of that terribilitci, which was so common a 
 characteristic of their turbulent epoch. How different 
 in the eyes of the fastidious and cultured Medici was 
 the behaviour of the discreet young painter from Urbino ! 
 If the great Florentine was always -alert to find some 
 cause of discontent, the new master from Urbino ever 
 showed himself anxious to please and ready to under- 
 take any task from the most profound to the most 
 trivial, from decorating the halls of the Apostolic palace 
 to designing the drop-scene for a licentious farce, from 
 painting the Supreme Pontiff himself to drawing the 
 likeness of poor Baraballo's elephant ; anything, in 
 short, that the capricious mind of the mighty Leo might 
 care to suggest on the spur of the moment. No wonder 
 then that the Medici openly preferred the divine Raphael 
 to the unique Florentine, seeing that Leo's own easy- 
 going nature was not a little reflected in that of the hand- 
 some and charming young painter from Urbino. Silent 
 and self-centred, the great sculptor was wont to regard 
 with bitterness of envy the rapid progress of his fascinat- 
 ing rival, now basking in the full sunshine of the papal 
 favour, whose steps were everywhere dogged by a 
 crowd of admiring pupils hanging intent on every 
 sentence that fell from the lips of Raphael. "You go 
 about your business," said the jealous Michelangelo with 
 a sneer, "like a general with his staff! "-"And you," 
 was the prompt retort of the artist thus needlessly pro- 
 voked, "all solitary like the hangman!" 
 
 Leo, however, did give employment to his great 
 fellow-citizen, who at the Pope's suggestion reluctantly 
 abandoned his cherished design of completing the 
 colossal monument for the late Julius, in order to under-
 
 2i8 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 take the building of a faade for the basilica of San 
 Lorenzo in Florence, and on this task Michelangelo was 
 nominally at least engaged from the year 1515 until the 
 close of the Medici's reign. Certain biographers of 
 Michelangelo have hinted that Leo was not in earnest 
 when he gave this commission, 1 yet it is hard to admit 
 the possibility of such a theory, seeing the peculiar con- 
 nection of this famous church with the Medici and the 
 boundless pride of the Medici themselves in their House. 
 But it would be futile to dwell here on the miserable 
 story concerning the precious years of the sculptor's life 
 that were irretrievably wasted amongst the marble 
 quarries of Carrara, whilst obtaining material for this 
 fa9ade ordered by the Pope. It is sufficient to state the 
 dismal fact that throughout the nine years' pontificate 
 of the Papal Maecenas the marble statue of the Risen 
 Christ in the Roman church of Santa Maria sopra 
 Minerva was almost the sole work of note produced 
 by the chisel of Michelangelo. By a strange coincidence 
 this figure, which is commonly accounted one of the 
 master's least happy efforts, stands close to the tomb of 
 the Medicean Pope, who, whatever excuse may be ad- 
 vanced on his behalf, certainly failed to avail himself 
 of the most profound genius in all Italy. And even 
 making full allowance for the incompatibility of temper 
 in artist and patron, this treatment appears all the more 
 remarkable, since the Pope had known Michelangelo 
 from boyhood (the two men being almost of an age) ; 
 indeed, their acquaintance dated from the early days 
 when the sculptor, then a promising lad, was studying his 
 art in the gardens of the Magnificent Lorenzo, before 
 ever Leo had been raised to the dignity of the purple. 
 
 1 For the cause of this theory, see J. A. Symonds, Life of 
 Michelangelo, vol. i., p. 350.
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 219 
 
 In spite of all this regrettable waste of time and this 
 misunderstanding, let us hope however that the Venetian 
 painter, Sebastiano del Piombo, was sincere when he 
 wrote to the offended master, on 27th October, 1520, a 
 little more than a twelvemonth before the Pope's death ; 
 " I know in what esteem the Pope holds you, and when 
 he talks of you, it would seem that he were speaking 
 about a brother, almost with tears in his eyes ; for he 
 has told me that you were brought up together as boys, 
 and shows that he knows and loves you. But you 
 frighten everybody, even Popes ! " Yet in any case it 
 was a heavy loss to posterity that Leo omitted to turn to 
 account the talents of Michelangelo as he did those of 
 Raphael, for the melancholy fact remains prominent that 
 the reign of the splendid Leo constitutes a barren spot 
 in the fertile garden of Michelangelo's career. 
 
 It is a pleasant relief to turn from this sorry tale of 
 neglect and misunderstanding to the account of Leo's 
 patronage of Raphael. Here at all events the artistic 
 temperament of the second son of Lorenzo the Magnifi- 
 cent found full scope in turning the powers of the wonder- 
 ful painter of Urbino to the glorification of himself and 
 his House in the exquisite productions, which all admire 
 to-day in those halls of the Apostolic palace, that are 
 themselves called the Stanze di Raffaelo, in honour of 
 him whose genius is therein shown at its best and 
 brightest. Only seven years younger than the Pontiff 
 he was permitted to serve so faithfully, Raffaelo Santi, 
 or Sanzio, was born in the old hill-set city of Urbino 
 on the sixth day of April, 1483. The little capital 
 was then in the heyday of its independence, whilst the 
 court of its dukes of the ancient and honoured House of 
 Montefeltre was the centre of an artistic and intellectual 
 
 1 J. A. Symonds, Life of Michelangelo, vol. i., p. 347.
 
 220 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 life, whereof Raphael's bosom friend, Baldassare Cas- 
 tiglione, has left us such charming recollections in the 
 pages of his Cortigiano. Sprung of a respectable but 
 by no means noble stock, the youthful Raffaelo Santi, 
 better known in latter days as the divine Raphael of 
 Urbino, undoubtedly learned the elegant arts of the 
 polite world of his time in the atmosphere of the ducal 
 court of the Montefeltre, who in the painter's childhood 
 frequently entertained in their beautiful palace the exiled 
 members of the House of Medici, so that Raphael must 
 have been slightly acquainted with the Cardinal and his 
 brother Giuliano at a very early age. The Medici were 
 undoubtedly glad to welcome the promising young 
 painter, when in the year 1508 he made his appearance 
 in Rome as a rising artist, whose increasing fame was 
 likely soon to eclipse the renown of his late master, 
 Pietro Perugino. In the Eternal City the ever-growing 
 reputation of this youthful genius from Urbino scarcely 
 seemed to need the assistance of his influential supporter, 
 the great architect Bramante, for Raphael quickly ob- 
 tained numerous commissions in high quarters, amongst 
 his many patrons being the Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, 
 who speedily formed the loftiest opinion of his capa- 
 bilities. In all probability it was Raphael who now de- 
 signed for the Cardinal's titular church of Santa Maria 
 in Domenica on the deserted Coelian Hill its charming 
 little portico with the five arches, above which appears 
 the inscription that tells the stranger of the Medici's 
 bounty in restoring this ancient fabric. 1 And it was 
 probably also by Raphael's advice that the marble copy 
 of an antique ship was erected in front of its facade, a 
 circumstance which has gained for this church the local 
 
 1 Divae Virgini Templumin Domenica dirutumjo. Medices Diac. 
 Card, instauravit.
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 221 
 
 name of " La Navicella". This tasteful restoration of 
 an ancient Roman basilica was of course but a trifling 
 event in the midst of innumerable commissions of far 
 greater importance ; for in addition to other duties 
 Raphael had already been entrusted by Julius II., on the 
 warm recommendation of Bramante, with the re-de- 
 coration of the official apartments of the Vatican, although 
 these rooms were largely covered with the frescoes of 
 Peruzzi, of Sodoma and of Perugino, the new master's 
 own teacher, whose influence can so easily be traced in 
 the earlier productions of his brilliant pupil. With that 
 naive modesty which was characteristic of his sweet 
 nature, Raphael pleaded earnestly for the retention of 
 these beautiful but now despised frescoes, and it is solely 
 due to the unselfish entreaties of the Prince of Painters 
 that any portion of these already existing works was 
 spared in the Halls of the Incendio, the Eliodoro and 
 the Segnatura. 
 
 Without digressing further concerning his achieve- 
 ments under Julius II., it will be sufficient for us to state 
 that at the Pope's death in the early spring of 1513, 
 Raphael, who had not then passed his thirtieth birthday, 
 had already completed the decoration of the whole of 
 the Sala della Segnatura 1 with those splendid semi- 
 classical, semi-theological compositions, which are perhaps 
 the most truly spiritual in feeling of all his frescoes in 
 the Vatican, and are generally held in the highest esteem 
 by modern critics. In the adjoining Sala di Eliodoro 
 he had likewise finished his glorious Expulsion of Helio- 
 dorus from the Temple of Jerusalem, together with the 
 still more lovely Miracle of Bolsena, two faultless 
 masterpieces which represent the highest level reached 
 
 x So called from the signing (Segnatura) of the various papal 
 briefs and documents in this chamber.
 
 222 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 in fresco and which incidentally confer an unmerited 
 immortality upon the bloodthirsty old Pontiff, who was 
 paying the master the not over-generous sum of 1200 
 ducats for each room thus adorned with the most beautiful 
 conceptions that could possibly emanate from any human 
 brain. For the tall venerable figure of the warrior 
 Pope is made to appear prominent in both these magni- 
 ficent compositions ; borne aloft in full panoply of 
 pontifical state, Julius surveys with kindling eye the 
 discomfiture of the sacrilegious invader of the Jewish 
 sanctuary, much as he would have regarded the butchery 
 of every barbarian Frank or Spaniard still remaining on 
 the sacred soil of his own Italy. The painter was still 
 engaged upon this chamber when the Pope's decease 
 forced him to suspend the work, until such time as the 
 result of the sitting conclave of March, 1513, was made 
 known a most critical and anxious period in the career 
 of Raphael, who was so deeply engrossed in the task 
 which was intended to rival, if not to surpass, the mighty 
 achievements of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel 
 hard by. 
 
 The subsequent election of Giovanni de' Medici to 
 the vacant throne at once put an end to the artist's 
 suspense, for in Leo X. he felt certain of gaining a 
 sympathetic and generous patron. Even were he not al- 
 ready possessed of so many powerful and devoted friends, 
 Raphael would soon have won the favour of the new 
 Pope, "for not only had he become the most celebrated 
 painter of his day, but also the most finished courtier. 
 Left to himself whilst still a boy, the young Urbinese 
 had felt the necessity of developing those diplomatic 
 qualities wherewith Nature had so richly endowed him." 1 
 Indeed, Leo, as we shall presently show, proved all too 
 
 1 Muntz.
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 223 
 
 appreciative a patron of the master, who was evidently 
 a man after his own heart, combining, as Raphael did, 
 supreme genius with the graceful manners of the accom- 
 plished courtier and possessed of the utmost willingness 
 to work in addition to his marvellous capacity for every 
 variety of task. He was courtesy itself la gentilezza 
 stessa as Vasari, no blind admirer, was fain to admit ; 
 "no less excellent than graceful, he was endowed by 
 Nature with all that modesty and goodness, which may 
 be occasionally perceived in those favoured persons, 
 who enhance the gracious sweetness of a disposition 
 more than usually gentle by the fair ornament of a win- 
 ning charm, always ready to conciliate and constantly 
 giving proof of the most refined consideration for all 
 persons and under every circumstance". 1 
 
 With zest the happy artist resumed his interrupted 
 labours upon his uncompleted fresco in the Stanza di 
 Eliodoro, the March of Attila upon Rome, which is 
 merely an allegorical painting of the recent defeat of 
 the French at Novara. Before the gates of Rome, 
 whose ancient walls and aqueducts are clearly delineated 
 in the background, the Pope St. Leo advances to 
 forbid the impious king of the invading Huns to enter 
 the Holy City, whilst the Pontiff's action is supported 
 by the appearance of the avenging Apostles Peter and 
 Paul, who hover overhead in a blaze of golden light. 
 But the artist has made no secret of his open intention 
 to magnify the deeds of the Medici under this transparent 
 guise. St. Leo is in fact an excellent portrait of Leo X. 
 in shining robes and mounted on the milk-white palfrey 
 that had borne him on the field of Ravenna, whilst the 
 discomfited barbarian monarch, shrinking in terror be- 
 fore the heavenly effulgence shed by the angry Apostles, 
 
 1 Vita di Raffaello Sanzio.
 
 224 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 is none other than the Most Christian King, Louis XII. 
 of France. The papal cross-bearer, who gazes with 
 rapturous awe at the splendid figure of the Pontiff, is 
 represented by Raphael himself, and close to him appears 
 a somewhat stolid cardinal seated on a mule, whose 
 features again recall those of the Medicean Pope. This 
 remarkable double representation of Leo both as Pontiff 
 and as Cardinal in a single group has given rise to the 
 theory that Raphael, who had already completed a 
 portion of this fresco at the date of the death of Julius 
 II., added the portrait of the newly elected Pope, whom 
 the painter had lately witnessed proceeding in full state 
 from the Vatican to the Lateran in the famous pageant 
 of the Sacro Possesso. 1 Certainly we have in this picture 
 a clear portrait of the Medici as he rode across Rome 
 on that memorable occasion, clad in the white and gold 
 pontifical vestments and with the jewelled tiara on his 
 head. In the same hall, at right angles to this fresco, 
 Raphael added the striking Deliverance of St. Peter, 
 one of his best known and most popular works, wherein 
 under the incident of the Angel leading the Apostle out 
 of prison, he recalls the escape, deemed almost miraculous 
 at the time, of Leo X. himself a few months before his 
 elevation to the papal throne. 1 The contemporary 
 armour worn by the Roman soldiers in this impressive 
 composition an anachronism of which the learned 
 Raphael could only wittingly be guilty seems intended 
 expressly to connect this story from the Acts of the 
 Apostles with the fortunate liberation of the captive 
 Medici during the retreat of the French army from 
 Milan in the summer of 1512. 
 
 In spite of endless interruptions caused by divergent 
 
 1 See chapter v.
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 225 
 
 duties, the Stanza di Eliodoro was finished by the 
 middle of the year 1514, whereupon Raphael set to 
 adorn the third hall, usually styled that of the Incendio, 
 because one of its chief compositions commemorates a 
 miraculous event, which is said to have occurred under 
 Leo IV. in the ninth century, when a conflagration that 
 had broken out in the Borgo, or suburb lying round the 
 Vatican, was quenched by means of the earnest prayers 
 of that Pope. Even so unpromising a subject for artistic 
 treatment has been rendered attractive through the 
 unique talent of the painter, who in this case presents us 
 with a delightful composition conceived in the true spirit 
 of antiquity. For Raphael has shown us here the 
 destruction of ancient Troy by fire, with naked figures 
 forced into graceful attitudes at the sudden impulse of 
 alarm ; there is pious Aeneas escaping with the aged 
 Anchises on his back ; there is the little lulus following 
 in his sire's footsteps and clasping the precious Lares 
 and Penates in his tiny arms ; there is the unhappy 
 Cassandra mourning over her own fulfilled prophecy of 
 impending disaster, whilst in the distant background 
 of this scene of confusion can be observed the form of 
 a mediaeval Pontiff, who tries to extinguish the raging 
 flames with outstretched palms, as he stands above the 
 portico of old St. Peter's, which was itself a ruin at the 
 time this fresco was designed. More closely connected 
 with the policy of Leo X. is the fine group of the Coro- 
 nation of Charlemagne, a glorious tribute to the not 
 very creditable treaty lately concluded between Pope 
 and French King at Bologna. In the centre of this 
 great painting kneels the Emperor with the visage of 
 Francis of France before the Medici depicted as his 
 predecessor Leo III., whilst the merry little page who 
 upholds the imperial mantle is Giuliano's bastard son, 
 15
 
 226 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 the future Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici. 1 Facing this 
 fresco of the Emperor's Coronation is the Victory of 
 Leo IV. over the Saracens at Ostia, wherein the 
 Medici's form is prominently displayed, as he sits in a 
 somewhat theatrical pose attended by his favourite 
 counsellors, Bibbiena and Giulio de' Medici. This hall, 
 in spite of its acknowledged beauty, exhibits only too 
 plainly the effects of the high pressure of work at which 
 the artist was constantly kept, for the signs of the inferior 
 handiwork of pupils are everywhere apparent, causing 
 us to lament uselessly that the divine Raphael was not 
 permitted to secure the leisure requisite for the comple- 
 tion of these magnificent creations. Still deeper is our 
 regret in the Sala di Costantino, the last and most 
 spacious of this suite of official rooms, for in this case 
 the hand of death had already beckoned to the painter 
 before ever his magic pencil had touched the walls 
 of this apartment. Of its decorations, the splendid 
 Triumph of Constantine, the most spirited and most 
 harmonious battle-piece that ever was conceived in 
 imagination, was alone copied exclusively from the 
 master's original cartoon by his trusted pupil, Giulio 
 Romano, whilst the remaining compositions, interesting 
 as they are, owe nothing either to the hand of Raphael 
 or to the bounty of Leo X. 
 
 Apart from the inestimable artistic value of these 
 frescoes, the halls of the Segnatura, the Eliodoro and 
 the Incendio incidentally present us with a well-filled 
 portrait gallery of those cardinals and bishops, scholars 
 and diplomatists, painters and poets, who thronged the 
 court of the Vatican during the pontificates of Julius II. 
 and Leo X., thereby affording us an additional source 
 of interest and instruction. "The rooms painted by 
 
 1 See chapter vi.
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 227 
 
 Raphael," so writes the learned Bembo in one of his 
 letters to the Cardinal Bibbiena, "are quite beautiful, 
 not only on account of the skill shown in the execution, 
 but also on account of the great number of clergy whose 
 portraits he has introduced." 1 We ourselves to-day, 
 who can but behold all this splendour after it has been 
 dulled by centuries of neglect or injured by sacrilegious 
 restoration, and who must perforce survey this shrine of 
 art in the company of an unromantic train of fellow- 
 tourists, of necessity find it difficult to realise the original 
 appearance of this series of paintings in their pristine 
 freshness of colour. How entrancing must have been 
 the aspect of these apartments when peopled with a 
 constant come-and-go of gorgeously clad prelates and 
 courtiers, who as they swept proudly through the Stanze 
 paused from time to time to admire, to criticise, to com- 
 pare, or to examine with pleasure or envy the speaking 
 likenesses of their friends or rivals, portrayed on these 
 glowing walls by the brush of the Prince of Painters ! 
 On reflection, as we traverse these rooms we come 
 to perceive only too clearly the havoc wrought here 
 during the passage of four centuries, and to understand 
 the lack of a fit environment. With such thoughts in 
 our minds, we can then enter into the feelings of that 
 fastidious scholar Bembo, who considered these frescoes 
 merely as an adequate setting to the official court life 
 of the Vatican in the golden days of the Leonine Age. 
 "The halls," he writes, "which Raphael has painted, 
 are already beautiful beyond compare, but their charm 
 is enhanced not a little by the crowds of passing cardinals 
 and prelates." 
 
 From the gloomy grandeur of the Sistine Chapel, 
 peopled with Michelangelo's stately but sinister Prophets 
 
 letter dated igth July, 1517. Muntz, p. 154,
 
 228 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 and Sibyls, we turn to enter a new world of allegory, a 
 world of light and gladness, when we ascend to the 
 Rooms of Raphael. Although the beautiful frescoes of 
 these halls are not without their admitted defects, yet 
 the general impression produced on the beholder at 
 entering the Stanze is so bright and joyous, so bewilder- 
 ingly full of charm, that hostile criticism is at once dis- 
 armed. The mind may become more elevated amongst 
 the Titanic masterpieces of the Capella Sistina, but the 
 human spirits are cheered and warmed in regarding this 
 succession of pictures which present to us in alluring 
 form only the pleasant side of the life of the Italian 
 Renaissance. The Sistine Chapel indeed reflects the 
 fierce mind and unbending nature of the rugged Julius, 
 but the Stanze di Raffaello are all eloquent of the liberal, 
 ostentatious, easy-going, extravagant Medici, who made 
 it a fundamental rule during his short but fortunate reign 
 to avoid all unpleasantness and to obtain the full enjoy- 
 ment of the Papacy, which, so he verily believed, Heaven 
 itself had bestowed upon him. In these splendid halls the 
 divinities of Paradise and of Olympus, the philosophers 
 of the antique world and the confessors and martyrs of 
 Christendom, the sages of Greece and Rome and the 
 poets of mediaeval Italy meet, converse and argue to- 
 gether in sweet reasonableness, so that we are shown 
 thereby the very essence of the Humanism of the Re- 
 naissance, which did not hesitate to put the virtuous 
 counsels of Socrates and Plato on an equal footing with 
 the dour theology of the Middle Ages. No note of 
 gloom or sorrow or pain is allowed to intrude within 
 these realms of bliss and brightness. Everywhere the 
 Church is made to appear triumphant, but never does 
 that triumph suggest war or rapine in its train. Calmly 
 do the great Pontiffs Julius and Leo watch the celestial
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 229 
 
 emissaries scatter the evil forces of idolatry and dark- 
 ness ; even the great battle-piece in the Hall of Con- 
 stantine exhibits no gruesome scenes of slaughter, for 
 the only harrowing incident portrayed therein is the 
 pathetic sight of an old warrior bending in silent grief 
 over the lifeless form of a standard-bearer slain in the 
 flower of his youthful beauty. The Stanze of Raphael 
 constitute in short an epic poem in painting of the pre- 
 servation of the arts, the learning, the religion, and last 
 but not least of the secular papacy of Italy from the 
 impious hands of ignorant and brutish barbarians. And 
 this work is accomplished by celestial agency, whilst her 
 venerable Pontiffs, the guardians of threatened Italy, the 
 seat of culture and true religion, merely stand aside, to 
 permit Peter and Paul with all the heavenly host to carry 
 out the pious task of deliverance. 1 Cheerfulness and 
 confidence are the predominant notes in the various 
 scenes depicted by the Prince of Painters ; an all-per- 
 vading pessimism is the main characteristic of the Sistine 
 Chapel ; ~ it is our peculiar good fortune that in these 
 latter days we can derive an equal but diverse pleasure 
 of the intellect from the contemplation of each of these 
 shrines of Italian art. 
 
 Of the countless thousands who annually traverse this 
 world-famous suite of apartments, few persons have paused 
 to admire the exquisite wood-carving that completes the 
 general scheme of their ornamentation. Yet the doors 
 and shutters of these rooms, which were carved by 
 Giovanni Barile of Siena under the personal supervision 
 of Raphael, constitute of themselves a study in Medicean 
 
 1 " In the Stanze of Raphael the triumphs of the Popedom over 
 all its foes are set forth with matchless art and with matchless unvera- 
 city " (J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, p. 289). 
 
 - J. Michelet, La Renaissance.
 
 2 3 o THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 heraldry, that serves to link the series of historical 
 frescoes on their glowing walls with the pontificate of 
 the Medici. For every panel is carved in high relief 
 with designs that embody the Diamond with the triple 
 Plumes, 1 the Broncone, or branch, of the young Lorenzo, 
 the Medicean lions with globes at their feet, and of 
 course the inevitable ox-yoke of Leo himself with his 
 favourite legend of Suave; whilst in the central panel 
 of each shutter a frieze of interlaced diamond rings sur- 
 rounds the papal tiara and the familiar shield with its six 
 pellets. The somewhat gloomy ante-chamber of the 
 papal pages and equerries, that lies between the Sala di 
 Costantino and the diminutive chapel of San Lorenzo 
 wherein Leo used daily to hear Mass, is likewise heavily 
 enriched with the various emblems of the Medici. In 
 its splendid cassetted ceiling, gorgeously gilded and 
 painted, the form of the Medicean diamond is through- 
 out utilised as a pendentive, and in the flat compart- 
 ments of the roof are everywhere conspicuous the well- 
 known devices of Lorenzo the Magnificent and of his 
 second son, the Supreme Pontiff. The heraldic and 
 emblematic wood-carving in the Stanze di Raffaelo may 
 be reckoned of trifling consequence to the passing visitor, 
 yet in so famous a place it is interesting to note these 
 memorials of the pomp and pride of the first Medicean 
 Pope, to whose love and patronage of art is largely due 
 the very existence of those masterpieces of the Urbinese 
 artist, which engross our full attention to the exclusion 
 of their historical interest. 
 
 Whilst he was yet striving vainly to obtain the 
 necessary time to complete the paintings of the Stanze, 
 the over-worked artist was commissioned by his ap- 
 
 1 The motto of this emblem consists of the erudite rebus, Super 
 adamas in Dennis.
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 231 
 
 preciative but inexorable patron to adorn the newly 
 erected Loggie, or open arcades that mask the faade 
 of the palace overlooking the great courtyard of San 
 Damaso, which their architect Bramante had left un- 
 finished at his death in 1514. This fresh task, in which 
 Raphael was largely aided by his talented pupil, Giovanni 
 da Udine the first decorator of his day, though not 
 numbered in the front rank of its artists must have 
 proceeded concurrently with the work carried on in the 
 adjoining suite of the Stanze, for the so-called Loggia of 
 Raphael can be entered from the portals of the Sala di 
 Costantino. This spacious and lofty gallery, which was 
 originally intended to lie open to the strong light and 
 pure air of Heaven and was only enclosed with glass in 
 the course of the past century, consists of thirteen broad 
 bays, each of which contains a domed ceiling enriched 
 with four subjects selected from the Old and New 
 Testaments, all treated with a peculiar charm and sim- 
 plicity that have earned for this series of fifty-two sacred 
 pictures the well-chosen title of "the Bible of Raphael". 
 More conspicuous, however, than these frescoes placed 
 high in the domed ceiling amidst the usual adjuncts of 
 Medicean emblems, are the countless wall-paintings, 
 now terribly defaced and faded by centuries of ill-treat- 
 ment and neglect, which are well known to artists from 
 the engravings of Volpato and Ottaviani. This mass of 
 mural paintings represents every possible variety of 
 subject, antique or contemporary gods and goddesses, 
 nymphs and dryads, peasants and monsters, birds, beasts, 
 and fishes, garlands of fruit and flowers, fantastic archi- 
 tecture, domestic implements of elegant form, and in 
 short any and every object or creature that invited 
 artistic treatment. This positive riot of the exuberant 
 fancy of a master-mind was certainly the direct result of
 
 232 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Raphael's deep interest in the vanished life of the 
 ancient world, for he had long been an enthusiastic 
 student of the grottesche^ the classical wall-paintings and 
 stucco designs found in the recently excavated halls of 
 the Palatine and the Coelian. To transplant in an 
 amended and yet more beautiful guise this long-lost art 
 from the decaying chambers of pagan emperors to the 
 palace of the Roman Pontiffbecame a cherished ambition 
 of the painter, who was not only the chief artist, but also 
 the first antiquary of his day. So changed, however, is 
 the aspect of this Loggia since the glazing of its arches 
 and so hopelessly ruined the Renaissance grottesche of 
 Raphael and Giovanni da Udine, that we find it very 
 difficult under present conditions to conjure up the ap- 
 pearance of this broad corridor in its original state as 
 Raphael designed and adorned it for the Pope. We 
 miss the effect of the open air ; we note the pitiable con- 
 dition of the once gay and glowing mural decorations ; 
 and we look in vain for the splendid pavement of glazed 
 and coloured tiles, an admirable example of Luca Delia 
 Robbia's art, which has long since perished. The far- 
 famed Loggia of Raphael, thanks to the ill-usage of 
 man and the vagaries of the Roman climate, exhibits 
 to us in these days but the shadow of its pristine glory. 
 So damaged in short is this fine specimen of the arts 
 and architecture of the Renaissance, that we can but 
 echo the lament of the critic Lanzi, who declares "that 
 the exposure of this gallery to the inclemency of the 
 weather has almost reduced it to the squalid appearance 
 of the ancient grotesques ; but they who saw it after it 
 was finished, when the lustre of the gilding, the snowy 
 whiteness of the stuccoes, the brilliance of the colours, 
 
 1 Hence the word "grotesques," the decorations found in the 
 grottc, as applied directly to this style of ornament.
 
 THE LOGGIA OF RAPHAEL 
 
 IN THE VATICAN
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 233 
 
 and the freshness of the marbles made it resplendent 
 with beauty on every side, must have been struck with 
 amazement as at a vision of Paradise ", l Says Vasari, 
 "it is impossible either to execute or imagine a more 
 beautiful work," and with such reflections we must try 
 to picture for ourselves the general aspect of this gorgeous 
 corridor, as it was originally conceived by the genius of 
 Raphael and embellished by the skill of Giovanni da 
 Udine. In any case, though it seems but a wreck of 
 its former magnificence, the Loggia has fared better than 
 another celebrated work of the master in the Vatican, 
 the so-called Bath-chamber of the Cardinal Bibbiena. 
 This apartment in the papal palace was undertaken at 
 the request of Raphael's especial friend in the Sacred 
 College, Bernardo Dovizi of Bibbiena, who himself 
 proposed to Raphael the decoration of a room in the 
 Vatican in imitation of one of the frescoed chambers re- 
 cently unearthed in the ruins of the Palatine. "Thus 
 far had I proceeded," writes Bembo to his friend Bib- 
 biena in a letter dated i9th April, 1516, "when Raphael 
 himself entered. He seems to have guessed that I was 
 speaking of him to you, so that he begged me to add 
 that he wished you to tell him any other subjects you 
 might desire to have painted in your bath-room. Send 
 him full details of them as soon as you can, because 
 those designs already chosen will be started upon the 
 walls this week." The theme chosen by the witty and 
 learned cardinal was taken from the venue of classical 
 mythology, for he had selected the story of Venus 
 and Cupid, which, it must be frankly admitted, was 
 hardly suited to the environment of the palace of the 
 chief celibate in Christendom. But the commission was 
 highly congenial to the taste of the artist, whose de- 
 
 1 History of Painting, vol. i., Roman Epoch.
 
 234 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 corations of Bibbiena's bath-room, marvellously imbued 
 with the true spirit of the antique, were greatly admired 
 in Rome, and probably caused the envious Chigi's de- 
 mand for the painting of the allegory of Venus, Cupid 
 and Psyche, which the master designed for the frieze of 
 a hall in the Sienese banker's splendid villa on the Tiber. 1 
 This room at the Vatican with its exquisite frescoes has 
 long been closed to the public, ostensibly on account of 
 its almost ruined condition, but also perhaps because a 
 prudish reticence refuses to allow even artists admission 
 to a chamber that proclaims only too clearly the " pagan " 
 proclivities of the Medicean Pontiff and his cardinals. 
 Fortunately, copies have been made from time to time 
 of these justly admired frescoes, so that a tolerable idea 
 can still be gleaned therefrom of the original charm and 
 harmony of what must have been one of the painter's 
 finest works. 
 
 Such, told briefly and baldly, is the story of Raphael's 
 main achievements in the Vatican during the seven 
 years from 1513 to 1520 under the direct patronage of 
 Leo X., who has certainly left the mark of his taste and 
 influence upon the palace of the Popes. And whilst we 
 have good reason to deplore the Pontiffs attitude to- 
 wards Raphael in hastening unduly the artist's labours 
 and in heaping fresh tasks upon his already over- 
 burdened shoulders, we ought in fairness to recognise 
 our enormous debt of gratitude to the bounty and 
 insight of the Medici. 
 
 From the decoration of the actual fabric of the 
 Vatican, we now pass to another celebrated work of the 
 master, the set of tapestries ordered by Leo for the 
 embellishment of the blank wall-spaces in the Sistine 
 
 1 Now known as the Villa Farnesina. It is to-day in a pitiable 
 condition of neglect and dilapidation.
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 235 
 
 Chapel, already a treasure-house of art with its painted 
 roof from the brush of Michelangelo and its many frescoes 
 dating from the distant reign of Sixtus IV. It was 
 Leo's fixed intention to obtain two sets of tapestries, 
 one to illustrate the Acts of the Apostles and thereby to 
 symbolise the historical institution of the Papacy ; whilst 
 the other was to represent the Life and Death of Christ. 
 Upon the necessary cartoons for the former set, the 
 artist hastened to employ his characteristic skill and 
 energy, with the happy result that all the Christian world 
 is still marvelling at the combination of simplicity and 
 grandeur displayed in his conception of the leading 
 events in the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul. The 
 subjects chosen by Raphael are too well known to need 
 any hint of description here, 1 for they have been made 
 familiar to us all from our childhood, and it is truly no 
 slight proof of Raphael's matchless genius that his 
 pictures of the Bible appeal with equal force and charm 
 both to the infant and to the scholar. Few persons 
 however, even of those who visit Rome, where these 
 splendid relics of the master-mind of Raphael and of the 
 liberality of Leo are preserved in the Galleria degli 
 Arazzi in the Vatican, have made observation of the 
 smaller subjects below the large Biblical groups of 
 figures. Yet these little-noticed designs serve to connect 
 this famous set of tapestries with the great Pontiff who 
 was primarily responsible for their production. For 
 besides the customary display of Medicean shields and 
 devices in the rich and variegated borders of each piece 
 of tapestry, we are presented with a number of quaint 
 but vigorous scenes from the early career of Giovanni 
 de' Medici before he was elected Pope. Amongst the 
 
 1 Or to remind the reader of the existence of seven of the original 
 cartoons in the South Kensington Museum.
 
 236 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 many incidents of his busy life, already described in 
 these pages, we can recognise the Cardinal's flight in 
 disguise across the wild Apennine passes ; the looting of 
 his palace in Florence ; his dramatic capture by the 
 victorious French at Ravenna (perhaps the best of this 
 series) ; the triumphal entry of the Cardinal into Florence 
 after the sack of Prato, and his reception at the conclave 
 of March, 1513, whence he emerged as Leo X. No 
 doubt the second set of tapestries, illustrating the Life 
 of Our Lord, was meant to contain subsidiary scenes of 
 a like nature depicting Leo's pontificate. 
 
 The cartoons, when completed, were dispatched to 
 Brussels and there retained after the copies in tapestry 
 had been duly sent to Rome. On the arrival of these 
 precious hangings (for their cost amounted to 150,000 
 ducats, all told), by order of Leo X. they were publicly 
 exhibited in the Sistine Chapel on St. Stephen's Day, 
 1519, and loud were the praises from all quarters 
 showered upon the popular and successful artist. " All 
 in the chapel," so writes Paris de Grassis, "were struck 
 dumb by the sight of these hangings, for by universal 
 consent there is nothing more beautiful in the world." 
 
 \j 
 
 Nor can we wonder at this outburst of delight and con- 
 gratulation, when we recall Vasari's description of the 
 splendid guise in which Raphael's majestic designs were 
 thus exhibited to the admiring crowds of high and low 
 in Rome on St. Stephen's Day. " The work was so 
 admirably executed that it awakened astonishment in 
 all who beheld it, as it still does to-day ; for the spectator 
 finds it difficult to conceive how it has been found pos- 
 sible to have produced such hair and beards by weaving, 
 or to have given so much softness to the flesh by means 
 of thread ; a work which certainly seems to have been 
 performed by miracle rather than by the art of man,
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 237 
 
 seeing that we have here animals, buildings, water, and 
 innumerable objects of all kinds, so well executed that 
 they do not look like a mere texture woven in the loom, 
 but like paintings executed with the pencil." It is true 
 that Vasari's unstinted praise is directed to the execution 
 rather than to the design of these tapestries ; yet we can 
 well imagine the breathless admiration of the connoisseurs 
 of Leo's court before this blaze of colour and their warm 
 adulation of the modest artist, whose end followed so 
 quickly upon the heels of this moment of proud satis- 
 faction. 
 
 Nevertheless, all this mass of artistic employment, 
 finished or unfinished, amounted to but a fraction of the 
 manifold duties which the hard-pressed Raphael was 
 expected to perform. Ever since the death of Bramante 
 in the spring of 1514, the youthful painter had been 
 entrusted by Leo with the superintendence of the rising 
 edifice of the new St. Peter's ; in the actual words of 
 the papal brief of appointment to this honourable but 
 arduous task, the flattering reason is advanced, " because 
 thou not only excellest in the art of painting, as all men 
 agree, but hast also been nominated by Bramante on 
 his death-bed as being skilful in the science of architec- 
 ture, and fit to continue the erection of that temple to 
 the Prince of the Apostles, which he began". And 
 again, shortly before the over-taxed artist's death, Leo 
 X. (who to his eternal credit appears as the sole Pontiff 
 of the Renaissance who made some slight effort to save 
 the existing relics of classical Rome from the impious 
 hands of the architects and builders) charged the all-too- 
 willing Raphael with the drawing-up of a full list of the 
 many surviving ruins of Rome and with the compila- 
 tion of a plan of the ancient city. And with commend- 
 able courage the great painter, architect, scholar and
 
 238 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 antiquary in the opening lines of his report pleads to the 
 sympathetic Leo for increased care in the preservation 
 of the precious objects still remaining ; nor does he 
 scruple to remind the Medici of the evil example set by 
 his own predecessors in so important a matter. "The 
 very persons," so he declares, "who should have been 
 the special champions of the desolate remains of ancient 
 Rome, have shown themselves the most forward in 
 robbing and injuring her. How many Pontiffs, O Holy 
 Father, endowed with your present dignity, but pos- 
 sessing neither your knowledge, your merit, nor your 
 breadth of sympathy, have allowed the destruction of 
 antique temples, of statues, of triumphal arches, and 
 other glorious monuments of the founders of our country ! 
 How many among them have permitted the foundations 
 of ancient buildings to be laid bare for the sake of the 
 cement, and have thus reduced them to ruin ! How 
 many antique figures and other carvings have been 
 turned into lime ! I am saying only what is true, 
 when I declare that this modern Rome, with all its 
 grandeur and beauty, with its churches, palaces, and 
 other monuments, is built with the lime made from our 
 ancient marbles." It is almost too tantalising to specu- 
 late on what might have been accomplished in these 
 comparatively early days of Roman vandalism, had but 
 the enthusiastic Raphael and the enlightened Leo been 
 spared to contrive between them an adequate scheme 
 for the better preservation of the priceless antiquities of 
 the city. 
 
 It was whilst thus engrossed, amongst a multitude 
 of other duties and commissions, on the preparation of 
 his report on the Roman ruins that the divine artist was 
 suddenly struck down with his mortal illness in the spring 
 of 1520. Hastily summoned from his work at Chigi's
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 239 
 
 villa by a message from Leo, who wished to confer with 
 Raphael concerning one of his innumerable schemes, 
 the master hurried on foot along the Lungara to arrive 
 heated and weary at the Vatican, where he caught a 
 severe chill whilst conversing with the Pontiff beneath a 
 draughty arcade. A constitution naturally delicate, 
 added to the ceaseless strain upon mental and physical 
 powers during the last seven years, assisted the progress 
 of the malady, which was further increased by the ab- 
 surd treatment of the ignorant physicians, who merci- 
 lessly bled and physicked their exhausted patient. The 
 picturesque but melancholy story of Raphael's last days 
 of his death-bed scene in the chamber containing his 
 great unfinished masterpiece of the Transfiguration, 
 that he was executing for the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici ; 
 of the wild grief of the Roman Pontiff, court and people ; 
 of his stately interment in the Pantheon of Rome ; of 
 his lofty epitaph from the pen of Bembo lies outside 
 the scope of a work dealing with his papal patron. On 
 6th April, "on Good-Friday night, or rather at three 
 o'clock on Saturday morning, expired the noble and 
 excellent painter, Raffaelo da Urbino. His death 
 caused universal sorrow, particularly amongst learned 
 men, for whom more especially, although also for 
 painters and architects, he had drawn in a book (as 
 Ptolemy drew the configuration of the world) the ancient 
 buildings of Rome, with their proportions, forms and 
 decoration, and so faithfully, that he who has beheld these 
 drawings might almost assert that he had seen antique 
 Rome itself. . . . But Death interrupted this useful and 
 glorious enterprise, for he carried off the young man at 
 the age of thirty-four (sic]. 1 The Pope himself felt 
 intense grief, and he had sent at least six times during 
 
 1 In reality thirty-seven.
 
 2 4 o THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 the fifteen days that his illness lasted, to enquire for fresh 
 news. You may judge then of what others did. And 
 as on precisely the same day the Pope's palace was 
 menaced with destruction, so much so, that His Holiness 
 was forced to seek refuge in the apartments of Monsig- 
 nore Cybo, there are many people who say that it was 
 not the weight of the topmost Loggia which caused 
 this accident, but that it was a portent to announce the 
 passing of him who had toiled so long at the adornment 
 of the palace. 
 
 "And in truth an incomparable master no longer 
 exists. Lamentations for his death should not merely 
 be expressed in light and fugitive words, but by serious 
 and immortal poetry. And poets, if I am not mistaken, 
 are preparing in great numbers for the task. 
 
 " It is said that he leaves a fortune of 16,000 ducats, 
 5,000 being in silver specie, the greater part of which 
 is to be divided amongst his friends and servants. To 
 the Cardinal of Santa Maria in Portico 1 he has be- 
 queathed his house, which formerly belonged to Bramante 
 and which he bought for 3,000 ducats. 
 
 "He has been interred in the Pantheon, whither he 
 was borne with great honour. His soul has doubtless 
 gone to contemplate the edifices in Heaven, which are not 
 subject to destruction. His name and memory will live 
 long in his works and in the remembrance of all honest 
 men. 
 
 " Far less important, in my opinion, although it may 
 appear otherwise to the multitude, is the loss the world 
 has just sustained in the death of Signer Agostino Chigi, 
 which happened last night. I shall not speak much of 
 
 1 The official title of Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena, commonly 
 called the Cardinal Bibbiena (vide passim), who only survived 
 Raphael seven months, d>ing on gth November, 1520.
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 241 
 
 him here, as it is not known yet to whom he has devised 
 his property. I merely gather he has left to the world 
 80,000 ducats in ready money, letters of exchange, loans, 
 estates, sums placed at interest in banking houses, plate 
 and jewels. 
 
 " It is rumoured that Michelangelo is ailing at 
 Florence. Tell our Catena of this, that he may be upon 
 his guard, since great painters are threatened. God be 
 with Youth ! 
 
 " ROME, nth April, 1520 " 1 
 
 And following on the Venetian Michiel's letter, that 
 perfect courtier Castiglione writes to his mother : " I am 
 in good health, but it seems that I were not in Rome, 
 since my poor Raffaelo is here no longer. May his 
 blessed soul be with God ! " Perhaps of all who mourned 
 for the departed artist, none was more sincere or stead- 
 fast in his sorrow than Castiglione, who had lately as- 
 sisted Raphael in his exploration of the Roman ruins and 
 whose portrait from his departed friend's hand constitutes 
 to-day one of the chief treasures of the Louvre. " My 
 love for my Raphael," he writes at a later period, "is 
 just as strong and enduring in death as ever it was in 
 life." 
 
 Thus expired on his thirty -seventh birthday, Raffaelle 
 Sanzio da Urbino, the chief glory and ornament of the 
 splendid pontificate of Leo X. 
 
 As has been already remarked, we have not enumer- 
 ated a tithe of the multitude of commissions begun, if 
 not completed, by Raphael during the reign of his prin- 
 cipal patron, Leo X. Cardinals, foreign potentates, 
 courtiers, prelates, merchants, struggling artists, all alike 
 
 1 Extract from a Letter of Marcantonio Michiel of Venice, staying 
 in Rome, to Antonio di Marsilio in Venice. Quoted by Passavant, 
 Muntz, etc. 
 
 16
 
 242 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 besieged the great master with requests for Madonnas, 
 family portraits, designs for palace or villa, drawings 
 of ornate chalices and ewers, whilst the good-natured 
 painter, who seemed unable to say no to any suppliant, 
 however importunate or however humble, sapped his 
 strength in trying to satisfy their endless demands. But 
 of the numerous works we are compelled to pass over, 
 we must make at least one exception out of the many 
 portraits executed by the master. This is of course the 
 world-famous likeness of Leo X., familiar to all from 
 photographs and engravings, if not from the actual 
 painting which hangs in the Pitti Palace of Leo's own 
 city of Florence. This work has been described again 
 and again, yet it would be impossible to omit a brief 
 notice of it in these pages. For here Raphael exhibits 
 to us the utmost height of his genius as a portrait-painter, 
 since not only does he present us with an excellent like- 
 ness of the first Medicean Pontiff, but he verily seems 
 to usher us into the presence of Leo himself, so natural 
 is the pose and so lifelike the countenance. Seated at 
 a table, covered with a cloth, whereon lies an elaborately 
 chiselled bell, the great Pontiff appears to gaze straight 
 into the eyes of the advancing spectator, whilst his ex- 
 pressive and enquiring face seems but to lack that quality 
 which alone marred the reputed perfection of Donatello's 
 statue of St. George, human speech. Without stooping 
 to flatter his magnificent patron, the artist has with his 
 inimitable skill contrived to invest the sensual unattractive 
 countenance and the ungainly form with an air of real 
 majesty. The finely moulded white hands are pro- 
 minently displayed, as with the right the Pope carelessly 
 fingers a leaf of the illuminated manuscript before him, 
 and with the other grasps the inevitable spy -glass. The 
 crimson cap and mozzetta trimmed with fur and the rich
 
 LEO X. AND RAPHAEL 243 
 
 white brocade of the rochet provide warmth of colouring 
 in this splendid composition, which for historical interest 
 combined with artistic treatment must stand unrivalled 
 amongst the masterpieces of the world. Depicted with 
 equal force of character but with less minute detail ap- 
 pear the figures of the two cardinals, Leo's relatives, 
 who stand beside the papal chair. These are Giulio 
 de' Medici, afterwards Clement VII., whose sharp 
 features and handsome but saturnine face, afford a 
 marked contrast with the full fleshy countenance of his 
 cousin, the Supreme Pontiff. With hands clasping the 
 ornate woodwork of the Pope's chair, stands Cardinal 
 Luigi de' Rossi, presenting a common-place type of 
 ecclesiastic but serving admirably as a foil to the pro- 
 minent central figure of the group. 1 As Rossi was one 
 of that batch of thirty-one cardinals created by Leo in 
 1517, and died in the year but one following, we can 
 fix with tolerable accuracy both the date of the work and 
 the age of the Pope, who must have been about forty-two 
 or forty-three at the time of this portrait, though the 
 heavy flabby countenance betokens a more advanced 
 age. Nothing can give the student of the Italian 
 Renaissance a closer insight into the inmost aims and 
 real character of the Medicean Pope than this master- 
 piece of Raphael, which clearly displays the outward 
 geniality of Leo, yet hints also at the underlying ambition 
 and lurking cruelty of his varied nature, so that this 
 portrait seems truly a clue to all the events and actions, 
 private and public, which adorned or disgraced the reign 
 of the Papal Maecenas. 
 
 1 In a fine copy of this celebrated work by Giuliano Bugiardini 
 of Florence, which hangs in the Corsini Gallery at Rome, the figure 
 of Luigi Rossi has been replaced by that of the Pope's nephew, 
 Cardinal Innocenzo Cybo, who ordered Bugiardini to make this change 
 in the copy ordered (see Vasari, Life of G. Bugiardini}.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS 
 
 II n'eut jamais plus plaisant pape. Sur ce nom grave et leonin 
 Jean de Me"dicis etait un rieur, un farceur, et il est mort d'avoir trop 
 ri d'une defaite des Francais. ... II croyait avoir peu a vivre, et 
 vivait double, menant la vie comme une farce, aimant les savants, 
 les artistes comme acteurs de sa come'die. . . . Ce n'est pas que 
 cette cour si gaie n'ait eu aussi ses tragedies. Les cardinaux, qui 
 avaient cru nommer un rieur pacifique, furent un peu etonnes lorsque, 
 tout en riant, il entrangla un, le Cardinale Petrucci. Profitant de cet 
 etonnement et de cette terreur, il fit (ce que n'avait ose Alexandre 
 VI.) trente-et-un cardinaux en un jour, faisant d'une pierre deux 
 coups, assurant a sa famille la prochaine election, et remplissant ses 
 coffres par cette vente de trente chapeaux (J. Michelet, La Reforme). 
 
 BUT Leo's gay and brilliant court, wherein the 
 headlong pursuit of learning and of pleasure ran 
 its course unchecked, was not fated to continue 
 without its due share of gloomy and repulsive tragedies, 
 nor can the Pope himself be deemed blameless for their 
 occurrence. It was not long after his accession that a 
 sense of disappointment began to affect the minds of 
 the score or so of Italian cardinals who had elected 
 Giovanni de' Medici, and though Leo both from natural 
 inclination as well as from set policy showed himself in- 
 variably courteous and conciliatory towards the members 
 of the Sacred College, yet by degrees this simmering 
 discontent tended ultimately to develop into a real 
 
 revolt against his person and authority. The causes 
 
 244
 
 CONSPIRACY^ OF THE CARDINALS 245 
 
 contributing to this new-sprung spirit of disaffection at 
 the Roman court were many and various, but the papal 
 favour openly shown in Rome to the Florentine adher- 
 ents of the Medici and the determined prosecution of 
 the war of Urbino were of themselves capable of arous- 
 ing the hostile jealousy of many members of the College. 
 Amongst others, Raffaele Riario, the wealthiest Church- 
 man in Rome and the senior cardinal, had been greatly 
 exasperated by Leo's forcible expulsion from his realm 
 of Francesco Delia Rovere, the late Pope's nephew and 
 Riario 's own kinsman, and this personal displeasure was 
 felt, though in a less degree, by the other cardinals who 
 for divers reasons were attached to the interests of the 
 Delia Rovere family. Francesco Soderini shared this 
 dislike, though for a totally different cause, for he had 
 been greatly incensed by Leo's open determination to 
 wed his nephew Lorenzo, now styled the Duke of 
 Urbino, with a French princess of royal birth instead of 
 with a daughter of the burgher House of Soderini, ac- 
 cording to the scheme originally arranged by Bernardo 
 da Bibbiena at the late conclave ; and this impending 
 breach of faith on Leo's part revived more fiercely than 
 ever the slumbering enmity of the Florentine Cardinal. 
 The whole College moreover had been deeply angered 
 by the Pope's recent bestowal of scarlet hats, contrary 
 to the pledge exacted from him prior to his election, 
 although the number of cardinals so created before the 
 spring of 1517 had not exceeded eight in number. 1 For 
 in the first year of his pontificate Leo had conferred the 
 supreme honour upon his secretary Bernardo Dovizi 
 and upon Lorenzo Pucci, both of them Tuscans, and 
 
 1 Amongst them stands prominent the name of Thomas Wolsey, 
 who had succeeded the late Cardinal Christopher Bainbridge in the 
 see of York.
 
 246 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 also upon Lorenzo Cybb, a youth of twenty, his own 
 nephew and the grandson of Pope Innocent VIII., who 
 had been the original promoter of the Medici's career 
 in the Church; "that which Innocent gave to me, to 
 Innocent I restore," was the smiling Leo's sole retort to 
 the many sharp criticisms passed upon him for this action. 
 This moderate use of his legitimate prerogative proved 
 however highly distasteful to the older members of the 
 Sacred College, but that which especially served to rouse 
 their jealousy and ire was the Pope's questionable con- 
 duct in regard to his cousin Giulio de' Medici, the most 
 devoted but by no means the ablest counsellor Leo had 
 at his command. Giulio, who had long wavered be- 
 tween the choice of a secular or an ecclesiastical career, 
 had ridden at his kinsman's coronation procession in the 
 capacity of a knight of Rhodes, but a few days later he 
 made a final decision, accepting the archbishopric of 
 Florence from Leo, who met the inevitable objection to 
 Giulio's base birth by granting the new-made prelate a 
 special dispensation enabling him to fill so exalted an 
 office. This unusual form of favouritism gave no little 
 offence, which was immeasurably increased, when 
 shortly afterwards the Pope appointed a commission to 
 inquire into all the circumstances of his cousin's alleged 
 parentage with the obvious intention of declaring him 
 the legitimate son and heir of that Giuliano de' Medici, 
 who had been murdered by the Pazzi conspirators in the 
 Duomo of Florence in 1478. This inquiry was so 
 patent a sham and a subterfuge, that boundless indigna- 
 tion but little or no surprise was manifested, when this 
 packed body of commissioners reported the new arch- 
 bishop of Florence to be verily the actual child and heir 
 of the murdered Giuliano by his true wife, a certain 
 Florentine lady by name Simonetta Gorini, with whom
 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS 247 
 
 he had contracted a secret marriage. 1 On 2Oth Septem- 
 ber, 1513, accordingly, a papal proclamation, professing 
 to be based on the finding of this commission, affirmed 
 Giulio de' Medici to be legitimate, whereupon the 
 scarlet hat was formally presented to the late Medicean 
 bastard, the future Pope Clement VII. Without doubt 
 it was a natural impulse in Leo to raise to the purple, 
 even by an artifice, one who was both closely related to 
 him and deeply attached to his private interests, yet a 
 proceeding so irregular and so unpleasantly reminiscent 
 of bygone Borgian methods, caused the most unpleasant 
 impression throughout all Italy. Upon the newly created 
 Porporato, bastard and upstart as he was generally 
 regarded, fell the jealous dislike of his unwilling col- 
 leagues, whose hatred waxed hotter when they began 
 to perceive the immense and increasing influence wielded 
 by the Cardinal Giulio. For it soon became evident 
 that the more subtle and selfish counsel of this interloper 
 was gradually supplanting the influence of the easy-going 
 and less ambitious Bibbiena, the waning of whose in- 
 timacy with Leo can be traced in the growing power of 
 the Cardinal de' Medici, albeit the latter was in taste, 
 character and appearance the complete antithesis of his 
 master. "He was rather morose and disagreeable," 
 writes Guicciardini, "than of a pleasant and affable 
 temper ; reputed avaricious ; by no means trustworthy 
 and naturally disinclined to do a kindness ; very grave 
 and cautious in all his actions ; perfectly self-controlled 
 and of great capacity, if timidity did not sometimes warp 
 his better judgment."' 
 
 In spite however of the general dissatisfaction felt at 
 
 1 Perhaps " la Bella Simonetta," whose portrait, ascribed to Botti- 
 celli, hangs in the Pitti Palace in Florence (Creighton, vol. v.). 
 
 2 Storia d' Italia, lib. xi.
 
 248 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 the sudden rise to power of this unpopular Medicean 
 bastard and at the long disastrous war of Urbino, it is 
 doubtful whether this state of discontent would ever have 
 broken out in open insurrection, but for the unbridled 
 passions of the boy-cardinal of Siena, the dissolute 
 Alfonso Petrucci, who had previously shown himself so 
 warm an advocate of Leo's claims during the late con- 
 clave. At the time of his visit to Florence in the past 
 winter, Leo had presumed to meddle in Sienese politics 
 by abetting the removal of Alfonso's brother Borghese 
 from the governorship of that city, and by helping to sub- 
 stitute for that young tyrant the more respectable 
 Raffaele Petrucci, a member of the same family, who 
 was Castellan of Sant' Angelo. Alfonso, not without 
 reason, now began to complain bitterly of the Pope's 
 ingratitude in return for his past services, and his in- 
 dignant threats of vengeance found a ready echo in the 
 minds of several of his colleagues. The old Raffaele 
 Riario, willing to wound in secret and yet afraid to strike 
 openly, appears to have encouraged the silly youth, 
 whose fury was likewise inflamed purposely by Soderini, 
 Sauli and other malcontents in the Sacred College, in- 
 cluding the Cardinal Adrian of Corneto, who is said to 
 have desired his master's speedy death for no other 
 reason than that a soothsayer had once declared to him 
 that the next Pontiff was destined to be one Adrian, a 
 person of mean birth but of great culture. 1 Assuming 
 this description of Leo's successor to apply to none other 
 than himself, the Cardinal Adrian with incredible folly 
 did not shrink from approving of Petrucci's violent 
 suggestions, which included a plan for stabbing the 
 Pontiff on some convenient occasion whilst out hunting. 
 
 1 A curious prophecy which was actually verified in the election 
 of Adrian VI. in the Conclave of 1522. Jovius, lib. iii.
 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS 249 
 
 Willing instruments of assassination at that time were 
 never lacking for the accomplishment of any plot, no 
 matter how diabolical or dangerous of execution, so that 
 a certain medical charlatan from Vercelli, one Gian- 
 Battista by name, on overhearing Petrucci's unguarded 
 threats and complaints, at once made known his readiness 
 to compass the Pope's death on consideration of a suit- 
 able recompense. The plan proposed by Gian-Battista 
 and adopted apparently by Petrucci and his friends, was 
 that the doctor should be introduced at the Vatican as a 
 skilful physician, who was well qualified to alleviate the 
 Pope's painful ailment, and that, having once gained 
 Leo's confidence, he should then secretly murder his 
 unsuspecting patient by means of poisoned band- 
 ages. A secretary of the Cardinal Petrucci and also 
 a Sienese captain, bearing the suggestive nick-name 
 of Poco-in-testa, offered to participate in this horrible 
 scheme, which might easily have been crowned with 
 success, but for Leo's unexpected reluctance to admit 
 another surgeon into the palace. Efforts were still being 
 made to induce the Pope to accept the new physician's 
 services, when the existence of the plot was suddenly 
 revealed through the carelessness of a page, although 
 Petrucci's own behaviour in withdrawing from Rome and 
 opening negotiations with the Pope's enemy, the dis- 
 possessed Duke of Urbino, formed of itself a sufficient 
 cause to excite the alarm of Leo, who, it must in fairness 
 be admitted, had already warned the young cardinal of 
 the peril of his treasonable conduct. Furious at his 
 discovery of Petrucci's abominable plot, yet with true 
 Medicean craft keeping his information a profound 
 secret, Leo now invited Petrucci with affectionate words 
 to return to Rome and even allowed the Spanish am- 
 bassador to send the young cardinal a safe-conduct
 
 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 couched in the most explicit terms. And the Cardinal 
 of Siena, who seems to have been as gullible by nature 
 as he was violent, was apparently satisfied with the papal 
 promises, for he now proceeded towards Rome, although 
 the court was marvelling at his extreme rashness in 
 venturing thither under such circumstances. On reach- 
 ing the gates, Petrucci was joined by Sauli, and the 
 two princes of the Church with a large train of servants 
 made their way without a thought of treachery to the 
 Vatican, where on their arrival a most dramatic and 
 disgraceful scene took place. For scarcely had the two 
 cardinals entered the courtyard of the palace than by 
 order of the Pope they were arrested and seized in spite 
 of their indignant protests, Sauli tearing his rochet to 
 shreds in his impotent rage, whilst Petrucci set to cursing 
 Leo at the top of his voice. From the Vatican the two 
 unfortunate men were forcibly removed to the castle of 
 Sant' Angelo, to be thrust " into the most horrible 
 of its underground dungeons, full of a cruel stench". 1 
 Nor would the hard-hearted Medici allow even a single 
 servant to attend to their wants, until the Sacred College 
 in a body came humbly to entreat this favour on behalf 
 of its imprisoned members. In vain did the Spanish 
 envoy plead and reproach, quoting to the Pope the terms 
 of the safe-conduct lately issued ; Leo remained fixed 
 in his resolve to make an example of these two con- 
 spirators against his authority. Meanwhile the Pontiff", 
 who without any reasonable shadow of doubt had really 
 been terrified by his late discovery, ordered the gates of 
 the Vatican to be kept closed and securely guarded 
 against an attempt upon his person which he averred 
 was imminent. Having called public attention to his 
 alarm by such measures of precaution, Leo's next step 
 
 1 Jovius, lib. iii.
 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS 251 
 
 was to order the seizure of the venerable Cardinal Riario, 
 an incident which caused a profound impression in the 
 city, where people were heard openly to exclaim that 
 the House of Medici was at last about to wreak its long- 
 delayed vengeance upon the old envoy of Sixtus IV., 
 who nearly forty years before had been present at the 
 conspiracy of the Pazzi in the Florentine Cathedral. So 
 overcome with fear did this aged and luxurious prince of 
 the Church show himself at the moment of his arrest, 
 that being unable to move from sheer terror he had to be 
 borne in a litter from the papal ante-chamber to a distant 
 room in the Vatican, where although kept a close 
 prisoner he was treated with more consideration than his 
 luckless colleagues in the neighbouring fortress of Sant' 
 Angelo. 
 
 The consistory was now convoked in the utmost 
 haste, and here Leo, trembling with an angry excitement, 
 which some considered to be assumed rather than real, 
 fiercely demanded of the cardinals present the names of 
 all who were implicated in the recently unmasked plot. 
 After a lengthy and most undignified altercation, which 
 could be clearly overheard outside the apartment and be- 
 came indeed in two hours' time the common talk of all 
 Rome, the dozen members present, dreading the Pope's 
 fury and quaking at the evil fate of Petrucci and Sauli, at 
 last compelled Francesco Soderini and Adrian of Corneto 
 to come forward and entreat for mercy upon their knees, 
 albeit in all probability their crime consisted in little else 
 than the uttering of coarse jests and the open expression 
 of their private ill-will against Leo. The cardinals, now 
 thoroughly cowed and crestfallen, gladly submitted to 
 the immense fines, which were inflicted upon their com- 
 panions kneeling in an agony of terror at the feet of the 
 enraged Pontiff, who scarcely deigned to notice their
 
 252 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 presence or attitude. So high were the penalties fixed, 
 that Soderini was shortly forced to retire from Rome, 
 nor did he return thither during Leo's lifetime, whilst the 
 Cardinal of Corneto at the first opportunity fled by 
 stealth from the city, and having been hunted hither 
 and thither by the papal minions was finally lost sight of 
 and died in obscurity : truly a tragical ending to the 
 prosperous career of that able but lowly born ecclesi- 
 astic, who for many years held the English see of Bath 
 and Wells. 1 With regard to Riario, the Pope, somewhat 
 to the surprise of those around him, showed a measure 
 of his traditional clemency towards the old antagonist of 
 his family, who had thus fallen helplessly into the toils. 
 Riario was certainly mulcted in a huge ransom, but after 
 an humiliating expression of repentance in public was 
 eventually re-instated in his former dignities, although 
 he prudently decided to spend the few remaining years 
 of his long life at Naples. 
 
 As for the miserable Sauli and Petrucci, the former 
 of whom is said to have shrieked at the very sight of 
 the rack, both cardinals were before long induced to 
 make a full confession of their aims, and indeed it was 
 the admissions they had disclosed under stress of the 
 most exquisite torture that had formed the gist of the 
 charges subsequently brought against Riario, Adrian and 
 Soderini. Sauli, as a Genoese citizen and therefore 
 claimed as a subject by the French King, was able to 
 secure the good offices of Francis I., as well as of the 
 Pope's own brother-in-law Francesco Cyb6, with the re- 
 sult that he was finally pardoned and released from his 
 pestilential dungeon in Rome to be kept under strict 
 
 1 For an account of Adrian, or Adriano da Castello as he is some- 
 times styled, the reader is referred to the article on this Cardinal in 
 the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. i.
 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS 253 
 
 surveillance at Mont Rotondo, where he expired after 
 much suffering during the ensuing year, not without 
 some suspicion of foul play. But Petrucci, that "Cupid 
 of the Cardinals," the Medici's late playmate and favourite 
 companion, seems to have possessed no friend powerful 
 enough to intercede successfully on his behalf, and after 
 some hesitation on Leo's part he was accordingly executed 
 in his foul and gloomy cell by one Orlando, a Moham- 
 medan hangman of the Roman court. Common report 
 averred that Petrucci was strangled on the night of 6th 
 July, but others declared that he was beheaded with a 
 kerchief tied over his eyes, cursing his perfidious master 
 to the last and angrily refusing to make his confession or 
 to receive the sacraments, telling the scandalised priest 
 in attendance that "if he were doomed to lose his life, 
 he cared nothing what became of his soul ".* The corpse 
 of the late Cardinal of San Teodoro, only twenty-two 
 years of age, was secretly interred after nightfall outside 
 the walls of the city, and though the cruel fate of this 
 comely youth, "who was surely born beneath some star 
 of malign influence," may excite our compassion, it must 
 be borne in mind that his cold-blooded execution, how- 
 ever harsh and ungenerous in Leo, succeeded in ridding 
 the Sacred College of one of its most turbulent and dis- 
 reputable members. But the horrible story of Petrucci's 
 career and ending serves well also to illustrate for us the 
 swift variations of Fortune in the days of the Italian Re- 
 naissance, when in the briefest space of time a powerful 
 nobleman or Churchman could be suddenly and without 
 warning dashed down from a pinnacle of wealth and 
 power into an abyss of infamy, such as can scarcely be 
 conceived in our own days. But if the punishment 
 meted out to a cardinal of loose morals be accounted 
 
 1 Fabroni, Appendix L.
 
 254 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 bloodthirsty, what can be said concerning the awful 
 barbarities perpetrated upon the more humble accessories 
 to the crime Gian-Battista of Vercelli, Poco-in-testa 
 and Petrucci's secretary who after endless stretchings 
 upon the rack were dragged on hurdles through the 
 filthy streets of Rome, torn to pieces with red-hot pincers 
 and finally gibbeted whilst still breathing on the parapet 
 of the bridge of Sant' Angelo ? 
 
 Some modern writers have essayed to prove that no 
 definite conspiracy ever existed on this occasion, and 
 that the actions of Petrucci and his associates were con- 
 fined solely to vague threats against the life or authority 
 of Leo. Nevertheless, all contemporary historians seem 
 to have believed in the actual existence of a deep-laid 
 plot of a terrible and even of an unparalleled nature 
 against the person of the Pontiff, whom the conspirators 
 were anxious to replace by a master more congenial to 
 their tastes and private ambitions. How many of the 
 cardinals were privy to Petrucci's "accursed madness" 
 (scelerato furore], as Guicciardini styles it, it is impos- 
 sible to conjecture, and of the five arrested it would be 
 no easy task to apportion the exact amount of guilt ap- 
 pertaining to each, though it would seem as if Riario and 
 Adrian sympathised with rather than abetted the scheme 
 of assassination. That Leo was truly alarmed and 
 horrified there is no reason to deny, and even if his con- 
 duct throughout be adjudged both harsh and treacherous, 
 it is not unlikely that under the more severe Julius II., 
 Sauli, Soderini, and perhaps Adrian would have shared 
 the evil fate of the wretched ringleader, Petrucci. On 
 the other hand, it is evident that the versatile Medici, 
 perhaps at the advice of his cousin Giulio, contrived to 
 turn to good account his late alarm at the discovery of 
 the plot, which afforded him an excellent excuse for
 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS 255 
 
 levying heavy fines wherewith to replenish the empty 
 treasury out of the ill-gotten wealth of his greedy car- 
 dinals, with whose pecuniary losses nobody was likely to 
 sympathise ; and doubtless it was this reflection that in- 
 duced Leo to extend an unexpected degree of mercy 
 to the unhappy Riario. Nevertheless, regarded from 
 any and every point of view, the Conspiracy of the Car- 
 dinals forms one of the ugliest incidents in the whole 
 course of the Italian Renaissance, leaving the most un- 
 pleasant impression of the appalling corruption of the 
 Roman court and also of Leo's signal lack of that spirit 
 of clemency and forgiveness which had once been 
 reckoned his predominant virtue. 
 
 Having crushed the revolt in the Sacred College by 
 these prompt and drastic measures, Leo proceeded to 
 make a merciless use of his late victory in deciding to 
 create forthwith a batch of thirty -one cardinals : an un- 
 precedented stroke of policy against which the surviving 
 members of the College were now powerless to protest 
 Not only was such a step an event of the highest political 
 importance at the moment, but it may also be said to 
 have destroyed for ever that supremacy which a handful 
 of Italian cardinals, often consisting of the worst- 
 principled members of the College, had usurped since 
 the middle of the preceding century. For during the 
 last four or five conclaves the election of a new Pope 
 had rested practically in the hands of a small and by 
 no means representative clique of Italian ecclesiastics, 
 who had at least on one occasion openly offered the 
 gravest dignity in all Christendom to the highest bidder ; 
 and it is therefore to Leo X. that the definite and final 
 overthrow of this corrupt and unedifying system is due, 
 although he deserves perhaps little credit for his action, 
 seeing that his immediate object in view was to subdue
 
 256 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 the Sacred College for his own ends rather than to 
 purify it. Nor were mercenary motives for Leo's policy 
 lacking, since it was no secret that the Pope was hard 
 pressed to find not only the funds necessary to the up- 
 keep of his luxurious court but likewise the money 
 needed to prosecute the dragging campaign in Urbino. 
 Very welcome in these financial straits were the fines 
 lately levied from Riario and Sauli, yet the total amount 
 thus raised did not prove adequate for the requirements 
 of the moment, and in consequence several of these 
 new-made Porporati were forced to contribute heavily 
 to the papal treasury as the price of their recent honours. 
 Yet it cannot be denied that Leo's choice of new 
 members showed in many instances his sharp discern- 
 ment of merit and his appreciation of learning and piety, 
 since the lengthy list includes such names as those of 
 the excellent Egidius of Viterbo, the historian and 
 principal of the Augustinians ; of Tommaso de Vio of 
 Gaeta, head of the Dominican Order, commonly termed 
 the Cardinal Cajetan and celebrated as the theological 
 opponent of Martin Luther ; and the pious Adrian of 
 Utrecht, the simple and austere preceptor of the Arch- 
 duke Charles, who was to become Leo's own successor. 
 Old kindness from the Lady Bianca Rangone of Modena 
 was repaid by a hat bestowed on her son Ercole, whilst 
 princes of the Royal Houses of France and Portugal 
 received the highest dignity of the Church in the persons 
 of Louis de Bourbon and of Alfonso, the infant son of 
 King Manuel I. The ill-fated name of Petrucci was 
 still commemorated in the College by the elevation of 
 Raffaele Petrucci, the espousal of whose claims by Leo 
 had been the original cause of the late conspiracy with 
 its subsequent failure that had broken for ever the 
 usurped power of the Cardinals, and at the same time
 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS 257 
 
 had strengthened enormously the position of Leo and 
 all his successors. Three Florentine relations Niccolo 
 Ridolfi, Giovanni Salviati and Luigi Rossi were like- 
 wise invested with the purple, and contrary to the best 
 advice Leo advanced several Roman prelates, amongst 
 them being that violent would-be patriot, Pompeo 
 Colonna, whose bitter enmity towards the second 
 Medicean Pontiff was destined ere long to prove so 
 disastrous. Royal birth, learning, piety, wealth, claims 
 of family, claims of gratitude all are represented in this 
 list of cardinals, the largest creation in the annals of 
 the Papacy. But although many types of men were 
 selected, it is clear that the prevailing intention of the 
 Pontiff and his cousin Giulio was to obtain a subservient 
 College, upon whose attitude full reliance could be placed 
 for furthering the cherished but secret policy of extend- 
 ing the dominion of the Medici throughout Italy. Of 
 this historic nomination of cardinals in the autumn of 
 1517 an interesting memorial is still to be found in the 
 great fresco executed by Vasari and his pupils in after 
 years at the command of Cosimo I., the first Medicean 
 Grand-Duke of Tuscany, Leo's distant kinsman in the 
 male line, but his great-nephew on the distaff side, since 
 Cosimo's mother had been a daughter of that Jacopo 
 Salviati who had espoused Contessina de' Medici, the 
 Pope's sister. This large painting, which appears above 
 the mantel-piece of the ante-chamber of the Quartiere 
 di Papa Leone X. in the civic palace of Florence, affords 
 us portraits of almost all the personages who took part 
 in this ceremony. Beneath an elaborate canopy up- 
 held by twisted columns Leo X. is shown seated upon 
 his throne in the act of investing the crowd of new- 
 made cardinals, who pass before the papal chair in 
 rapid succession. The older members of the College
 
 258 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 appear sitting on benches with Giulio de' Medici and 
 Bibbiena prominent in the fore-ground, whilst at the 
 back of the scene the painter has introduced the figures 
 of Michelangelo, Castiglione and other celebrated lay- 
 men, who regard the solemn rite with a languid interest. 
 This fine fresco exactly faces the large representation 
 of Leo's state entry into Florence, to which we have 
 already made allusion, and forms an admirable pendant 
 to it ; indeed, the whole of this spacious but rather 
 gloomy apartment is decorated with scenes, real or 
 allegorical, to illustrate the leading events in the career 
 of Giovanni de' Medici, Pope Leo X. 
 
 With this decisive victory over the Sacred College, 
 Leo may be said to have attained the zenith of his 
 fame and power, so that the road seemed clear of all 
 obstacles in the way of that supreme mastery of Italy 
 which constituted his hidden but undoubted aim, now 
 that both Florence and Rome were safe in the hands of 
 the Medici. The Council of the Lateran, so unwillingly 
 convoked by the late Pope, had been already decently 
 dismissed in the spring of 1517, so that there was little 
 fear of inconvenient criticism in that quarter ; the sub- 
 dued College of Cardinals was believed to be ready to 
 abet his future policy ; his nephew, officially styled Duke 
 of Urbino and created Captain-General of the Church, 
 was shortly to be allied with a princess of the royal blood 
 of France. In the early spring of the following year, 
 1518, the haughty young Lorenzo set out with a train 
 surpassing in luxury and splendour that of any reigning 
 monarch, and made his way towards Paris in order to 
 represent his uncle at the approaching baptism of the 
 Dauphin, as well as to celebrate his own nuptials with 
 Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, cousin of the French 
 King. " Now that the Duke of Urbino has been expelled
 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS 259 
 
 from his dominions, a similar fate awaits His Majesty of 
 Ferrara," writes a bitter German critic of Leo's ambitious 
 schemes, perhaps the great Ulrich von Hutten himself. 
 " When both these dukes are dispossessed of their realms, 
 then we shall have to salute that Florentine merchant, 
 Lorenzo Medici, as King of Tuscany ! . . . And since 
 Fortune is variable and Leo may himself expire before 
 his desires are fulfilled, and his successor may chase the 
 papal nephew from his ill-gotten duchies, therefore 
 Lorenzo must needs espouse some princess of France 
 and purchase a principality in that land, in the event of 
 his own expulsion from Italy in the future. Already the 
 bargain has been struck, the documents have been at- 
 tested, and the pledges on either side have been ex- 
 changed. ' Long, aye, too long, have we remained mere 
 apothecaries ' (me diet}, cry these upstarts, ' now is our op- 
 portunity to make ourselves kings and princes ' ! " Such 
 was the expression of opinion indulged in by German 
 malcontents and reformers concerning the splendid em- 
 bassy dispatched from Rome to the court of Francis, with 
 the evident object of making the coming alliance of the 
 heir of the Medici with the Princess Madeleine an im- 
 posing affair in the eyes of the rulers of Europe, for it 
 was intended to be a glorification, conceived in an os- 
 tentatious and somewhat vulgar spirit, of the new-sprung 
 sovereignty of the Florentine mercantile family which 
 was now claiming to rank amongst royal Houses. 
 
 Even the prodigal Francis of France was amazed 
 and visibly impressed by the young Lorenzo's show of 
 state and by the costly nature of the Pope's gifts, which 
 included thirty-six horses with attendants and fine 
 harness, and also a gorgeous matrimonial bed for the 
 
 1 Exhortatio viri cujusdem, etc., Roscoe, Appendix LXXIX., also 
 vol. ii.,p. 244, note 12.
 
 260 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 betrothed pair constructed of tortoiseshell inlaid with 
 mother-of-pearl and encrusted with numerous precious 
 stones. 1 The Seigneur de Fleurange declared the 
 jousts and banquets in Lorenzo's honour at the royal 
 castle of Amboise to have been the most sumptuous 
 ever held in France or even in all Christendom ; but he 
 proceeds to pass some significant comments upon the 
 bridegroom's state of health, which marked him out as 
 wholly unfit for marriage, in consequence of which the 
 French historian extends his pity to the innocent young 
 bride, who in his sight was " trop plus belle que le marie" ". 
 But moral considerations weighed little or nothing in the 
 selfish minds either of the King or Pope, each of whom 
 had his private reasons for desiring the projected union, 
 and thus this loveless political match was duly concluded 
 amidst a succession of the usual bridal festivities. After 
 a lengthy sojourn at the gay court of Francis, Lorenzo 
 and his bride at last set their faces southward for Florence, 
 where the duke, already in an advanced stage of his 
 malady, took up his residence in the old palace in Via 
 Larga. Haughty and self-centred, Lorenzo had ever 
 been regarded with dislike or indifference by the Floren- 
 tines, with the exception of the extreme partisans of his 
 House, so that scant sympathy was shown for the dying 
 prince or even for his youthful wife, who had also fallen 
 into a pitiable state of ill-health. Restricting himself to 
 the society of his secretary, Goro Gheri of Pistoja, and 
 his boon companion and pander, Moro de' Nobili, the 
 unpopular duke spent miserably the last months of a 
 brief but wasted existence in the palace of his ancestors, 
 which had once been tenanted by the wise Cosimo and 
 the Magnificent Lorenzo. His increasing sickness made 
 the duke either unable or unwilling to proceed to Rome, 
 
 1 Fabroni, Appendix LXIX.
 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS 261 
 
 where the greatest anxiety was felt with regard to the 
 expected heir of the House of Medici, and bitter was the 
 chagrin of the disappointed Pontiff, when on 1 3th April, 
 1519, the news was brought him that the Duchess of 
 Urbino had been delivered of a daughter. Any further 
 hope of a male heir to all the newly acquired glories of 
 the Medici was shattered a fortnight later, when in- 
 formation was sent of the death of the unhappy Made- 
 leine, who was herself followed to the grave on 6th May 
 by her wretched husband, a perfect wreck of manhood, 
 although only in his twenty-seventh year. 
 
 This stream of catastrophes spread perfect consterna- 
 tion within the Vatican, and moreover certainly caused 
 the death of that intriguing woman, Alfonsina de' Medici, 
 Lorenzo's mother, whose restless ambition had so often 
 goaded on her husband, her son, and even her brother- 
 in-law to acts of folly or aggression in the past. With 
 the tidings of the fatal illness of the last legitimate male 
 of the Medicean House (save the Pontiff himself), the 
 Cardinal Giulio, now become more than ever a personage 
 of importance in his family, had been hastily despatched 
 to Florence, but though he arrived there before the duke's 
 actual decease, he does not seem to have visited the 
 dying prince, who had invariably treated the base-born 
 Churchman with disdain. But on news of Lorenzo's 
 death Giulio took prompt measures to ensure order 
 throughout the city, and so judicious and conciliatory did 
 he show himself, that public confidence was quickly re- 
 stored. The Cardinal took a prominent part likewise 
 in the obsequies of his late cousin, who was interred 
 within the basilica of San Lorenzo, with all the dismal 
 pomp but without any of the genuine regret that three 
 years before had accompanied his uncle Giuliano the 
 Good to the tomb. Arrogant and rough-mannered,
 
 262 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 ambitious and dissipated, Lorenzo II. was truly exhibited 
 as the heir of his father Piero il Pazzo, and if we may 
 draw a fair inference from the character of himself and 
 of his only daughter, it appears no small fortune for 
 Florence and Italy that Lorenzo's legitimate offspring 
 was limited to the baby-girl, who was one day to become 
 famous or infamous as Caterina de' Medici, Queen of 
 France. 
 
 Not only did the Cardinal Giulio attend his relative 
 to the grave, but it was he who in after years caused 
 Michelangelo to erect that pair of splendid monuments, 1 
 the wonder and delight of succeeding ages, which mark 
 the last resting places of Giuliano the Good and his un- 
 worthy nephew amidst the chill magnificence of that 
 echoing mausoleum, the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo. 
 With his form clad in a warrior's tunic and with head 
 covered by the plumed helmet sits eternally gazing into 
 space the worthless Medici, who was chosen to be the 
 ideal prince of Machiavelli's day-dreams. The statue's 
 air of perfect repose and of calm meditation has won the 
 epithet of // Pensieroso for the artist's work, which offers 
 the strongest contrast with his feeble representation of 
 the charming and more virtuous Giuliano, whose pose 
 appears as stilted and affected as any despised produc- 
 tion of the school of Bernini. But it is impossible for 
 the beholder to resist the dread fascination of that 
 mysterious half-hidden countenance of the Duke 
 Lorenzo, whose earthly existence has been thus im- 
 mortalised by the chisel of Michelangelo, by the brush 
 of the divine Raphael, and by the pen of Machiavelli, 
 albeit the sole grandson of the Magnificent Lorenzo was 
 undoubtedly the least worthy of remembrance of all 
 the Medici. Yet it is obvious that Michelangelo's famous 
 
 1 See chapter xii.
 
 STATUE OF LORENZO DE' MEDICI, DUKE OF URBINO
 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS 263 
 
 statue does not present us with the human portraiture 
 of the dissolute Lorenzo, the Medicean Duke of Urbino ; 
 on the contrary, with its noble air of meditation and its 
 majestic mien, it perpetuates the master's conception of 
 that ideal prince, whom Italy in her hour of sore need 
 and peril so urgently demanded, that perfect tyrant 
 whom the House of Medici, despite all its reputation for 
 genius and patriotism, signally failed to produce. Not 
 only is that severe and cheerless Sacristy of San Lorenzo 
 a mortuary-chapel of departed Medici, it is also the 
 charnel-house of those high hopes of a free and united 
 Italy, which once centred round the living members of 
 the great Florentine House. 
 
 There from age to age, 
 Two ghosts are sitting on their sepulchres. 
 That is the Duke Lorenzo. Mark him well. 
 He meditates, his head upon his hand. 
 What from beneath his helm-like bonnet scowls ? 
 Is it a face, or but an eyeless skull ? 
 'Tis not in shade, yet like the basilisk 
 It fascinates and is intolerable. 
 His mien is noble, most majestical. 1 
 
 Cardinal Giulio de' Medici passed the whole of the 
 summer of 1519 in Florence, busily engaged in making 
 arrangements for the better government of the city, and 
 even inviting its leading citizens, and amongst them 
 Niccolo Machiavelli, who was ever striving to win the 
 favour of "these Medicean lords," to draw up sugges- 
 tions for his own guidance. Such marked ability did 
 Giulio display with regard to Florentine affairs, and so 
 tactful was his exercise of power during this and the 
 following three years, that Roscoe has not hesitated to 
 call them "the most brilliant period of his life". Mean- 
 while the future fate of Florence was left hanging in the 
 
 1 S. Rogers, Italy,
 
 264 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 balance, for the Pontiff's intentions towards his native 
 city were quite unknown to his intimate counsellors, 
 and were probably as yet unfixed in his own mind. 
 For at one moment he would hint in all sincerity at a 
 coming restoration of political freedom, seeing that the 
 legitimate descendants of Cosimo, "the Father of his 
 Country," were all extinguished save himself, whilst at 
 other times it appeared evident that Leo was inclined 
 to keep a firm hand upon the city which he had re- 
 covered with such pains a few years before. But whilst 
 Florence was thus enjoying a spell of rest and prosperity 
 under the supervision of the Cardinal Giulio, it was 
 finally decided that the Duchy of Urbino, which it had 
 cost so much treasure to seize and still more to retain, 
 should be forcibly annexed to the States of the Church, 
 although Lorenzo's infant girl was officially styled 
 Duchess of Urbino. The cost of this disastrous enter- 
 prise, amounting to the enormous sum of 800,000 ducats, 
 Leo decided to debit in part to the reluctant Florentines, 
 who in return for their enforced payment were compen- 
 sated with the conquered district of Montefeltre and the 
 great rock-fortress of San Leo. 1 In October of this 
 same year Giulio, leaving Florentine administration in 
 the hands of Cardinal Passerini of Cortona, returned to 
 Rome, taking in his train the little " Duchessina," Caterina 
 de' Medici. On her first appearance at the Vatican the 
 poor orphan girl was received in full state by the Pontiff, 
 who must have regarded this frail atom of humanity, 
 the offspring of diseased parents, with any but pleasur- 
 able feelings. Yet such was the versatility of Leo's 
 mind that he could contrive to turn even so tragical and 
 
 *A vigorous fresco by Vasari, commemorating the capture of 
 San Leo, is included in the series of pictures in the Ante-chamber of 
 the Quartiere di Papa Leone X.
 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS 265 
 
 piteous an incident into an erudite jest ; Secum fert 
 aerumnas Danatim ! she brings all the catastrophes of 
 Hellas with her presence ! observed the Pope with an 
 apt quotation out of his beloved classics, and the words 
 thus idly spoken proved certainly prophetic with regard 
 to the country over which the little Catherine was 
 eventually fated to rule. Perhaps the Pontiffs deep- 
 lying chagrin might have been somewhat assuaged 
 could he but have foreseen that the despised baby-girl 
 before him, his great-niece, only five months of age, was 
 to become a future Queen of France and the mother of 
 three sovereigns and a Queen of Spain. But at this 
 moment there was little indeed to cheer the mind of the 
 Pope, who now found himself forced by a perverse fate 
 to abandon all his cherished schemes of family ag- 
 grandisement, when his own burgher line was thus 
 reduced to himself and the frail Duchessina. Questa 
 e troppo gran casa per si poca famiglia ! so vast a 
 mansion for so small a number ! had once sighed long 
 ago the Pontiffs great-grandfather, the wise Cosimo of 
 pious memory, as he wandered disconsolate after the 
 loss of a favourite son through the halls of the palace in 
 Via Larga ; here was a repetition of Cosimo's sentiment 
 in far more serious circumstances, when all the acquired 
 power and splendour of the aspiring Medici were found 
 concentrated in a priest and a sickly baby-girl. There 
 was the Cardinal Giulio, it is true, the natural cousin 
 whom he had legitimised, his most attentive counsellor 
 and adherent ; and there can be little doubt that from 
 Lorenzo's death onward, the influence of the Cardinal 
 gained a complete ascendancy over the forlorn Pontiff, 
 whose foreign policy began to reflect more and more the 
 private aims of that subtle and secretive Churchman. 
 In addition to Giulio, there were the two younger
 
 266 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 bastards, Giuliano's handsome and engaging little son 
 Ippolito, who was a favourite with the Pope, and that 
 swarthy and singularly unattractive child, Alessandro de' 
 Medici, whose real parentage remains a subject of 
 speculation, though in all likelihood he was the natural 
 son of the Cardinal Giulio himself rather than of his 
 reputed sire, the late Duke Lorenzo. Without a legiti- 
 mate male heir save his distant kinsmen of the junior 
 branch of the family, of whom he took little notice and 
 was in fact believed to be jealous, Leo's original and 
 absorbing desire of founding a Medicean empire in Italy 
 was necessarily brought to an end, so that he began to 
 tire of the tedious routine of public business and hence- 
 forth to pursue his various amusements, particularly that 
 of the chase, with an ever-increasing ardour during the 
 few remaining years of his life. The conduct of foreign 
 policy therefore devolved largely upon the energetic 
 Cardinal, who, if he lacked Leo's natural talents, owned 
 far greater powers of application to business, so that he 
 now became the true exponent of Medicean statecraft 
 amidst the far-reaching changes impending in Europe. 
 For in the opening days of the year 1519 there had ex- 
 pired the old Emperor Maximilian, for whose end all 
 Europe had long been waiting with mingled feelings of 
 alarm and hope, whilst on 28th June of the same year, 
 in spite of strong opposition from the courts of Rome 
 and Paris, the youthful Charles, King of Spain and 
 Naples, was duly elected emperor with the title of Charles 
 V., and thus from the very extent and resources of his 
 vast realms was able to supplant the indignant Francis 
 of France as the leader of Europe and the natural 
 arbiter of her fortunes. For nearly two years Leo and 
 the Cardinal de' Medici continued to play at their 
 favourite game of political vacillation between the two
 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS 267 
 
 rival powers, but on 2 9th May, 1521, a definite treaty 
 of alliance between Pope and Emperor was signed to 
 the infinite alarm of the French King. Besides the 
 fear of the Imperial displeasure, Charles' promise to 
 restore to the Holy See the towns of Parma and 
 Piacenza, the deprivation of which by Francis had never 
 ceased to rankle in the Pontiffs mind, undoubtedly 
 operated to impel Leo to this compact. For although 
 the hope of founding a Medicean kingdom in Italy had 
 perished eternally for lack of heirs, yet Leo was easily 
 able to fall back on the former ecclesiastical policy of 
 Julius II., which aimed at extending the papal boundaries 
 and at driving the intruding foreigner out of Italy. To 
 keep Urbino and Modena for the Holy See and to 
 regain the lost cities of Parma and Piacenza for the 
 Papacy became now the main object of the Medici's 
 policy, which belongs rather to European than to Italian 
 history. 
 
 Early in the summer of the same year the long- 
 threatened war between King and Emperor broke out in 
 Lombardy, that favourite theatre of all military opera- 
 tions. Owing to the poor tactics of the French com- 
 mander, the Seigneur de Lautrec, the Imperial army, 
 supported by the papal forces, was able to form a 
 junction with the Swiss mercenaries, and to proceed 
 without further difficulty towards Milan. That city 
 quickly surrendered to the vast army led by the 
 Marquis of Pescara, the husband of the celebrated 
 Vittoria Colonna, and ere long Parma and Piacenza were 
 also in the hands of the conquerors of Milan.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 DEATH AND CHARACTER OF LEO X 
 
 What grieves me most is to hear that your bed is constantly sur- 
 rounded by physicians, who never agree in any opinion, because it 
 would be accounted derogatory to the dignity of the second to think 
 like the first and repeat his views of the case. It is certain, as Pliny 
 observes, that wishing to make a name by their discoveries they try 
 all manner of experiments upon us and sport with our lives. Physi- 
 cians acquire their art at our expense, by killing us they learn means 
 of cure, and they are the only persons permitted to slay with im- 
 punity. Holy Father ! regard as a troop of foes all that crowd of 
 doctors which surrounds thee. Think of the Emperor Hadrian's 
 epitaph Turba medicorum perii ! (I died of a multitude of doctors !) 
 (Letter of Petrarch to Pope Clement IV.}. 
 
 THE news of the fall of Milan and the subsequent 
 recovery of Parma and Piacenza by the Church 
 was sent to Rome with all possible speed by 
 the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, who was with the Im- 
 perial forces in person, the glad tidings reaching the 
 Pope about sunset of Friday, 22nd November, 1521, at 
 his villa of the Magliana. Leo had just returned from 
 the chase, somewhat tired and heated, but on reading 
 the Cardinal's welcome despatch, he hastily summoned 
 the papal master of ceremonies to his presence in order 
 to confer with him as to the propriety of having public 
 rejoicings in the city. To the Pontiff's eager inquiry, 
 that wary personage made reply that it was not custom- 
 ary for the Holy See thus to celebrate the result of any 
 battle waged between two Christian monarchs, unless 
 the Church had some special interest at stake, but of 
 
 268
 
 DEATH AND CHARACTER OF LEO X 269 
 
 such a case the Pontiff himself, as head of the Church, 
 would naturally be the best judge. Leo, amused by this 
 ingenious piece of sophistry, at once answered that he 
 had every reason to rejoice, whereupon Paris de Grassis 
 declared it his manifest duty to return openly thanks 
 to the Almighty for the late benefits obtained. The 
 Pope accordingly commanded his master of the cere- 
 monies to summon a full consistory of the cardinals for 
 the ensuing Wednesday, and "having said this he retired 
 to his chamber, where he remained resting for some 
 hours, after which he was reported later to complain of 
 feeling unwell. And indeed on the following Wednesday 
 no consistory could be held. " Such is the bald state- 
 ment that Paris de Grassis has presented to us con- 
 cerning Leo's brief but fatal illness, the first symptoms 
 of which undoubtedly appeared on the very evening that 
 brought him the good news of the victory of the Imperial 
 army and of the desired restoration of Parma and 
 Piacenza to the Church, an event on which he had set 
 his heart to an exorbitant degree. 
 
 According to common belief the mental excitement 
 induced by this welcome but sudden intelligence, acting 
 upon an unwieldy frame already weakened by chronic 
 disease, was the direct cause of Leo's premature death, 
 a few days before attaining his forty-sixth birthday. 
 Over-heated, fatigued and agitated by the recent news, 
 the Pope was seized with a violent chill, when after a 
 close damp day a bitter north wind arose at sunset, 
 sweeping over the Roman Campagna and blowing with 
 icy breath into the courtyard of the villa, where the 
 papal servants were already lighting a huge bonfire in 
 honour of the victory. Leaning from his casement in 
 the teeth of the blast to applaud the efforts of his men- 
 
 1 Roscoe, Appendix CII.
 
 2 7 o THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 at-arms in the courtyard, Leo certainly contracted the 
 feverish catarrh, which compelled him two days after- 
 wards to return to the Vatican, but which the doctors of 
 the court declared to be of no great consequence, although 
 he was far too unwell to attend the consistory fixed for the 
 following Wednesday. As we have had many occasions 
 to remark, it was a superstitious age, that drew strong 
 inferences from trivial chances or portents, so that, when 
 Leo on returning to the Vatican found in his own apartment 
 a large model of the beautiful tomb which Torrigiano, 
 the Tuscan sculptor, had been commissioned to erect in 
 Westminster Abbey for the late King Henry VII. of 
 England, he became not a little distressed in mind at so 
 ominous a coincidence. 1 Indeed, the sight of Torrigiano's 
 model seems to have inflicted a nervous shock upon the 
 ailing Pontiff, who gradually grew worse until "on 
 Sunday, the first day of the month of December, at 
 about the seventh hour, Pope Leo X. expired of a 
 violent chill without anyone warning him that his sick- 
 ness was mortal, since the physicians all protested he was 
 but slightly indisposed owing to the cold he had taken 
 at the Magliana". 
 
 Various highly contradictory accounts have been 
 transmitted to us of the Medici's last moments. One 
 of these relates how Leo expired in an agony of remorse 
 for his unhappy countrymen butchered nine years before 
 by the cruel Spanish soldiery at Prato, and how his 
 dying ears were filled with their piteous groans, whilst 
 the Pope in his terror shrieked aloud " Pratum me 
 terret!" Another description is from the pen of Fra 
 Piacentino, a canon of the Lateran, who moralises at 
 some length upon Leo's miserable and lonely end, with 
 nobody beside him save Fra Mariano Fetti, the arch- 
 1 Jovius, lib. iv.
 
 DEATH AND CHARACTER OF LEO X 271 
 
 jester, who remained with his dying master to the last, 
 "as a straw clings to an empty sack". "Think upon 
 God, Holy Father ! " the Cowled Buffoon is stated to 
 have cried on this sad occasion, to which exhortation 
 the poor Pope could only make reply by calling aloud 
 thrice on the Almighty : " Dio buono ! Dio buono ! Dio 
 buono ! " Jovius, on the other hand, who is a far better 
 authority, attributes a more dignified as well as more 
 probable termination to the career of the great Pontiff. 
 "Scarcely," relates the learned Bishop of Nocera, "had 
 Leo recognised the fatal character of his malady and the 
 rapid approach of his last moment upon earth, than he 
 lost all consciousness and was hurriedly taken from this 
 world. Nevertheless, some few hours before his decease, 
 he clasped his hands and raised them to Heaven in all 
 humility, whilst with upturned eyes he gave thanks to 
 God, openly professing that he could meet the stroke of 
 death with calmness, now that he had seen Parma and 
 Piacenza restored to the Church without any spilling of 
 blood, and also the defeat of the Church's haughty foe, 
 the King of France." : 
 
 It is difficult to extract the true story of Leo's last 
 hours from statements so varied, but all accounts agree 
 in the circumstance that the final stage of the Pope's 
 illness was terribly swift and that a fatal ending was 
 quite unexpected both at the Roman court and in the 
 city. That Leo really died unattended save by Fra 
 Mariano appears most improbable ; seeing that the 
 foreign ambassadors were constantly making inquiry 
 and that the Pope's own sister, Lucrezia Salviati (whom 
 the Venetian envoy accuses of laying hands on every 
 object in the Vatican at her brother's death sgombrb il 
 palazzo di tutto] was actually residing in Rome at the 
 
 ^oscoe, vol. ii., p. 467, note 32. 2 Jovius, lib. iv.
 
 272 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 time. Nor has the well-known story, that Leo expired 
 without receiving the last sacraments, ever been proved, 
 though it is not impossible that his fearfully sudden end 
 may have allowed no time for the due performance of 
 the last rites of the Church. Nevertheless, a rumour to 
 this effect afforded an opportunity to some malicious wit, 
 said on doubtful authority to be no less a person than 
 the poet Sannazzaro, to insult the memory of the dead 
 Pontiff by the composition of a scandalous distich : 
 
 Sacra sub extrema si forte requiritis hora 
 Cur Leo non potuit sumere ; Vendiderat ! l 
 
 " Thou didst creep into our midst like a fox ; thou 
 didst live amongst us like a lion ; and thou hast died 
 like a dog " 2 a repetition of the cruel epigram composed 
 two centuries before on the death of Boniface VIII. 
 was another of the satirical lampoons published in Rome 
 concerning the deceased Pontiff, who only a few hours 
 previously had been the object of universal flattery. 
 Yet the sound of these chance notes of discord was lost 
 in the general chorus of praise and wailing which super- 
 vened on the news of Leo's demise in so sudden a 
 manner and at so early an age, for the poets and scholars 
 of Rome and Florence, whom the Pope had entertained 
 so lavishly during his reign, were vying with each other 
 in the preparation of elegies and laments for the passing 
 of an ideal patron, whose equal both in learning and in 
 liberality they were never likely to look upon again. 
 Extravagant as it may appear, the epitaph placed on 
 the Medici's temporary tomb in St. Peter's echoed 
 
 1 Without the Church's sacraments Pope Leo died, I'm told ; 
 How could he e'er receive again what he himself had sold ? 
 
 Fabroni, p. 238. 
 
 2 Apud nos intravit ut vulpis ; vixit ut leo ; exiit ut canis.
 
 DEATH AND CHARACTER OF LEO X 273 
 
 faithfully the heartfelt grief of the members of that papal 
 Parnassus, which Leo had called into existence : 
 
 Deliciae humani generis, Leo Maxime, tecum 
 Ut simul illuxere, interfere simul. 1 
 
 Scarcely had Leo breathed his last and the court and 
 city of Rome were filled with utter consternation, than 
 the physicians, with the Paduan, Bernardino Speroni, 
 at their head, began to dilate upon the suspicious nature 
 of the late Pope's illness and death. The cardinals at 
 the earnest request of the doctors accordingly ordered 
 an autopsy of the body to be made, with the inevitable 
 result that these ignorant physicians at once began to 
 prate of symptoms of poisoning, that universal bugbear 
 of an age wherein the science of medicine had sunk to 
 its lowest depth. Many persons, from the King of France 
 and the Duke of Urbino to the meanest scullions of the 
 palace, were suggested as likely individuals to have com- 
 passed or carried out a fell deed, for which in reality 
 there was not a tittle of evidence forthcoming. Indeed, 
 Leo's death constituted a typical case in which the utter 
 failure of the medical men to cure a malarial fever com- 
 plicated by long-standing disease, and the spirit of the 
 age which promptly sought for a criminal motive in the 
 sudden demise of any personage of note, combined to- 
 gether in attributing so unexpected an event to the 
 agency of poison. Bernarbo Malespina, the papal cup- 
 bearer, was now apprehended at the request of these in- 
 competent doctors, and cast into Sant' Angelo, whence 
 the unfortunate and innocent man was only liberated by 
 the order of Cardinal de' Medici, who with more common- 
 sense than the physicians, promptly released Malespina 
 
 1 Great Leo, all the joys of life that be 
 Go mourning to thy tomb and die with Thee ! 
 
 Fabroni, p. 239. 
 18
 
 274 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 on hearing the absurd details of the charge. Even the 
 faithful Serapica, who had everything to lose and nothing 
 to gain by being deprived of a generous master, was 
 regarded with some degree of suspicion, and the poor 
 little man's decent melancholy after Leo's death was 
 with true Italian reasoning set down to the deepest 
 cunning to conceal his supposed crime. Possibly but for 
 the mistaken handling of the medicos, Leo, though in 
 delicate health, might have recovered by means of 
 ordinary measures and by a strict avoidance of the ab- 
 surd and dangerous drugs supplied to him by Speroni 
 and his colleagues. But, like all the males of his family, 
 Leo did not possess the robust constitution that the time 
 required; "his head," remarks Vettori, "was always 
 choked with catarrh and his appetite was so capricious 
 that he would hardly touch food one day and on the 
 next would eat to repletion "- 1 A quiet and regular mode 
 of living might certainly have saved the Pope on this 
 occasion, and have preserved his life for many years to 
 come. For in spite of the opinions of several contem- 
 poraries, who honestly believed in the fantastic theories 
 of the doctors, it seems fairly obvious that Leo X. ex- 
 pired as the victim of medical incompetence rather than 
 of a crime for political ends, as the Venetian envoy, the 
 personal friend of Speroni, at once hinted to his govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The Pope's corpse, after having been cut up and 
 dissected to satisfy the curiosity of the physicians, was 
 buried in St. Peter's with great haste and with small 
 pomp, for the papal treasury was well-nigh empty, and 
 the Florentine bankers in Rome, who saw ruin staring 
 them in the face owing to Leo's untimely death, were 
 naturally in no humour to advance large sums of money 
 
 1 Villari, vol. ii., p. 254.
 
 DEATH AND CHARACTER OF LEO X 275 
 
 upon a costly funeral worthy of the Papal Maecenas. 
 Many years, in fact, elapsed before a monument was 
 reared to recall the memory of Leo X., and his existing 
 tomb in the choir of the great Dominican church of 
 Santa Maria sopra Minerva no inappropriate temple to 
 enshrine the recollection of the brief reign of the Goddess 
 of Learning in Rome is due to the generosity of the 
 Pope's nephew, Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, who 
 cherished many instances of Leo's kindness to him in 
 childhood. Antonio da Sangallo is credited with the 
 design, and Baccio Bandinelli with the execution of this 
 mediocre specimen of Renaissance art, which is wholly 
 unfit to serve as the depository of the ashes of Giovanni 
 de' Medici, Pope Leo X., or to rank as "a monu- 
 ment of the Golden Age of Italy, which is for ever as- 
 sociated with the names of Leo and the Medici, just as 
 the age of Horace was linked with those of Maecenas 
 and Augustus ".* In short, this erection of a later period 
 obviously belongs to that type of mausoleum which 
 strives to be imposing through mere size and pathetic 
 by means of expense. The large white marble statue 
 of the Pontiff, with the left hand grasping the keys of 
 St. Peter and with the right elevated in an eternal but 
 languid benediction, stands out clear against the back- 
 ground of dark basalt, but has a singularly heavy and 
 lifeless aspect. Nor can the allegorical figures and bas- 
 reliefs upon the monument itself claim to be considered 
 works of art. Opposite to Leo's tomb, and identical 
 with it in treatment and design, stands that of the second 
 Medicean Pope, Clement VII., whose handsome bearded 
 face and more graceful figure appear to better advan- 
 tage than the clumsy and undignified form of his happier 
 predecessor. Thus in the choir of the famous church " are 
 
 1 F. Gregorovius, Tombs of the Popes, p. 98.
 
 276 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Fortune and Misfortune represented in the tombs of two 
 kinsmen of a celebrated family ; the two reverses of the 
 coin of life "/ Both monuments in their heavy classical 
 setting combine ill with the Gothic architecture and the 
 gaudy painted windows of the Dominican church, and 
 comparatively few persons take the trouble to penetrate 
 behind the choir screen to inspect these rather feeble 
 productions of Florentine sculptors. At the foot of 
 Leo's tomb a marble slab in the pavement proclaims to 
 the passing stranger that the cultured and erudite Pietro 
 Bembo, friend and secretary of the Papal Maecenas, 
 reposes at the feet of the master whom he survived for 
 nearly a quarter of a century. By a curious chance, at 
 the rear of Leo's ponderous monument, in the northern 
 ambulatory of the choir, is to be seen a simple effigy, 
 which is far better known and revered than the monstre 
 tombs of the Medicean Pontiffs, for it is nothing less than 
 the carved slab which denotes the last resting-place of 
 the gentle monk Giovanni of Fiesole, known to all the 
 world as the saintly painter, Fra Angelico. It would be 
 impossible to find a sharper contrast than that afforded by 
 the two figures of that jovial child of Fortune, the first 
 Medicean Pope, and his humble countryman, the simple 
 monk from aery Fiesole, whose emaciated form, worn 
 with prayer and fasting, meets our eyes with arms 
 meekly folded across the breast and with the beautiful 
 head reposing on its stony tasselled pillow. Yet that 
 Italy could produce two such diverse types of Church- 
 men in the years of the Renaissance is not the least of 
 the many marvels of that incongruous age. Thus Leo 
 X. stands for the power, the splendour, the paganism, 
 the patronage, the learning and the intense worldliness 
 of that period ; the gifted Dominican monk for the ex- 
 
 1 F. Gregorovius, Tombs of the Popes.
 
 DEATH AND CHARACTER OF LEO X 277 
 
 treme simplicity and piety that found their vent in the 
 painting of sacred masterpieces, such as all succeeding 
 ages have failed lamentably to rival in their naive but 
 exquisite loveliness. 
 
 Non mihi sit laudi quod eram velut alter Apelles, 
 Sed quod lucra tuis omnia, Christe, dabam l 
 
 such are the opening lines of the Latin epitaph of the 
 holy Tuscan painter, who rejected the gauds and lucre 
 of this life, and worked solely for the glory of God, 
 Whose reward, he well knew, far surpassed all that the 
 rulers of earth could bestow. On the other hand, we 
 behold one in whom all the pleasures and duties of life 
 alike were centred ; one who allowed the spiritual ideals 
 of the monk of Fiesole to be utterly eclipsed by the con- 
 tending forces of flattery and worldly power. Verily, 
 Leo X. and Fra Angelico have obtained a portion of 
 their due reward in the verdict of succeeding genera- 
 tions. 
 
 It ought to be unnecessary to remind the reader that 
 the character and career of Giovanni de' Medici, Pope 
 Leo X., ought in all fairness to be judged by a contempor- 
 ary and not by a modern standard of ethics and ideas. 
 Like his father before him, Leo was essentially a 
 Florentine of the Renaissance, endowed with all the 
 tastes, virtues and failings of the great citizens of Flor- 
 ence during that epoch. 
 
 "In everything," remarks Herr Ludwig Pastor, 
 Leo's latest German biographer, "he was truly a son of 
 his time, wherein the good and the bad were so closely 
 intermingled. His whole nature reveals an extra- 
 
 1 Apelles, fame was mine ; 'twas nought to me 
 Save that, O Christ, I gave all gain to Thee !
 
 278 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 ordinary mixture of praiseworthy and un-praiseworthy 
 qualities ; that nature, light, gay and many-sided, which 
 only too willingly cast aside all that was serious, deep 
 and original. Shining in all branches of the intellectual 
 
 o o 
 
 movement of the Renaissance, he is particularly eminent 
 in this, namely, that he draws to himself men of the 
 most opposite character and of diverse nationality." 1 
 
 His many political shifts, which were the despair of 
 contemporary sovereigns and excite the indignant surprise 
 of modern critics, were, however, by no means censured 
 severely in his own age ; indeed, men found more to 
 admire than to reprobate in Leo's selfish and tortuous 
 policy. In any case, some excuse for this is to be 
 sought in the difficult position in which he was placed on 
 the papal throne, midway between the rival powers of 
 the Spanish-Austrian Empire on one side and of France 
 on the other. As the weakest member of the triumvirate 
 of Spain, France and the Papacy, Leo always tried 
 to make up in cunning what he lacked in real support. 
 And, moreover, taught from his infancy at his father's 
 court to be both secretive and self-seeking, he had not 
 been improved by the long years of poverty and en- 
 forced exile, during which he had been compelled to 
 hide even his natural ambition of a Medicean restoration 
 in Florence. From an excess of caution in these days 
 of penury and insignificance, he had grown gradually so 
 steeped in the arts of dissimulation, that on attaining to 
 real and settled power, he found himself quite unable 
 to follow any straight path or to commit himself to any 
 fixed and open aim, like the more candid Julius II. 
 In short, duplicity became a second nature to him. 
 " Never," remarked the legate Aleander in after years, 
 " have I met with a man so secretive and averse to 
 1 Leo X., chap. x.
 
 DEATH AND CHARACTER OF LEO X 279 
 
 pursuing a definite policy." Nevertheless, we must 
 give Leo credit for a genuine if vague desire to obtain 
 the expulsion of the French and Spanish invaders out of 
 Italian territory. Such a noble and patriotic aspiration 
 may have been subsidiary to ignoble and private aims, 
 yet it undoubtedly occupied the Pope's mind, even if, 
 in the unkind phrases of an English critic, "it divided his 
 attention with manuscripts and sauces, painters and 
 falcons". l But the grand conception, though hidden to 
 many observers, was certainly existent, and was per- 
 ceptible to the sharp eyes of Machiavelli. " It was this 
 great though mutable ambition of Leo's that continually 
 deceived Machiavelli," writes Professor Villari. "It was 
 thus that the Florentine secretary had been inspired to 
 compose his Prince, and had despatched so many letters 
 to Vettori and others in order to feed the flame. But 
 whenever seeming to burn most brightly, the fire always 
 expired on a sudden without leaving a spark behind." 2 
 Of Leo's personal character, we trust a correct idea 
 has been formed from the preceding pages of this work. 
 That he ascended the papal throne with the highest 
 reputation for culture, virtue and peaceful inclinations, 
 we have already shown ; and we have also endeavoured 
 to explain how this early esteem was lost, both in the 
 eyes of his own generation as well as of posterity, through 
 the Pope's constant frivolity and selfish ambition. It is 
 possible that to a certain extent the Medici's nature was 
 transformed for the worse by the new-found power, the 
 wealth and the adulation, which came to him as Pope 
 after many years spent in adversity ; but it seems hard to 
 imagine, if he were in reality so good as he was reputed, 
 that his elevation to the pontificate proved the utter ruin 
 
 1 Macaulay, Essay on Machiavelli. 
 
 2 Villari, vol. ii., pp. 253, 254.
 
 280 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 of his morals, and that he grew vicious instead of more 
 virtuous. Without speculating further as to this point, 
 it will be sufficient to quote Guicciardini's moderate 
 appreciation of Leo X. as " a prince, who greatly deceived 
 the high expectations entertained of him, when he was 
 raised to the Papacy, since he therein displayed more 
 cunning and less goodness than the world had imagined 
 of him. . . . Yet he passed for a good prince, though I 
 dare not say of an Apostolic goodness, seeing that in 
 our corrupt times the virtue of a Pontiff is commended, 
 when he does not surpass the wickedness of other 
 men." 1 
 
 Grave charges of immorality have been levelled at 
 Leo certainly, but only by those who lived in later ages 
 and were highly prejudiced, and such persons seem to 
 have based their attacks mostly on a somewhat obscure 
 passage in the Fourth Book of Jovius' Life of Leo X. 
 These scandalous whispers may promptly be rejected, 
 since there is to be found no definite charge in any con- 
 temporary writer of personal impropriety on the Pope's 
 part, in whatever degree he may be held answerable 
 for the evil morals prevailing at his court, or for the 
 vicious tone in the society of Rome during his pontificate. 
 
 Even more serious, but likewise more improbable, 
 than this vague accusation of gross conduct is that of 
 blasphemous infidelity, still occasionally to be encountered 
 in old-fashioned works of a markedly Protestant tendency, 
 for it is true that " the most fruitful cause of animosity 
 against Leo X. is to be found in the violence of religious 
 zeal and sectarian hatred". 2 It is easy to comprehend 
 how such a charge came at a later date to be levelled 
 at the Papal Maecenas, the "pagan" Pope, who delighted 
 
 1 Storie <T Italia, lib. xi. 
 ' 2 Roscoe, vol. ii., p. 475.
 
 DEATH AND CHARACTER OF LEO X 281 
 
 in the art and language of antiquity, but it ought to be 
 superfluous to describe this insinuation as a base calumny. 
 For it is founded mainly on a famous and oft-quoted, but 
 impudently mendacious statement contained in a scurrilous 
 treatise called the Pageant of Popes by John Bale, 1 who 
 therein openly professed it his intention "to give the 
 Roman Church double according to her works ". This 
 tract, which bristles throughout with historical in- 
 accuracies, contains the following outrageous anecdote 
 concerning Leo X. : " On a time when cardinal Bembus 
 did move a question out of the gospell, the pope gave 
 him a very contemptuous answere, saying, All ages 
 can testify enough how profitable that fable of Christe 
 hath bin to us and our companie" ? It stands to reason 
 that this remark is a spiteful and monstrous invention 
 of a rabid or unscrupulous Reformer, and the same com- 
 ment may reasonably be applied to a somewhat similar 
 tale ; namely, that Leo's secretary, the aforesaid Bembo, 
 strictly enjoined his colleague Sadoleto to refrain from 
 studying the Vulgate, lest its indifferent Latin might 
 spoil his elegant and graceful style of writing. On the 
 contrary, there exists much evidence to prove that Leo 
 was personally most conscientious in his public religious 
 duties. No contemporary writer has given the smallest 
 hint as to the Pope's unbelief, open or concealed, nor 
 has modern research in the archives of the various 
 Italian cities revealed the slightest ground for such an 
 insinuation. From his childhood the Pontiff had been 
 expressly educated with a view to his attaining to the 
 
 1 John Bale, formerly a Carmelite monk at Norwich and later a 
 staunch upholder of the Reformed religion, was appointed Bishop of 
 Ossory in 1552. On Mary's accession he had to fly to the Continent, 
 but returned to England in 1559, dying at Canterbury in 1563. 
 
 2 " Quantum nobis nostrisque ea de Christo fabula profuerit, satis 
 est omnibus saeculis notum " (Roscoe, vol. ii., p. 490, note 30).
 
 282 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 highest rank in the Church "together with his nurse's 
 milk," writes Politian with genuine enthusiasm, "did he 
 suck in piety and religion, preparing himself even from 
 his cradle for the holy offices ". Even if Leo's notorious 
 frivolity and love of amusement may afford some ground 
 for the allegation of vicious habits, Bale's absurd charge 
 of atheism can be accounted scandalous only in its original 
 inventor. 
 
 It is certain, that at least outwardly, Leo was always 
 most diligent in his ecclesiastical duties and orthodox in 
 his expressed opinions, exhibiting to the world thereby 
 an edifying contrast with the unseemly behaviour of 
 Julius II., who was habitually careless of all ceremonial, 
 openly showing his impatience thereof both in manner 
 and countenance. Leo, on the other hand, took a 
 dignified part in endless services, and Paris de Grassis 
 describes how during the protracted ceremonies in hot 
 weather he used to observe the exhausted Pope wiping 
 the perspiration with a kerchief from his streaming face. 
 Daily Leo was wont to hear Mass in the beautiful oratory 
 of Nicholas V. with its series of exquisite frescoes from 
 the brush of the holy Fra Angelico. He kept rigorously 
 the days of fasting ordained by the Church ; invariably 
 he went to confession before celebrating Mass in public. 
 He took a deep interest in the training of the Sistine 
 choir, lecturing the papal choristers not only on the 
 subject of music but also on their moral behaviour out 
 of service hours. "His religious duties he fulfils con- 
 scientiously," comments the Venetian envoy, "but he 
 likes to enjoy life, and takes an inordinate pleasure in the 
 chase." 1 Even Paolo Sarpi, the outspoken friar of 
 Venice, admits that Leo brought many good qualities to 
 
 1 He is buon religioso, admits Marco Minio.
 
 DEATH AND CHARACTER OF LEO X 283 
 
 the papal throne, and proceeds to say he would have 
 made a perfect Pope, if to these good qualities he had 
 but joined some recognition of the claims of Religion 
 and shown some inclination to true piety, but for neither 
 of these things did he care much. 1 These comments of 
 Sarpi, Guicciardini, the Venetian ambassadors and others 
 do not present a very favourable account of Leo's con- 
 duct, yet they afford sufficient evidence to contradict these 
 flimsy charges of religious indifference or atheism. 
 
 It is no difficult task to detect and point out the real 
 failings in Leo's character, those failings which have 
 earned for him, not altogether with justice, the unenviable 
 reputation of being reckoned amongst the evil Pontiffs of 
 the secular Papacy. It was his extravagance, his con- 
 stant waste of time and treasure on pursuits which, 
 though not immoral in themselves, had become criminal 
 in his case, because they were carried to excess. Added 
 to this extravagance, which involved the Holy See in 
 endless difficulties, was Leo's besetting sin of frivolity, 
 his persistent refusal to take his position seriously. Ex- 
 travagance and frivolity ;- to these two moral failings 
 in Leo X. can be traced, directly or indirectly, many of 
 those events which were destined shortly to disturb 
 Western Christendom. If Leo had not been so en- 
 grossed in idle and selfish amusements, he could not have 
 failed to discern the religious storm that was brewing in 
 Germany, the storm that the Medici's undeniable tact 
 and ability might have done so much to allay. But Leo 
 preferred to shut his eyes and "to enjoy the Papacy," 
 basking in the sunshine of adulation and luxury beneath 
 a blue serene sky, wherein he deliberately refused to 
 notice the distant shadows of the thunder-clouds of the 
 
 1 Hisloria del Concilio Tridentino, lib. i.
 
 284 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 tempest coming from beyond the Alps. That cynical 
 French proverb, Apres moi le deluge, might even have 
 been taken for the true motto of this papal hedonist. 
 
 " In the breast of Leo the Tenth dwelt two souls ! " 
 exclaims Professor Pastor, and indeed this sentiment will 
 be echoed by all who have cared to study the life and 
 pontificate of Giovanni de' Medici, Pope Leo X. But 
 it is more kind and pleasant to look upon the brighter 
 side of his character, and to regard Leo as the splendid 
 patron of art and letters, as the learned and genial son of 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent, as the friend of Raphael and 
 the incarnation of the glories of the Leonine Age. Let 
 us try to forget his share in the evil deeds that preceded 
 the movement of Martin Luther, his perfidy towards his 
 old companion Petrucci, his utter failure to fulfil those 
 high hopes that Christendom had formed at his election ; 
 let us think rather of him as the Supreme Pontiff 
 
 Whom Europe views 
 
 With wondering awe, her pastor and her guide, 
 From great Lorenzo sprung ; the brightest Star 
 Of Medicean fame, with conscious pride 
 Whom his own Florence hails ; and from afar 
 The sceptr'd rulers of the nations own, 
 And as their lord obey ; in towering state 
 Imperial Leo named, who bears alone 
 The key that opes Olympus' lofty gate. 1 
 
 ^oscoe, vol. i., Appendix XXXII. " Trans/atwn of the Greek 
 verses of Marcus Muscarus prefixed to the works of Plato"
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 CLEMENS SEPTIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 
 
 Many a stone has been cast at the memory of Clement VII. by 
 Italian writers of all ages, from his own to the present, for postponing 
 his patriotism to the gratification of less worthy passions. But had 
 the majority of his countrymen been justified in casting the first stone 
 of reproach for such a sin, their unabated longing for such a deliver- 
 ance of Italy would not have been at the present day (1855) ungrati- 
 fied (T. A. Trollope). 
 
 THE interval separating the reigns of the two 
 Medicean Pontiffs was destined to be a brief 
 one. In the middle of December, 1521, the 
 Cardinal de' Medici hurried full of eager hopes back 
 to Rome from the Imperialist camp in Lombardy, and 
 presented himself in ample time for the conclave which 
 opened on the 28th day of the same month. But in 
 spite of the pervading Medicean influence (for more than 
 half the members of the Sacred College had been 
 created by the late Pontiff), a strong faction, headed by 
 Francesco Soderini, the most persistent foe of the House 
 of Medici, was already formed to oppose the expected 
 election of Leo's cousin. So fierce and powerful was 
 this cabal in the College, that ere long Giulio de' Medici 
 thought it useless to prosecute his candidature further, 
 and accordingly declared himself willing to support any 
 fit nominee of the Imperialist party. Notwithstanding 
 the critical and even alarming aspect of the political situa- 
 tion, the utmost desire to obtain the tiara was exhibited 
 
 285
 
 286 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 by nearly all the cardinals, foremost amongst them being 
 that partially reformed libertine Alessandro Farnese, and 
 the powerful English favourite of Henry VIII., Thomas 
 Wolsey, Cardinal of York. It was finally only by means 
 of something resembling a tacit compromise, that the 
 thirty-nine cardinals assembled almost unanimously de- 
 cided upon the choice of the most virtuous and also the 
 least known of their number in the person of Adrian of 
 Utrecht, Cardinal of Tortosa. Adrian Dedel, a Fleming 
 of lowly birth, was in his sixty-third year when he was 
 thus called upon to fill the vacant throne of the resplend- 
 ent Leo X., who had included his humble successor, 
 then tutor to the future Emperor Charles V., . in his 
 wholesale creation of cardinals in 1517. This unex- 
 pected selection of one who was at once a saintly ascetic, 
 a foreigner, and a plebeian aroused a storm of angry 
 derision in the city and court of Rome ; nor on the other 
 hand did the news bring any delight to the recipient of 
 this high dignity. For Adrian, then absent in Spain, 
 heard of his elevation with a deep groan, abandoning 
 himself to genuine despair at the thought of the awful 
 responsibility and the difficulty of the uncongenial task 
 before him. Late in the summer of 1522, the hew 
 Pontiff, entitled Adrian VI., the last German and indeed 
 the last non- Italian Pope, entered the gates of Rome, 
 whose regeneration he professed himself so anxious to 
 effect, and at once set to inaugurate a series of pious but 
 fruitless endeavours to inspire some true Christian ideals 
 into the voluptuous and extravagant city, which was the 
 capital of Western Christendom. The melancholy tale 
 of poor Adrian's hopeless attempt to reform the Church 
 and to infuse some jot of Christian conscience and charity 
 into those two selfish potentates, Francis of France and 
 his own inept pupil the Emperor, lies wholly outside the
 
 CLEMENS SEPTIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 287 
 
 limits of this work. After a residence barely exceeding 
 a twelvemonth in " that sink of all iniquity," the unhappy 
 Pope (whose reign was marked, amongst other misfor- 
 tunes which he was powerless to avert, by the capture 
 of Rhodes and the expulsion of its Christian knights 
 from their ancient citadel) fell sick of a strange consum- 
 ing malady, which according to the learned Roman 
 physicians was due to poison administered by some agent 
 of the French King ; although a heart chilled by a sense 
 of complete failure and deeply injured by the callous 
 apathy or bitter enmity of those around him in Rome 
 seems to have constituted the true cause of Adrian's 
 death on i4th September, 1523. All Rome was de- 
 lighted at the release from the presence of this spiritual 
 reformer, whose humble figure, "in immediate contrast 
 with Leo X. and against the storm-lighted background 
 of the German Reformation, is one of the most tragic 
 in the history of the Papacy". 1 Assuming, probably 
 not without reason, that the Pope's demise was acceler- 
 ated by the nostrums of his court physician, the wits of 
 the city hung grateful garlands to the door-posts of that 
 functionary, with an inscription naming him the liberator 
 of the Roman Senate and People from the late foreign 
 domination : an attention which proved more embarras- 
 sing than flattering to the personage selected for this 
 civic honour. 
 
 Shortly after Adrian's arrival in Rome, Giulio de' 
 Medici, fearing the influence of his old rival Francesco 
 Soderini, who stood high in the new Pope's favour, had 
 retired to Florence, which he proceeded to govern with 
 tact and clemency in the name of the family whereof he 
 had now become the most influential member, since he 
 was the guardian of the young Lorenzo's heiress, 
 1 F. Gregorovius, vol. viii., part ii.
 
 288 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Caterina de' Medici, as well as of the two illegitimate 
 lads, Ippolito and Alessandro. Recalled to Rome 
 towards the close of his brief reign by the reforming 
 Adrian, who was now openly following the Imperialist 
 party, Medici had taken up his abode in the splendid 
 palace of the late Cardinal Riario, who had been forced 
 by Leo X. to cede this building at the time of his down- 
 fall in 1517. Here Giulio de' Medici, now consulted 
 and distinguished by the ascetic Pontiff, continued to 
 reside in great state ; indeed, the Cardinal was far 
 more courted and esteemed by the Roman people than 
 the foreign intruder at the Vatican, where the silent 
 halls and empty galleries testified plainly to the unpopu- 
 lar ideas of strict economy and of virtuous simplicity 
 which that despised barbarian was striving to introduce. 
 Driven from the Apostolic palace, the poets and artists, 
 who had recently battened at the court of Leo X., 
 found their way to the Medici's mansion, so that it verily 
 appeared as if the gorgeous mantle of the lamented Leo 
 had fallen on his cousin, the natural son of the murdered 
 Giuliano. 
 
 The obsequies of the unhappy Adrian, whose burial- 
 place is marked by the beautiful monument in the 
 national church of the Germans, Santa Maria dell' 
 Anima, were carried out in the latter days of September, 
 and on ist October thirty-five cardinals entered the 
 Sistine Chapel for the conclave, Medici's cell being by 
 accident or design placed below Perugino's fine fresco 
 of Christ bestowing the keys on St. Peter : a circum- 
 stance from which his partisans professed to draw a 
 happy augury. Seven weeks this important conclave 
 lasted, its deliberations throughout being marked by a 
 surpassing amount of intrigue and bribery. Fiercely 
 did the rival supporters of the Imperial and French
 
 G1ULIO DE MEDICI (CLEMENT VII)
 
 CLEMENS SEPTIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 289 
 
 parties struggle to accomplish the election of a Pope of 
 their own political views, and even the threat of the 
 guardians of the conclave to enforce a diet of bread and 
 water on the obstinate princes of the Church failed to 
 make their arguments meet in one point. Farnese, of 
 whose flagrant immorality even that immoral age had 
 been ashamed, did his utmost by unabashed promises of 
 payment to obtain the coveted tiara, and was almost 
 successful in his frantic efforts ; Thomas Wolsey, to 
 whom the Emperor had once promised his personal aid, 
 was told plainly his chance was hopeless, since even if 
 the conclave chose him, the Roman people would posi- 
 tively refuse to admit another foreigner within the city in 
 the capacity of Pope ; Medici, meanwhile, in spite of 
 bitter enmity, never relinquished hope and kept quietly 
 but firmly pursuing his own ends. At last the Imperial 
 faction, of which Medici was commonly regarded one of 
 the leading champions, got the upper hand, and with 
 the withdrawal of the opposition of Soderini and the 
 shameless winning-over of the turbulent Pompeo 
 Colonna, who was promised the reversion of Medici's 
 vice-chancellorship and the possession of the fine palace 
 of old Riario, the Cardinal de' Medici was enabled to 
 secure the requisite number of votes, with the result that 
 on the night of i8th November he was declared duly 
 elected. Thus did Giulio de' Medici, within two years 
 from the date of his cousin's death on ist December, 
 1521, ascend the papal throne under the official title of 
 Clement VII. Nevertheless, according to the testimony 
 of Guicciardini, 1 the second Medicean Pontiff at first de- 
 sired to be known as Julius III., but was dissuaded by 
 his friends from thus making use of his own baptismal 
 
 1 Storia d' Italia, lib. xiv. 
 19
 
 290 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 name ; and his subsequent choice of the title of Clement 
 has been variously attributed to his connection with the 
 basilica of San Clemente (of which he was titular car- 
 dinal-priest), to the rapid approach of St. Clement's 
 festival, or to the new Pope's intended clemency towards 
 Soderini and other late opponents in the conclave. 
 
 Giulio de' Medici was in his forty-sixth year when 
 he thus attained to the highest dignity in Christendom : 
 a dignity which his base birth in reality denied him. 
 His early history we have already discussed at length 
 in the preceding chapters, wherein we have tried to show 
 how closely his career was associated with the fluctuating 
 fortunes of Leo X. For as early as the year 1494, at 
 the date of the Florentine revolution which expelled the 
 three sons of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Giulio had at- 
 tached himself to his cousin, the Cardinal Giovanni, and 
 had rarely been separated from him, either in good or 
 evil plight, until the day of the Pope's death ; in the 
 phrase of an unkind critic, Giulio had consistently played 
 the humble part of jackal to the Medicean lion. The 
 new Pontiff, in short, owed e'verything to his intimacy 
 with his illustrious kinsman, who was but two years his 
 senior ; from Leo he had learned and imbibed all the 
 secret aims and tenets of the ambitious House of Medici ; 
 he had carefully copied his master in all matters of policy 
 and patronage ; and it was to Leo's favour that he owed 
 the removal (so far as the act was morally possible) of 
 the clinging disgrace of illegitimacy, and had obtained 
 an assured position of wealth and importance at his 
 cousin's brilliant court. 
 
 Yet, although Giulio de' Medici had continued the 
 judicious confidant and devoted servant of Leo X. for 
 nigh upon thirty years, the dissimilarity between the 
 cousins had always been most striking ; nor was it by
 
 CLEMENS SEPTIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 291 
 
 any means confined to personal appearance. The 
 frivolity and keen love of enjoyment that were so con- 
 spicuous in Leo seemed wholly lacking in Clement VII., 
 whose behaviour was ever grave and circumspect, and 
 whose late share in the extravagant pursuits of Leo's 
 court had been due to motives of an ingratiating policy 
 rather than to natural inclination. Clement's manner in 
 public was somewhat cold and repellent, which was per- 
 haps one of the many reasons causing him to be so disliked 
 by his peers in the Sacred College, despite his enormous 
 influence and his frequent efforts to propitiate those who 
 might possibly be of service to him in the future. Yet 
 his edifying and serious aspect, his reputation for political 
 sagacity, his supposed desire for public economy and his 
 strict personal morality made his election acceptable both 
 to the Emperor and to Henry VIII. of England, whilst 
 Francis of France had experienced enough of Medicean 
 diplomacy in the past to rest assured that no Medici was 
 ever likely to become a mere tool of the Imperial will. 
 On the whole, therefore, Clement VII.'s elevation, in spite 
 of the scandalous delays in the late conclave, was well 
 received by the princes of Europe, whilst it produced 
 an outburst of popular enthusiasm in the city of Rome, 
 where all men "trusted to behold again a flourishing 
 court, a liberal Pontiff, and a revival of the arts and 
 letters which had been banished under the late barbarian 
 tyranny of Adrian, since it is the boast of the House 
 of Medici that it favours the Muses". 1 The sober 
 Guicciardini also extols the choice of the conclave, de- 
 claring that the new Pontiff was "held in the highest 
 reputation throughout all Europe ; indeed, the extra- 
 ordinary delay in the late election seemed excusable, 
 
 J F. Gregorovius, vol. viii., part ii., p. 457, note i.
 
 292 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 seeing that it had resulted in the elevation to the papal 
 throne of a person of the greatest power and capacity". 1 
 
 In appearance, as in manner, the new Pope offered 
 a strong contrast with the stout and genial Leo X. 
 Clement's figure was tall, slight, and well formed ; his 
 complexion was sallow ; his hair black, his eyes a deep 
 brown, and he had fine regular features. He was more 
 of a typical Medici than his cousin Leo, and bore a 
 strong resemblance to his father, Giuliano, the only 
 brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was murdered 
 in the Florentine cathedral a month before his natural 
 son was born to him. 2 But although handsome, 
 Clement's face was rendered unattractive by reason of 
 its disagreeable expression and the look of suspicion 
 which was constantly passing over it. At the date of 
 his election the Pontiff was smooth-shaven, as we can 
 observe him in Raphael's celebrated portrait of Leo X., 
 and in certain of the frescoes in the Vatican, for it was 
 not until after the sack of Rome in 1527, that Clement, 
 in sign of mourning for his past indignities, allowed his 
 beard and moustache to grow naturally, a change which 
 undoubtedly added dignity to the Pope's general appear- 
 ance. If Julius was the first Pontiff to wear a beard, 
 Clement was certainly the originator of the papal 
 moustache, which continued in vogue amongst the Roman 
 Pontiffs for nearly two centuries. 
 
 Though less liberal and also less learned than Leo, 
 Giulio de' Medici owned a more discerning as well as a 
 more catholic taste in contemporary art. It speaks elo- 
 quently for Clement's true understanding of art in all its 
 varied forms, that he showed himself able to appreciate 
 
 1 Storia d? Italia, lib. xiv. 
 
 2 Platina, etc., Vita dementis VIII. ; also Guicciardini, Storia 
 ff Italia, lib. xii. ; Creighton, vol. v., p. 224, etc.
 
 CLEMENS SEPTIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 293 
 
 the exquisite inventions of that Florentine prince of 
 jewellers, Benvenuto Cellini (who as a young man was 
 then rising rapidly to fame in Rome), and likewise the 
 gigantic productions of the chisel of Michelangelo, whose 
 marvellous powers the new Pope, unlike his late cousin, 
 always held in the highest consideration. Clement, 
 " who alone of all the Medici kept a just balance between 
 the two rivals who were disputing the crown of art," 1 
 had also been a constant patron of the late Raffaele 
 Sanzio, and amongst other commissions he had entrusted 
 the great artist of Urbino with the erection of a villa on 
 the slopes of Monte Mario, the prominent cypress-clad 
 hill above the Flaminian Gate of the city. This splendid 
 villa, in the construction of which the natural rise and 
 fall of the ground had been skilfully utilised to contribute 
 to the general effect, would probably have afforded one 
 of the finest examples of the florid art of the Italian 
 Renaissance, had but circumstances allowed of its com- 
 pletion according to the desire of the Cardinal and the 
 design of Raphael. Its style of architecture was com- 
 posite, a blend of all that was excellent in antique and 
 contemporary art, whilst the gorgeous decorations of its 
 halls and loggia were even said to surpass the efforts of 
 their artists, Giulio Romano and Giovanni da Udine, at 
 the Vatican itself. Unfortunately, like so many other 
 ambitious projects of the Renaissance, this magnificent 
 palace was never brought to perfection, and in the 
 squalid dilapidated building, to-day called the Villa 
 Madama, the stranger w r ill only perceive another of 
 those dismal unfinished monuments of extravagance and 
 ambition, with which all Italy is so thickly studded. A 
 nobler and more enduring memorial of Clement's good 
 taste and bounty in those early days is to be found in 
 1 Muntz, p. 146.
 
 294 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 that matchless creation of the divine Raphael, the picture 
 of the Transfiguration, which adorned the chamber 
 of the dying artist and was borne in that silent pro- 
 cession through the streets of Rome to his honoured 
 tomb in the Pantheon. For it was the Cardinal Giulio 
 de' Medici, who had expressly commanded this world- 
 famous masterpiece for the high altar of the cathedral- 
 church of Narbonne, as a mark of gratitude for his 
 appointment to that distant bishopric. We can, however, 
 scarcely blame the Cardinal for his refusal to allow this 
 picture to quit Rome, when we consider the extraordinary 
 beauty of the composition and reflect upon the sad but 
 hallowed memories attending its completion. The 
 picture (finished in detail, and none too satisfactorily, by 
 Raphael's pupil Giulio Romano) was placed in the 
 Roman church of San Pietro in Montorio, whilst a copy 
 was despatched to remote Narbonne. After remaining 
 the pride and glory of San Pietro in Montorio for nearly 
 three centuries, Raphael's masterpiece was removed to 
 Paris by the emissaries of the French Republic in 1798, 
 and on its restoration to the papal government in 1815, 
 Pius VII. claimed it for the Vatican picture-gallery, of 
 which it has ever since formed the chief ornament. 
 
 With the election of Giulio de' Medici in November, 
 1523, the Vatican, which had remained silent and half- 
 deserted for the past two years, once more began to re- 
 sume its normal aspect of intrigue and pleasure. That 
 corrupt and still unended pageant of the Leonine Age, 
 which the first Medicean Pope inaugurated, had indeed 
 been scarcely suspended anywhere in the city of Rome 
 save in the Apostolic palace itself, where the unhappy 
 and despised Adrian was living frugally on a ducat a 
 day and was being served by a Flemish crone, who did 
 duty for the swarm of valets, lacqueys and grooms whose
 
 CLEMENS SEPTIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 295 
 
 presence the Magnificent Leo had considered indispens- 
 able. But the gloom and torpor that had fallen on the 
 Vatican since Leo's death had in no wise interrupted 
 the follies or vices of Rome at large. Cardinals and 
 
 o 
 
 prelates of the court hunted, feasted, made music, jested, 
 entertained, led immoral lives, and in short openly set 
 at defiance the commands and threats of their foreign 
 master, whose exhortation to virtue was heard unheeded 
 in this ecclesiastical desert of pride and luxury. With 
 the Vatican once more the acknowledged seat of artistic 
 patronage and with a second Medici on the papal throne, 
 Rome was herself again, and was prepared to forget the 
 brief and ineffectual interlude of a barbarian pontificate. 
 Foremost of the signs of resumed activity at the 
 Vatican was the renewal of the progress of building and 
 decorating the palace, which had been abruptly aban- 
 doned under the pedantic Adrian with his utter ignorance 
 of modern art and his pious horror of all pagan culture. 
 Loud indeed was the outburst of relief from the artists 
 of Rome, who " were all during the reign of Adrian but 
 little better than dying of hunger," so Vasari informs us 
 in exaggerated language. " On that very day," proceeds 
 the Plutarch of Italian painters, "of Pope Clement's 
 election, the arts of design together with all the other 
 arts, were recalled to new life, and Giulio Romano and 
 Gian-Francesco Penni set themselves joyfully to work 
 by command of the Pontiff, to finish the Hall of Constan- 
 tine," 1 the fourth and most spacious chamber of the suite 
 of the Stanze di Raffaelo. 2 Here, on the wall facing the 
 windows, Giulio Romano painted the animated battle- 
 piece, the Triumph of the Emperor Constantine over the 
 infidel Maxentius, an immense composition crowded with 
 Christian and pagan warriors and with many horses, 
 1 Vita di Giulio Romano. 2 See chapter ix.
 
 296 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 which in spite of the harshness of its colouring is a 
 splendid performance of the painter, who has throughout 
 followed closely the details of the original cartoon from 
 the hand of his dead master, Raphael. In the adjoining 
 fresco, the Vision of the Cross to Constantine, it is only 
 too evident that Giulio Romano has deviated both from 
 the spirit and the design of the original cartoon, whilst 
 the introduction into so solemn a subject of the repulsive 
 Gradasso da Norcia, the hideous dwarf from the house- 
 hold of Ippolito de' Medici, constitutes a flagrant outrage 
 against good taste. Opposite this work, appears the 
 Baptism of Constantine, with its valuable representation 
 of the ancient baptistery of the Lateran in the days of 
 the second Medicean Pope and its portrait of Clement 
 himself officiating in the guise of Pope Sylvester. Last 
 of all in artistic merit but of special interest as presenting 
 us with an admirable view of the interior of old St. Peter's 
 with its pillared nave, its tribune and its crude mosaics, 
 is the fourth fresco of this hall, which, being the latest 
 of all in date, exhibits St. Sylvester as Clement VII., 
 grown older and bearded, seated in state to receive the 
 donation of Rome for himself and his successors from 
 the hand of Constantine, who in solemn assertion of his 
 good faith offers the Pontiff the bronze statue of a warrior. 
 Numerous auxiliary figures have been introduced into 
 this picture ; courtiers, children, women, beggars, the 
 Grand Master of Rhodes, and even soldiers of the 
 Swiss Guard, who keep the populace at a respectful dis- 
 tance with their halberds. The frescoes of the Stanza 
 di Costantino, though artistically on a far lower level 
 than those of the other three halls, form an interesting 
 historical link with the disastrous pontificate of Clement 
 VII., who tried conscientiously to complete the splendid 
 series of frescoes, emblematic of the secular Papacy, that
 
 CLEMENS SEPTIMUS POXTIFEX MAXIMUS 297 
 
 Julius II. had commenced and Leo X. had continued; 
 it was the fault of Raphael's pupils and not of the Medici 
 that the decorations of the last hall of the official suite, 
 intended to idealise the origin of the temporal power of 
 the Papacy, should have proved so inferior to Raphael's 
 own creations in the adjoining chambers. 
 
 Everywhere in the neighbourhood of the Hall of Con- 
 stantine are visible the heraldic achievements of the luck- 
 less Clement, notably in the pair of splendid carved 
 portals that give on the Loggia of Raphael. And in the 
 panels of these doors the curious may observe the strange 
 emblem or impresa adopted by Clement VII., which re- 
 presents the rays of the sun in full splendour falling on a 
 crystal globe, that stands on a pedestal marked with the 
 words Candor Illaesus, and passing thence so as to set 
 fire to a tree in full leaf. According to Paolo Giovio, 
 this enigmatic piece of heraldry was the invention of a 
 certain Domenico Buoninsegni of Florence, treasurer to 
 Clement VII., shortly before the date of his master's 
 election in 1523, who strove to show to the world thereby 
 Clement's earnest sincerity and candour of mind, which 
 were so great as to render their owner proof against the 
 manifold slanders and plots of his enemies. This quaint 
 device seems to have commended itself to the Pope, then 
 Cardinal, although in the whole roll of history it would 
 be hard to discover any sovereign to whom the epithet 
 of "candid" might be applied with less reason than to 
 this Medicean disciple of the tortuous and uncandid 
 principles laid down by Machiavelli. 1 
 
 Of the various artists patronised by Clement VII., 
 " whose election proved to be a great and much-needed 
 restoration and refreshment to the arts of painting and 
 
 1 Geronimo Ruscelli, Le Impress illustri. In Venetia, 1572, pp. 
 40, 41.
 
 298 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 sculpture," 1 perhaps the account left by Benvenuto 
 Cellini of his own relations with Clement is the most 
 valuable, as affording us an insight not only into the 
 artistic notions of his papal patron, but also into his 
 disposition and mode of life. For the Pontiff seems to 
 have formed a close friendship with Cellini, then twenty- 
 six years of age, during the awful siege of the castle of 
 Sant' Angelo, and the intimacy begun under these baleful 
 conditions was resumed in happier days, on Clement's re- 
 turn to Rome after his coronation of the Emperor at 
 Bologna. This strange adherent of the House of 
 Medici exquisite jeweller, vulgar braggart, plebeian 
 roysterer and author of one of the most valuable human 
 documents concerning the social life of the Italian 
 Renaissance has presented us in his immortal Autobio- 
 graphy with a mass of artless details concerning Clement, 
 and has recorded in these pages a number of strange 
 conversations between himself and the Pope, which 
 though highly entertaining in themselves, cannot possibly 
 be accounted veracious, for they are in reality but stray 
 reminiscences of events put down on paper some twenty 
 or thirty years after their actual occurrence. 
 
 Rome, at the date of Cellini's arrival thither in 1523, 
 was still the undisputed centre of the intellectual and 
 artistic world, and Clement's election set the seal on its 
 universal reputation. As a master- workman, whose fame 
 had already preceded him in Rome, Cellini had received 
 from Clement a cordial welcome, the warmth of which 
 was doubtless enhanced by the Pope's knowledge of 
 the firm political sympathies of the lowly Cellini family 
 with the lofty House of Medici. With the early secur- 
 ing of the papal patronage, commissions of every kind at 
 once began to pour down upon the conceited but talented 
 
 1 Vasari, Vita di Pierino del Vaga.
 
 CLEMENS SEPTIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 299 
 
 Florentine youth, who ere long came to be acknowledged 
 as the prince of his profession. 
 
 " No labour seemed too minute, no metal was too 
 mean for the exercise of the master- workman's skill, nor 
 did he run the risk of becoming one of those half- 
 amateurs in whom accomplishment falls short on first 
 conception. Art ennobled for him all that he was called 
 to do. Whether cardinals required him to fashion silver 
 vases for their banquet-tables ; or ladies wished the 
 setting of their jewels altered ; or a Pope wanted the 
 enamelled binding of a book of prayers ; or men-at-arms 
 sent sword-blades to be damaskened with acanthus 
 foliage ; or kings desired fountains and statues for their 
 palace-courts ; or poets begged to have their portraits 
 cast in bronze ; or generals needed medals to com- 
 memorate their victories, or dukes new coins for the 
 mint ; or bishops ordered reliquaries for the altars of 
 their patron-saints ; or merchants sought for seals and 
 signet-rings engraved with their device ; or men of fashion 
 asked for medals of Leda and Adonis to fasten in their 
 caps all these commissions would be undertaken by a 
 workman like Cellini." 1 
 
 These early years in Rome were probably the 
 happiest and most prosperous in all Cellini's career. 
 Assured of the Pope's sympathy in his work, and later 
 drawing a good salary as master of the papal mint, 
 Benvenuto moved as a figure of no little importance in 
 that brilliant if corrupt pageant of the closing years of 
 the Leonine Age. For society he enjoyed the intimate 
 friendship of his own revered Michelangelo, of the 
 painter Giulio Romano, and of such of the leading artists 
 of the day as he did not choose to offend. For his 
 amusements there were the eternal feasting, intriguing 
 
 1 J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy.
 
 3 oo THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 and brawling of the time, whilst for his health's sake 
 Benvenuto was wont to go daily outside the city walls 
 with his fowling-piece and a well-trained shock-dog in 
 quest of game on the Roman Campagna, or else to 
 sketch the neglected remains of classical Rome, lighten- 
 ing his task of drawing by occasionally shooting at the 
 flocks of pigeons which these ivy-clad ruins sheltered. 
 
 But this pleasant existence of mingled work and re- 
 creation received a rude shock in the capture and sack 
 of Rome by the lawless troops of the Constable of 
 Bourbon in the spring of 1527. During the fearful 
 siege of the castle of Sant' Angelo, Cellini gladly gave 
 his services to his unfortunate patron, to whom he seems 
 to have borne as genuine an attachment as his conceited 
 and selfish nature would permit. We shall speak in the 
 following chapter of Cellini's vaunted exploits in the be- 
 leaguered citadel of Rome, but one curious incident it is 
 more suitable to mention in this place. It seems that at 
 Clement's special request, Cellini undertook to break up 
 the papal crown-jewels, to extract their gems and to 
 melt down their component gold, a delicate operation, for 
 which Benvenuto's unique skill in his profession and un- 
 doubted honesty rendered his assistance of extreme 
 value in such an emergency. This signal service to 
 the Medici was, however, destined to bring unmerited 
 evil on the head of the artist in after years under the rule 
 of the terrible Farnese Pope, Paul III., whose mean 
 suspicious nature could not conceive of any artist having 
 undertaken such a task, without the determination to rob 
 his employer of part at least of the stones and gold en- 
 trusted to his care and honour. 1 
 
 Ever a faithful adherent of the Medici, Benvenuto 
 openly preferred to return to Rome in the train of 
 
 1 Vita di B. Cellini.
 
 CLEMENS SEPTIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 301 
 
 Clement rather than to assist in the defence of his native 
 Florence, which had in the meantime shaken off the 
 Medicean yoke. During the years 1530-1534, Clement 
 was undoubtedly the artist's best patron, and in the racy 
 narrative of the jeweller-author's own Autobiography 
 we are given many instances of the Pope's vary- 
 ing moods. For during these four years the artist was 
 in constant attendance at the Vatican, where he was 
 sometimes flattered, sometimes soundly rated by His 
 Holiness, according as a friendly or unfriendly courtier 
 had previous access to the papal ear, for the perplexed 
 Pontiff was ever a prey to some temporary influence. 
 Nevertheless, despite innumerable quarrels between 
 patron and artist, Cellini executed many commissions for 
 Clement, besides designing and striking those beautiful 
 papal medals, which even in the fastidious Pope's opinion 
 surpassed the finest specimens of the coins of antiquity. 
 These medals distinguished by Clement's handsome profile 
 survive as prized possessions in many a cabinet to-day ; 
 but what has become, we wonder, of those superb if 
 trivial masterpieces with which Cellini's deft fingers and 
 keen-sighted eyes contrived to delight the art-loving 
 Medici? Where is that golden brooch to fasten the 
 pontifical cope, "the size of a small trencher, one-third 
 of a cubit wide," with its design of the Almighty sur- 
 rounded by cherubim and seated on a glowing orb, 
 which was to have been formed by the finest diamond 
 in the papal treasury ? Where is that ornate chalice, the 
 apple of its artificer's eye, that in its unfinished state had 
 been contemptuously referred to as una cipollata, "a 
 mess of onions," by the supercilious Cardinal Salviati : 
 an insult the vindictive genius never forgave ? Or the 
 model for the setting of " an unicorn's horn " or rather 
 the fine narwhal's tusk, a curio that cost the impoverished
 
 302 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 treasury 17,000 ducats with which Clement was anxious 
 to propitiate the King of France at the approaching 
 marriage of the little Caterina de' Medici with the second 
 son of Francis ? All have perished ; so that the most 
 enduring memorial of Clement's patronage of Cellini is 
 to be found in those chapters of the artist's Autobiography ', l 
 which describe from his own point of view the numerous 
 colloquies and misunderstandings between the two men 
 placed in such widely separated spheres of life. Were 
 both Pope and artist living at this moment, each would 
 express an equal surprise at this circumstance, for little 
 did that gifted but self-satisfied master-workman suspect, 
 as in his declining years he jotted down his pungent 
 reminiscences of the great, that the fame of these care- 
 lessly dictated memoirs was destined to outweigh in 
 the eyes of future generations the value of his statues, his 
 coins, and his elaborate designs for plate and jewellery. 
 
 We have already made allusion to Clement's un- 
 bounded admiration of the talents of Michelangelo, whom 
 as Cardinal de' Medici he had been wont to address with 
 the deepest courtesy as Spectabilis Vir, amice noster 
 chiarissime. And immediately upon his election it is not 
 strange that the Pope decided to engage the services of 
 the master for the completion of a Medicean mausoleum 
 adjoining the church of San Lorenzo in Florence, a pro- 
 ject that was evidently very dear to the heart of this 
 bastard of the Medici, now risen to be Supreme Pontiff. 
 Together with the proposed mausoleum was included a 
 commission for the erection of a library hard by, suitable 
 to contain the splendid collection of books and manu- 
 scripts of Leo X., which was now the property of his heir. 
 "Thou art aware," writes Clement in an autograph note 
 to a formal letter of instruction from his secretary, "that 
 
 1 Vita di B. Celhni.
 
 CLEMENS SEPTIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 303 
 
 Popes are short-lived, and we are all eagerness to behold 
 the chapel with the monuments of our race, or at least 
 to learn of its completion. So also with the library. 
 Therefore we rely on thy diligence in both our commands. 
 Be assured that commissions and rewards will never be 
 lacking during our lifetime. Farewell, with the benedic- 
 tion of God and ourselves. Julius." l 
 
 With such a proof of Clement's earnest anxiety, the 
 master set to work with zest upon the domed mausoleum 
 of the Medici, commonly called the New Sacristy of San 
 Lorenzo, in contrast with the existing old Sacristy of 
 Brunelleschi near the southern transept of the basilica. 
 The original intention both of Pope and artist seems to 
 have been the erection of four vast and overladen 
 sepulchral monuments covered with allegorical figures 
 in commemoration of Giuliano the Good, Lorenzo Duke 
 of Urbino, Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Giuliano his 
 brother, the two last being the parents respectively of 
 Leo X. and Clement VII. Other accounts credit 
 Clement with the desire of a splendid tomb to be raised 
 to himself in his lifetime. Eventually, as we know, only 
 the tombs of the two former princes were ever erected. 
 
 Within a year the shell of the fabric was finished, 
 and was ready to receive the elaborate masses of statuary 
 and sepulchral architecture, on which the master was 
 now lavishing his genius. Early in 1526 the foundations 
 of the Laurentian Library also were laid, whilst its 
 necessary fittings and decorations were being prepared 
 by a number of skilled craftsmen, prominent amongst 
 them being the celebrated Giovanni da Udine who was 
 likewise instructed to adorn in fresco the cupola of the 
 Sacristy. It was about this time also that Clement, who 
 
 1 J. A. Symonds, Life of Michelangelo, vol. i,, p. 397. Clement 
 VII. signs with his baptismal name in this letter, dated April, 1525.
 
 3 o 4 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 from a distance was taking the liveliest interest in the 
 progress of these operations at San Lorenzo, sent to 
 Michelangelo an extraordinary proposal to erect a colossal 
 figure of forty cubits' stature in the piazza before the 
 church, apparently on the very spot now occupied by the 
 mediocre effigy of the father of the first Tuscan Grand- 
 Duke, the famous Giovanni of the Black Bands. This 
 extravagant and tasteless suggestion, although emanating 
 directly from the Pope, was savagely opposed by Michel- 
 angelo in a letter filled with most insolent sarcasm, com- 
 bined with the elephantine humour in which the master 
 occasionally indulged. 1 The contemptuous remarks con- 
 tained in this communication could not have failed to 
 give offence to the Pope, had its contents been brought 
 to his notice by some mischief-making person (as indeed 
 may actually have happened). Yet Clement seems to 
 have paid no attention to the rude jests of this privileged 
 man of genius', for the scheme was immediately dropped 
 and we hear no more of it. But one cannot help specu- 
 lating on what the violent Julius II. or the particular Leo 
 X. would have said or done, on hearing such personal 
 ridicule from any architect accepting their pay. 
 
 Owing to the Florentine revolution of 1527 and the 
 subsequent downfall of Medicean rule, the work at San 
 Lorenzo was of necessity suspended, whilst Michelangelo 
 was set to labour on another and a nobler task, that of 
 raising the fortifications at San Miniato in order to pro- 
 tect his native city from the assailing army of the Prince 
 of Orange. With the recapture and thraldom of the 
 revolted city, the great artist, whose earnest efforts on 
 behalf of the short-lived Florentine Republic were well 
 known to the now-detested Clement, was forced to lie 
 awhile in hiding. But it was not long ere the Pope, 
 
 1 J. A. Symonds, Life of Michelangelo, vol. i., pp. 400, 401.
 
 CLEMENS SEPTIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 305 
 
 whose intense anxiety to finish worthily his chapel and 
 library at San Lorenzo evidently outweighed any sup- 
 posed thirst for vengeance on his architect, offered of his 
 own motion free pardon and grace to the patriotic master, 
 who was thus once more recalled to resume his interrupted 
 commission of glorifying the triumphant House of Medici. 
 "Michelangelo," remarks his biographer Condivi, "now 
 came forth from his place of concealment, and took up 
 again his work on the statues in the Sacristy of San 
 Lorenzo, being moved thereto more by fear of the Pope 
 than by love for the Medici." 1 Yet if the artist himself 
 were sore in spirit, he seems in no wise to have forfeited 
 Clement's favour, for in one of the letters of his chief 
 friend and gossip in Rome, Sebastiano del Piombo (who 
 also accepted the bounty of Clement VII.), that dis- 
 tinguished painter implores Michelangelo to lay aside all 
 resentment against the Pope, "who speaks of you in 
 such honourable and affectionate terms, that no parent 
 could praise a son more highly. It is true he has been 
 annoyed by whisperings as to your conduct during the 
 late siege of Florence, but he shrugs his shoulders and 
 only remarks, Michelangelo is mistaken, for I never did 
 him any wrong:" 2 
 
 Thus for nearly four years did Michelangelo toil with 
 a heavy heart at his uncongenial task at San Lorenzo, 
 but on the Pope's death in 1534 the work ceased ab- 
 ruptly, nor was it ever resumed, though the Grand-Duke 
 Cosimo I. tried later to persuade the master to achieve 
 the original design. The result of Clement's premature 
 decease and of his artist's consequent escape from an 
 irksome duty is therefore that to-day we possess only the 
 chilly vaulted apartment of perfect proportions covered 
 
 1 J. A. Symonds, Life of Michelangelo, vol. i., p. 438. 
 2 /#</., vol. i., p. 348. 
 
 20
 
 306 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 with meaningless niches, cornices and brackets, which 
 cry aloud for their intended pieces of statuary ; and dis- 
 figured by the blank wall-spaces which were meant to 
 glow with frescoes from the master's own hand or with 
 graceful arabesques from the brush of Giovanni da 
 Udine. A first inspection of this famous building with 
 its white- washed walls and its abundance ' of the sad- 
 coloured pietra serena, the grey stone which renders 
 gloomy so many of the finest edifices of Florence, strikes 
 a chill, moral as well as physical, in the traveller, who 
 probably experiences a sense of disappointment that he 
 dares not openly express on his first acquaintance with 
 the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo. Of its two completed 
 sepulchral monuments to Giuliano and Lorenzo de' 
 Medici we have already spoken, and therefore shall re- 
 frain from adding another word of praise or criticism 
 concerning that which has given rise to endless specula- 
 tion and poetical rhapsody from generations of artists 
 and authors. To the passing stranger we offer but this 
 humble suggestion : that in fairness to the execrated 
 memory of Clement VII. he should bear in mind that to 
 this hated Pontiff is due the erection of this drear but 
 splendid sanctuary of art, which has drawn hither for 
 nearly four centuries so many pilgrims of every race and 
 from every clime.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 THE SACK OF ROME 
 
 Alas, how many a courtier, how many a high-born and delicately 
 nurtured noble, how many a gracious prelate, how many a pious nun, 
 how many a virgin, how many a stately matron with all her infants 
 fell a prey to those cruel Barbarians ! Think of the chalices, the 
 crosses and the images ; think of the goodly vases of gold or silver 
 that were snatched by bloody and sacrilegious hands from the altars 
 and holy places where they were wont to repose ! Alas, for the fate 
 of those marvellous and venerable Relics, which were first robbed of 
 their coverings of precious metal, and then flung to earth by murder- 
 stained hands in insult to our Faith ! The sacred heads of the 
 holy Apostles Peter, Paul and Andrew, the Wood of the True Cross, 
 the Crown of Thorns, the Holy Oils, and even the consecrated Hosts, 
 all trodden underfoot by those remorseless Barbarians ! (L. Guicciar- 
 dini, // Sacco di Roma). 
 
 A THOUGH reckoned at the time of the con- 
 clave one of the Emperor's most ardent sup- 
 porters, it was not long before Clement took 
 up the threads of the old Medicean policy of vacillating 
 between King and Caesar, and of trying to turn every 
 chance to the private advantage of the House of Medici. 
 By constant shuffling, intriguing and deceiving, the 
 Pontiff proceeded to an open rupture with Charles V. 
 and to a close alliance with Francis of France, until in 
 1525 the startling news of the decisive victory of Pavia 
 burst like a thunder-clap over Rome and the Papal 
 court. "On the 26th day of February about four 
 o'clock in the evening were brought tidings to the Pope 
 that the army of the King of France had been worsted 
 
 307
 
 308 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 by the army of the Emperor and the Duke of Milan, 
 and that King Francis was actually taken prisoner. 
 The whole of that night the Spanish residents of Rome 
 paraded the streets, applauding the victory and celebrat- 
 ing it with bonfires and explosions of mortars. . . . And 
 on the final day of February a messenger arrived in the 
 city, who confirmed the report of the capture of the king, 
 of the destruction of his army, and of the slaughter of 
 numbers of the nobles of France." 1 
 
 Yet even this absolute upheaval of the European 
 balance of power, on which the Pope had been so art- 
 fully calculating, proved insufficient to teach wisdom to 
 the secretive Clement, who unlike Leo, never recognised 
 the right moment to yield, or at least to pretend to yield, 
 with a good grace. However disagreeable and humiliat- 
 ing his position may have appeared after the battle of 
 Pavia, it was obviously Clement's only chance to im- 
 plore the pardon of the irate Charles and to seek his 
 protection for Florence and the Holy See. Yet al- 
 though the Emperor had been made all-powerful beyond 
 the shadow of a doubt since the fatal day of Pavia, we 
 find the infatuated Clement in the following year actually 
 at the head of a League, composed of the independent 
 .Italian states in conjunction with the broken realm of 
 France and the distant kingdom of England, for the 
 avowed purpose of driving the victorious Spanish arms 
 out of Italy. Thus by this irrevocable act of folly un- 
 speakable was the true aim of Medicean statecraft 
 revealed. The army of the League under the command 
 of the treacherous Francesco-Maria, Delia Rovere, 
 Duke of Urbino, who must have hated the House of 
 Medici after his treatment by Leo X., now advanced 
 into Lombardy, where that renegade prince, the cele- 
 
 1 Creighton, vol. vi. Diary of Blasius de Martimllis, p. 380.
 
 CLEMENT VII AND THE EMPEROR CHARLES V
 
 THE SACK OF ROME 309 
 
 brated Constable of Bourbon, was holding the unhappy 
 city of Milan in the name of his present master, Charles 
 V. In the autumn of this very year moreover the Pope 
 received yet another warning against the terrible doom 
 his rashness and duplicity were preparing for his House, 
 for the Papacy, and indeed for all Italy. For in Septem- 
 ber, 1526, the irrepressible Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, 
 with the followers of that great feudal House, suddenly 
 swooped down upon Rome with the connivance of the 
 Imperial envoy, the unscrupulous Moncada, and invaded 
 the defenceless suburb lying round St. Peter's. The 
 open indifference of the Roman people, whose sympathy 
 Clement had contrived to alienate, and the cowardly 
 indecision of the Pontiff himself, allowed the angry 
 Colonna, the self-styled deliverer of Rome from papal 
 tyranny, to pillage the Apostolic palace, which the Pope 
 had ignominiously abandoned for the security of the 
 castle of Sant' Angelo. In an agony of distress, 
 Clement at once applied to Moncada, who assisted the 
 Pope to escape from his undignified position, by patching 
 up a treaty wherein Clement swore faithfully to secede 
 from the League and also to pardon the Colonna for 
 this late exploit. 
 
 But Clement, "the very sport of misfortune," never 
 made a promise but to break it at the earliest opportunity. 
 In November of the same year the papal troops were 
 unexpectedly despatched into the plains and mountains 
 of the Roman State, to storm and raze the strongholds 
 of the unsuspecting Colonna, when defenceless tenants 
 and contadini of this House were treated with a measure 
 of cruelty which would have put the Turk to shame ; 
 whilst the Cardinal Pompeo and every member of his 
 family we^e formally deprived of all their titles and 
 declared outlaws. That such an act of treachery and
 
 3 io THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 insolence was caused by abject fear rather than by 
 wanton aggression cannot excuse Clement's conduct, 
 and it is not hard to understand the position subsequently 
 assumed by the Emperor, thus openly cheated and 
 flouted, towards a Pope whose election had been mainly 
 secured by Imperial influence. 
 
 But retribution was very near at hand. On ist 
 December, the Imperial viceroy of Naples, Lannoy, 
 reached Gaeta with a large force by sea, and he was 
 immediately joined on his landing by the infuriated 
 Cardinal Colonna, burning with vengeance against the 
 perfidious Medici. Bad, however, as was this piece of 
 news, the reports from the north of Italy were even more 
 calculated to alarm the guilty Pope. For during the 
 autumn months the famous veteran George von Frunds- 
 berg had been collecting an army of Landsknechts to 
 march under his banner into Italy, to subdue and even 
 to punish with death the perjured enemy of the Emperor. 
 These Landsknechts were volunteer foot-soldiers, drawn 
 from the sturdy peasantry of the Franconian plains or from 
 the mountains of Bavaria. A large proportion of them 
 were confessedly Lutherans, filled with the anti-papal 
 sentiments of their religious leader, so that the prospect 
 of hanging Anti-Christ in the person of Clement and the 
 expected plunder of the richest city in Europe appealed 
 to their minds with almost equal force. Crossing the 
 Alps amid fearful storms of rain and snow, and sur- 
 mounting precipitous passes where the aged and corpulent 
 Frundsberg had to be pushed or carried by his men, this 
 picked body of German adventurers finally reached the 
 neighbourhood of Brescia, almost at the precise moment 
 of Clement's treacherous raid upon the castles of the 
 Colonna. It is easy to comprehend the consternation of 
 the Pope and the Roman court, when it was realised in
 
 THE SACK OF ROME 3 n 
 
 Rome that Frundsberg and his Protestant myrmidons 
 had actually gained the plain of Lombardy and that the 
 viceroy Lannoy's Spanish fleet was riding safe in the 
 roads of Gaeta. "We are on the brink of ruin!" was 
 the only too prophetic utterance of Clement's patriotic 
 but headstrong secretary, Gian-Matteo Giberti, whose 
 advice was ever in strong conflict with the Pope's other 
 favourite counsellor, the German Imperialist, Nicholas 
 Schomberg. For the feeble Clement was ever wavering 
 between Giberti's exhortations to prosecute the war of 
 Italian independence at all costs, and Schomberg's more 
 prudent recommendation to make peace, even at the 
 eleventh hour, with the enraged Emperor, no matter how 
 severe the terms demanded. 
 
 At the battle of Frosinone, the advance of Lannoy 
 and Pompeo Colonna upon Rome was temporarily 
 checked at the close of January, 1527, but all efforts of 
 the army of the League in Lombardy proved unavailing 
 to arrest the progress of Frundsberg's force, which was 
 slowly but surely fighting its way from the Alps towards 
 the Tiber. The kind offices of Alfonso of Ferrara, 
 whom Clement had been foolish enough to exasperate, 
 enabled the hard-pressed Germans to surmount all 
 obstacles natural and military in their path, whilst Fortune 
 at the same time deprived the Pope and indeed Italy of 
 an able and most trustworthy leader in the person of the 
 brave but brutal Giovanni delle Bande Nere, head of the 
 junior branch of the House of Medici and father of the 
 future first Grand- Duke of Tuscany. For Giovanni of 
 the Black Bands was struck down by a bullet in a small 
 skirmish on the banks of the Mincio, and though his in- 
 domitable pluck permitted him to hold with his own hand 
 the torch so as to assist the attending surgeon to amputate 
 the injured leg, he died of his wound at Mantua five days
 
 3 i2 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 later. On ist December, the day succeeding Medici's 
 death, Frundsberg was joined by a princely adventurer, 
 the young Philibert of Orange, now in the service of the 
 Emperor ; but it was not until two months later that the 
 Constable of Bourbon was able to quit Milan with the 
 Spanish forces and to form a junction with the army of 
 advancing Landsknechts at Pontenuro. The combined 
 forces of German volunteers and of Spanish soldiers now 
 reckoned in all some 30,000 men, well supplied with 
 cavalry but greatly deficient in artillery. "It was a for- 
 midable host of veteran soldiers, whom a hundred battles 
 had made as hard as steel, and whom no hardships could 
 bend : Catholics and Lutherans all fired with the same 
 fierce hatred of the Papacy and impelled by the same 
 thirst for spoil." 1 
 
 Meanwhile, as the united army of Frundsberg and 
 Bourbon was marching towards Bologna, an eight 
 months' truce was arranged between the Pope and the 
 viceroy Lannoy, which under the circumstances was 
 probably the best diplomatic move Clement could have 
 made, had he not followed the signing of the terms by a 
 general disarmament of his forces, thus leaving the city 
 defenceless in the event of a hostile army assailing Rome 
 from the north. But the armistice, though certainly 
 excellent from the selfish view of the wavering Pope, 
 was loudly execrated both by the Colonna, who thought 
 Lannoy 's terms far too lenient to Clement, and by the 
 patriotic party in Italy, which was furious at this papal 
 surrender to the Emperor after the late victory of 
 Frosinone. Clement became therefore distrusted, hated, 
 and anathematised all round for his cold, crafty and truly 
 Medicean policy. But, truce or no truce, the Imperialist 
 
 1 Gregorovius, vol. viii., part ii.
 
 THE SACK OF ROME 313 
 
 army of the north was determined to proceed. On 
 news of the negotiations recently opened between 
 Clement and Lannoy, a mutiny at once broke out in 
 the camp, where even the Landsknechts, furious at the 
 prospect of being baulked of their expected prey, set 
 their old leader Frundsberg at defiance, and loudly 
 clamoured for pay or pillage. Seized with an apoplectic 
 fit in the midst of this tumult, the aged general was now 
 removed helpless to Ferrara, so that the advance south- 
 ward of the vast but undisciplined Imperialist army was 
 undertaken solely by Bourbon, who was practically as 
 much the servant as the leader of this Spanish-German 
 host. In vain did Lannoy himself proceed in person to 
 expostulate with Bourbon and in the Pope's name to 
 offer higher and higher ransom, if only the army would 
 retire to Milan ; the penniless Bourbon durst not turn 
 back, even if he would. In despair the viceroy returned 
 to Rome, whilst towards the close of April, Bourbon 
 found himself in the neighbourhood of Arezzo, and 
 within a few leagues of Florence. 
 
 The governorship of Florence had been entrusted 
 by Clement to Cardinal Silvio Passerini of Cortona, 
 whilst the House of Medici was represented in that city 
 by the presence of the little Catherine, heiress of her 
 House, and the two lads, Ippolito and Alessandro. Of 
 these two youths, Ippolito was now grown into a hand- 
 some, attractive stripling, filled with martial instincts and 
 by no means amenable to the Pope's intention of forcing 
 him to embrace an ecclesiastical career. Alessandro, on 
 the other hand, swarthy, ill-featured and ungracious, was 
 undoubtedly the papal favourite ; a strange circumstance 
 which was popularly attributed to the Pope's paternity 
 of this unprepossessing bastard, who was later created
 
 3 i4 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Duke of Florence. 1 Besides these three Medici, there 
 was the proud and arrogant Clarice de' Medici, wife of 
 Filippo Strozzi, who was at this moment a hostage at 
 Naples for the Pope's good faith, a position which caused 
 much anxiety to Clarice, since she was only too well 
 acquainted with Clement's innate selfishness and constant 
 double-dealing. The city of Florence, however, was well 
 prepared for any emergency, the Duke of Urbino having 
 been engaged to take up a position with his army in the 
 Val d' Arno at Incisa, in case Bourbon, or rather his 
 unruly followers, might be tempted to approach and 
 plunder the city. But for this act of forethought, it is 
 not improbable that Florence might have anticipated the 
 horrors of the evil fate which was to overtake Rome 
 within a few days. But seeing his avenue to Florence 
 barred by a resolute general with an adequate army, the 
 Constable of Bourbon decided to quit Tuscany and to 
 continue his course direct towards Rome, the admitted 
 goal of this savage armament. 
 
 Nearer and nearer towards Rome drew the force, 
 yet Clement remained immovable, half-paralysed, like 
 some small bird fascinated by a snake. Amid torrents 
 of rain the mingled host of German Protestants and of 
 Spanish fanatics slowly continued to advance, the 
 ragged and starving men fording the swollen mountain- 
 torrents with clasped hands in gangs of thirty, and for- 
 getting their hunger and nakedness in the dazzling 
 prospect of the luxury and wealth that awaited them in 
 Rome. At Viterbo, the Knights of Rhodes 2 contrived 
 
 1 Modesto Rastrelli, Duke Alexander's sole biographer, stoutly 
 denies this common belief, and declares him to have been the son 
 of Duke Lorenzo of Urbino by an unknown mother (Storia d' 
 Alessandro de Medici, Primo Due a di firenze, Firenze, 1781). 
 
 2 The Knights of Rhodes, recently expelled from their ancient 
 citadel, had been placed by Adrian VI. at Viterbo. The island of 
 Malta was granted to them by Charles V. in 1513.
 
 THE SACK OF ROME 315 
 
 to save their town from pillage by contracting to supply 
 the famished soldiers with provisions, a circumstance 
 which enabled Bourbon's army to hasten southward, so 
 that on 4th May the vast assembly found itself encamped 
 at I sola Farnese, the site of ancient Veii, within a few 
 miles of Rome itself. As a general anxious to avoid 
 the possible disgrace of a military repulse and also as a 
 Catholic prince, Bourbon was certainly willing to avoid 
 the inevitable horrors of a sack of the Eternal City in the 
 present temper of the men nominally under his command. 
 Accordingly, from this point he began to send heralds 
 into the city to open negotiations with Clement for the 
 exaction of a ransom heavy enough to satisfy even his 
 clamouring and mutinous troopers. But the Pope, whom 
 it is kind to regard as temporarily insane through sheer 
 terror, 1 would make no reply to any overtures coming 
 from the discredited Constable of France. On the con- 
 trary, now that it was really too late, a feverish activity 
 of defence was reigning in the doomed city, where Renzo 
 da Ceri had been appointed commander of the force it 
 was intended to raise. More prudent than their vacillat- 
 ing sovereign, the nobles and prelates of Rome had for 
 some time been making ready for the disaster that 
 Clement's continued folly was certain to bring on the 
 city. Not a few had fled, in spite of the Pope's severe 
 edict against any desertion or removal of treasure, and 
 of those who remained, several had fortified their houses 
 and engaged young men, ben pagati e ben trattati, to 
 protect their property. Amongst these private residences 
 carefully garrisoned against coming trouble, was the 
 palace of the Santi Apostoli, at that moment inhabited 
 by the Marchioness of Mantua, the intrepid Isabella d' 
 Este, who had been staying some time in Rome, im- 
 
 1 Quern Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.
 
 316 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 portuning the unwilling and perplexed Clement to bestow 
 a scarlet hat on her son Ercole. This boon the fascinat- 
 ing Marchesa had at last secured, but only on the eve 
 of the catastrophe which we are about to relate. For on 
 4th May, Clement had held a consistory, whereat, in 
 order to raise funds in this emergency, he had bestowed 
 the rank of cardinal on four persons, Ercole Gonzaga 
 being amongst them, and had thereby obtained the sum 
 of 200,000 ducats for the papal treasury. But even this 
 step, which in all fairness it must be stated Clement only 
 took with the greatest reluctance and after much entreaty 
 from his counsellors, proved eventually useless. On 
 Sunday, 5th May, the Constable had marched from I sola 
 Farnese to the Janiculan Hill on the western side of 
 Rome, where he himself established his headquarters in 
 the convent of Sant' Onofrio, whilst his army, composed 
 of Spaniards, Germans and the Italian followers of the 
 Colonna to the total number of 40,000, bivouacked in the 
 form of a vast semicircle stretching from the Porta San 
 Pancrazio to the Torrione, at the rear of the Vatican 
 gardens. 
 
 At the first flush of dawn on Monday, 6th May, a 
 general attack was made with improvised scaling-ladders, 
 but these efforts were at first checked by the papal 
 bombardiers, among them being Benvenuto Cellini, who 
 were serving the guns at Sant' Angelo. To aid the 
 assailants at this critical moment, there arose however a 
 thick white mist from the Tiber, enveloping the attacking 
 force and obstructing the aim of the Roman gunners. 
 In the confusion wrought by this sudden fog, the Con- 
 stable of Bourbon, conspicuous in his shirt of silver mail, 
 rode hither and thither, encouraging and directing the 
 operations of attack, until a stray bullet struck the prince 
 in the thigh, so that he fell mortally wounded to earth,
 
 THE SACK OF ROME 3x7 
 
 crying aloud in his agony, " Ha, Notre Dame, Je suis 
 mort ! " The young Prince of Orange, who stood next 
 in command, at once covered his dying leader's body 
 with his military cloak and bore him to a chapel hard by, 
 where a few hours later Bourbon expired. Although 
 Jovius ascribes Bourbon's violent end to the direct ven- 
 geance of Heaven and although numbers of persons in 
 Rome, including that irrepressible braggart Benvenuto 
 Cellini, dared to claim the honour of having fired the 
 fatal shot which slew the Constable of France, the death 
 of Bourbon proved in reality the worst misfortune that 
 could have afflicted the Romans at this juncture, for it 
 meant the loss of the solitary general who owned any 
 restraining influence (and that was little enough) over the 
 hungry and infuriated hordes, who were thirsting for the 
 blood and treasure of the Eternal City. As it so fell, 
 this untimely slaughter of a popular leader roused the 
 passions of his men to fever heat, without giving any 
 perceptible advantage to the besieged. For it was not 
 long before the assailing party under cover of the mist 
 had scaled the walls at several points, and was forcing 
 its way into the Citta Leonina, the walled suburb that 
 lies round St. Peter's. 
 
 Although Germans, Spaniards and wild mountaineers 
 from the estates of the Colonna were now beginning to 
 pour into the devoted city, shouting triumphantly in three 
 languages, plundering and slaying, yet so far the assailants 
 had only carried the quarter round St. Peter's, so that 
 there w r as still time for the Pope and his troops to with- 
 draw across the Tiber, for the bridges to be demolished 
 and for the passage of the stream to be vigorously de- 
 fended against the huge mass of undisciplined foreigners, 
 until the expected arrival of the Italian army under the 
 Duke of Urbino, who was supposed to be pursuing
 
 3 i8 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Bourbon. The papal general, Renzo da Ceri, however, 
 seems to have lost either his courage or his wits in 
 this terrible crisis, for he is reported to have given the 
 signal for a general stampede into the neighbouring castle 
 of Sant' Angelo. Yet the folly of such a step must have 
 been obvious on reflection, for by filling the castle to its 
 utmost capacity the defending party was cut into two 
 divisions, each separated from the other by the inter- 
 vening Tiber. A fearful scene of slaughter, confusion 
 and struggling was thus brought about, the like of which 
 had never yet been witnessed in all the previous sieges 
 of Rome, and perhaps in the world's history. All persons, 
 in every rank of life, from cardinals and prelates to 
 servants and apprentices, pressed in one jostling mass 
 towards the open drawbridge of the castle, whilst the 
 crush of terrified humanity on the adjacent bridge of 
 Sant' Angelo was so fierce that the plucky old Cardinal 
 Pucci of Florence was with difficulty rescued from being 
 trodden underfoot, and had finally to be hauled by means 
 of ropes from the ground to a convenient window. 
 Others, less fortunate than this prince of the Church, 
 failed to effect an entrance and were quickly despatched 
 by the on-rushing bloodthirsty invaders. In all, some 
 3000 persons, of either sex, found shelter within the walls 
 of this almost impregnable fortress, once the tomb of the 
 Emperor Hadrian. 
 
 Meanwhile the Pope himself, whose past deceit and 
 vacillation had brought the unhappy city to this awful 
 extremity, had been praying since dawn for the success 
 of the papal arms, "vainly importuning an angry Provi- 
 dence at the altar ". The tidings of Bourbon's death had 
 given him a passing gleam of hope, and with an assumed 
 air of majesty the Supreme Pontiff now declared himself 
 ready to await the onset of the Barbarians in the event of
 
 THE SACK OF ROME 319 
 
 their victory, clad in the pontifical robes and seated on 
 the throne of state. But on hearing the uproar succeed- 
 ing the entry of the foreigner and on learning the truth 
 of the situation, Clement fell at once into an abject state 
 of utter fear and indecision, and like most weak characters 
 began to prate wildly of betrayal and ingratitude. Whilst 
 weeping and complaining thus, the historian Paolo Giovio 
 earnestly implored the distraught Pontiff to join the crowd 
 of officials who were already hastening from the Vatican 
 to the castle of Sant' Angelo by means of the stone 
 corridor, whereby the prudent Alexander VI. had con- 
 nected the Apostolic palace with its adjacent fortress. 
 Leaving his oratory and proceeding along this passage, 
 the eyes of the terrified Pope could perceive through its 
 many apertures sickening sights of priests and citizens 
 pursued and butchered by the halberds of the furious 
 Landsknechts. " As Clement was hurrying with immense 
 strides," so Giovio relates in his graphic narrative of this 
 awful moment, "I, Paolo Giovio, who have written this 
 account, held up the skirt of his long robe, so as to enable 
 him to run faster, and I flung my own purple cloak about 
 his head and shoulders, lest some Barbarian rascal in the 
 crowd below might recognise the Pope by his white 
 rochet, as he was passing a window, and take a chance shot 
 at his fleeing form." ] Thus with the timely aid of the 
 Bishop of Nocera, did the miserable Clement VII. save 
 his own life amid the general carnage and confusion by 
 abandoning his palace and running with undignified speed 
 into the shelter of the castle. 
 
 With the Pope and thirteen of the cardinals and 
 numberless prelates thus self-immured inside the strong 
 walls of Sant' Angelo, the citizens of Rome were forcibly 
 driven out of the Trastevere, whilst before sunset the 
 
 1 Vita Pompeii Colonnae.
 
 320 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Imperialists had carried by storm the Ponte Sisto, which 
 was being held with a desperation worthy of the old 
 Roman valour. With the capture of this bridge the 
 whole city lay entirely at the mercy of the Imperialists, 
 who at once proceeded to massacre every man, woman 
 or child that had not as yet found a temporary refuge in 
 the fortified palace of some prince or cardinal. Yet even 
 these horrors constituted but a mild prelude to the rapine 
 and villainy of the morrow. For at daybreak of the 
 seventh day of May the terrible Sack of Rome, which 
 marks an era in the annals of Italy and indeed of Europe, 
 began in deadly earnest. The outrages of the savage 
 troopers, maddened with wine and fanaticism, are too 
 terrible to relate, and the existing descriptions of eye- 
 witnesses, even at this distance of time, still arouse the 
 liveliest feelings of horror, pity and indignation, for the 
 event was a repetition of the sack of Prato, but on an 
 extended scale and with many additional barbarities. 
 The men of the three nations engaged in this fiendish 
 task exhibited their national vices in the horrible work, 
 for the German Landsknechts distinguished themselves 
 by their drunkenness and their profanation of the churches 
 and convents ; the Spaniards by their heartless and re- 
 volting tortures upon every unhappy creature that fell 
 into their clutches ; and the Italians by the thorough 
 manner in which they pillaged every house, even the 
 hovels of the poor watermen, carrying away the very 
 nails and hinges of the doors. An exorbitant ransom 
 was first demanded of all holders of the fortified resid- 
 ences in the city, but this was only a preliminary step to 
 the raiding and ransacking of all the buildings of Rome 
 with the exception of the strongly fortified mansions of 
 the Colonna the palaces of the Cancelleria and of the 
 Apostoli. In vain did the Imperialist cardinals and pre-
 
 THE SACK OF ROME 321 
 
 lates, the foreign nobles and even the ambassadors, cry 
 out for exemption ; all were forced to surrender their 
 goods and were brutally slaughtered at the first sign of 
 argument or resistance. Many of the pampered princes 
 of the Church were carried as hostages from one place 
 to another m quest of an increased ransom, and amongst 
 others thus maltreated was the Cardinal of Gaeta, the 
 late opponent of Martin Luther, who with a fool's cap 
 on his head was hustled with kicks and buffets from the 
 jeering Lutherans towards the castle of Sant' Angelo, 
 so that the imprisoned Pope might perceive the fate 
 awaiting himself on the capture of the fortress. Noble 
 ladies had their ears and arms cut off by the sword for 
 the sake of pendants or bracelets, and even the fingers 
 of prelates were thus mutilated to secure the episcopal 
 seal rings. The sewers and the very tombs were rifled 
 in the mad search for hidden treasure, the corpse of 
 Julius II. being dragged from its coffin and the papal 
 ornaments fought for and sold to the active Jews, who 
 as usual were reaping a rich harvest out of the public 
 misfortunes. The relics of St. Peter's and the Lateran, 
 even the most revered and venerable, were bandied 
 about the streets and made the objects of insult and 
 blasphemy by the Lutheran soldiers. The rich vest- 
 ments of the sacristies were seized to clothe the many 
 courtesans of Rome, who drank and gambled on the 
 altars of the polluted churches with their swinish pro- 
 tectors. Priests were forced to take part in blasphemous 
 orgies, or were murdered for refusing to obey. In the 
 halls of the palaces of cardinals, nobles and ambassadors, 
 the plebeian masters of the Eternal City ate and drank 
 to excess with Roman matrons or high-born prelates to 
 wait humbly on every behest. Everywhere was strewn 
 the wealth of the richest city in Christendom ; valuable 
 
 21
 
 3 22 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 manuscripts from famous libraries were used to form the 
 litter of the troopers' horses ; and it was only with diffi- 
 culty that Philibert of Orange saved the priceless Vatican 
 collection from a similar fate, although this nominal 
 general was himself dwelling in the Apostolic palace. 
 Such was the condition of the city of the Caesars and 
 the Popes, when Cardinal Pompeo Colonna returned 
 thither in haste on hearing of the siege and sack. Even 
 this fierce enemy of the Medici and the secular Papacy 
 was overwhelmed with dismay and fell to shedding bitter 
 tears of remorse at the appalling spectacle of desolation, 
 mourning and massacre that met his eyes. If Giovio 
 is to be credited, the Colonna did what he could to 
 ameliorate the state of Rome, and his presence was 
 probably of some use later in arranging negotiations with 
 the culpable fugitive in the castle of Sant' Angelo. 1 
 
 Meanwhile, the unhappy Clement remained secure in 
 the stronghold of Sant' Angelo amid sounds, sights and 
 stenches that must have sickened him both morally and 
 physically, and with the prospect of an ignominious and 
 painful death before him in the possible event of the 
 capture of the castle through treachery or a successful 
 assault. Once more, as in the days of Pope Boniface 
 VI II., was Christ openly insulted and threatened in the 
 person of His Vicar on earth ; once more was the ill- 
 omened banner of France with the golden lilies (that 
 Bourbon bore) publicly displayed in the purlieus of the 
 Holy City. 2 Vainly, by the clear light of morning and 
 evening, did the harassed Pope cast his eyes anxiously 
 
 1 Jovius, Vita Pompeii Colonnae ; C. Milanesi, // Sacco di Roma 
 del MDXXVII., etc., etc. 
 
 2 Veggio in Alagna entrar lo Fiordaliso 
 E nel Vicario suo Cristo esser catto, etc. 
 
 Purgatorio, canto xx.
 
 THE SACK OF ROME 323 
 
 across the distant Campagna for any sign of the army 
 of the supine and perfidious Duke of Urbino, on which 
 with folly unutterable Clement always professed to rely. 
 Against the great circular mass of the castle, as around a 
 solitary rock buffeted by an angry sea, surged one after 
 another the fierce assaults of the besiegers, who openly 
 shouted their intention to hang the immured Pontiff; 
 the Spaniards, because he was the enemy of their Em- 
 peror, and the Germans for his late persecution of their 
 beloved Martin Luther. The fortress was, however, 
 defended meanwhile with great skill and devotion by its 
 lieutenant, Antonio Santacroce, his efforts being ably 
 seconded by Benvenuto Cellini, whose vivid if egotistic 
 account of the siege of Sant' Angelo reads like a lurid 
 incident from some historical romance. 1 Living on the 
 coarsest of food and enduring the sweltering heats of 
 a Roman May, Clement and his companions spent in 
 the ancient tomb of Hadrian some five weeks of hunger, 
 misery, privation and uncertainty, whilst the overwhelm- 
 ing indignity of his position almost slew the Pope with 
 mingled grief and shame. For within a fortnight of the 
 capture of Rome, the news was brought to the helpless 
 Pontiff that his agent Cardinal Passerini had been ex- 
 pelled from Florence ; that a new republic had been 
 proclaimed amidst general rejoicings ; that his own effigy 
 had been dragged from the church of the Anunziata and 
 hacked to pieces with contumely in the streets. And 
 this evil intelligence was still further aggravated by the 
 report of the conduct of Filippo and Clarice Strozzi on 
 this occasion, for that intrepid niece of Leo X., 2 who 
 hated and despised the bastard Clement, had railed in 
 public at the two youths Ippolito and the beloved Ales- 
 
 1 Vita di B. Cellini. 
 
 2 Her father was Piero II., eldest son of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
 
 324 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 sandro, and in the plainest of terms had denounced their 
 base birth, even adding her opinion that Clement himself 
 had no right to fill the office of Pope. With the con- 
 tinual thunder of cannon in his ears ; with the horrible 
 scenes daily enacted below the walls of the prison-fortress ; 
 with fever and famine hourly gaining ground amongst 
 the refugees of the castle, did Clement drag out a miser- 
 able life-in-death for more than a month. With Rome 
 in ruins at his feet and with Florence revolted from his 
 yoke, and with himself an universal object of contempt 
 and execration throughout all Italy, Clement at last 
 decided to capitulate unconditionally to the Emperor's 
 representative on 7th June after thirty days of misery 
 untold. 
 
 Although the Emperor affected to feel extreme com- 
 passion for his helpless captive and had even commanded 
 the Imperial court to don mourning in atonement for the 
 barbarities of the sack of Rome, he nevertheless per- 
 sisted in keeping Clement a close prisoner within the 
 castle walls, where the long hot summer and autumn were 
 passed in sickness, lamentation and dire suspense. At 
 length the Pope, who for some time past had noticed a 
 decreasing vigilance amongst his personal guards, plucked 
 up sufficient courage to meditate escape, with the result 
 that on 5th December in the disguise of a gardener he 
 eluded the night-watch and got clear of the citadel which 
 had been his prison for so many weary months. Hasten- 
 ing northward towards the Umbrian mountains, Clement 
 hurried with a few followers to the almost impregnable 
 city of Orvieto, set upon lofty precipices of tawny rock 
 and approached from the deep valley of the Paglia by a 
 solitary mule track. Taking up his residence in the 
 drear deserted episcopal palace, the cowering and humi-
 
 THE SACK OF ROME 325 
 
 Hated Medici found some degree of liberty, but even less 
 
 actual comfort than he had experienced in his Roman 
 
 fortress. In any case, Clement by his flight obtained no 
 
 respite from political cares and dangers, for scarcely had 
 
 he arrived weary and alarmed at Orvieto, than there was 
 
 announced the advent of an important embassy from the 
 
 English court, including Dr. Stephen Gardiner and Dr. 
 
 Edward Foxe, who were come to demand a most 
 
 difficult and dangerous favour of the fugitive Pontiff. 
 
 For the object of the embassy was to obtain the Pope's 
 
 authority to annul Henry VIII.'s marriage with his 
 
 Queen, Catherine of Aragon, the aunt of the omnipotent 
 
 Emperor, on whose caprice or policy depended at this 
 
 moment the very salvation of the secular Papacy itself. 
 
 Rousing himself to face this new dilemma with Medicean 
 
 cunning if not with manly courage, Clement proceeded to 
 
 temporise with the English envoys by holding out vague 
 
 hopes of his ultimate consent to King Henry's petition, 
 
 if only his former position of independence could be re* 
 
 covered. Foxe and Gardiner, who were thus dismissed 
 
 half-satisfied with the nebulous promises of the wily 
 
 Medici, gave on their return home a most melancholy 
 
 account of the miserable plight of Clement and his court, 
 
 as well as of the squalor of Orvieto, "where all things are 
 
 in such a scarcity and dearth as we think have not been 
 
 seen in any place ; and that not only in victuals, which 
 
 can not be brought into the town in any great quantity, 
 
 by reason that everything is conveyed by asses and 
 
 mules, but also in other necessaries. . . . Orvieto may well 
 
 be called Urbs Vetus, for every man in all languages at 
 
 his entry would give it none other name. We can not 
 
 well tell the Pope should be noted in liberty, being here, 
 
 where hunger, scarcity, ill-favoured lodging, ill air, and 
 
 many other incommodities keep him and all his as straitly
 
 326 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 as he was ever kept in Castle Angelo. It is aliqua 
 miitatio soli, sect nulla libertatis ; and in manner the 
 Pope could not deny to Mr. Gregory, 1 ' it were better to 
 be in captivity in Rome than here at liberty'. The 
 Pope lieth in an old palace of the bishops of the city, 
 ruinous and decayed, where or we came to his privy 
 chamber, we pass three chambers, all naked and un- 
 hanged, the roofs fallen down, and as one can guess, 
 thirty persons, rifraf and others, standing in the chambers 
 for a garnishment. And as for the Pope's bed-chamber, 
 all the apparel in it was not worth twenty nobles, bed and 
 all." 2 
 
 In four months' time, however, the harassed Pope, 
 who must have detested the Emperor, and the Emperor, 
 who must have despised beyond measure the ever-schem- 
 ing Pontiff, were again re-united in supposed amity by 
 the terms of the treaty of Barcelona, to which selfish 
 compact of mutual convenience Francis of France gave 
 his adhesion during the summer of 1529. This cynical 
 triumvirate of Pope, King and Emperor was destined to 
 prove fatal to the newly proclaimed liberties of the Re- 
 public of Florence, now the sole Italian city of importance, 
 save Venice, which remained free from foreign domina- 
 tion. Abandoned by her historic ally of France and now 
 marked out for his certain prey by the vindictive 
 Clement, the Florentine Republic possessed scarcely a 
 chance of retaining her independence in face of this recent 
 political combination, which had been called into existence 
 by Clement chiefly with the object of recovering the city 
 for himself and the papal favourites. And to carry out 
 this unholy scheme of aggression, Clement, with a callous 
 villainy that to this day has been neither forgotten nor for- 
 
 1 Gregorio da Casale. 
 
 2 State Papers, vol. vii., p. 63.
 
 CLEMENT VII AND FRANCIS I OF FRANCE
 
 THE SACK OF ROME 327 
 
 given in Italy, must needs contract with the Prince of 
 Orange, who had been his own gaoler in Rome and whose 
 troops had so lately desecrated his capital, to take com- 
 mand of this armament necessary for the reduction of 
 Florence. Not a small portion of the Pope's hastily levied 
 force consisted of German and Spanish adventurers 
 openly urged to enlist by promise of an expected sack of 
 the rebellious city of the Medici. " Aha, Signora Fiorenza, 
 get ready your rich brocades, for we are coming to 
 measure them by the pike and not by the ell ! " became a 
 constant and mirth-provoking witticism amongst these 
 savage and spoiled mercenaries, as they were busily 
 furbishing their weapons in readiness for the expected 
 march northward, towards the valley of the Arno. 
 
 On the 24th day of October, 1529, appeared the 
 army of the Prince of Orange before the walls of the 
 devoted city, and for the third and last time in history 
 did the venerable Republic of Florence prepare to do battle 
 for existence against the wealth, power and influence of 
 the House of Medici. But whilst the siege was being 
 prosecuted with varying fortune, the formal act of re- 
 conciliation between Charles and Clement took place in 
 the opening month of the following year, 1530, at Bologna 
 which had been fixed upon as the most convenient place 
 for the Imperial coronation. This splendid public in- 
 vestiture of Charles V. with the Iron Crown of the Holy 
 Roman Empire may be said to have sealed the fate of 
 the struggling Florentines, who had now to chose between 
 the inevitable issues of a successful assault on the city 
 followed by the horrors of a sack, or of a peaceful sur- 
 render to the Medici on the most humiliating terms. 
 Fortunately perhaps for the people of Florence, the latter 
 course was thrust upon them through the death of their 
 brave citizen Federigo Ferruccio in the battle of Gavinana
 
 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 and the appalling treachery of the Republic's own paid 
 commander, Malatesta Baglioni; these two disasters 
 combined to enforce a bloodless capitulation upon the 
 unhappy city, which formally opened its gates to the 
 Imperial and papal army on 1 2th August after a siege of 
 nearly ten months. 
 
 And although a clause actually providing for the pre- 
 servation of the time-honoured liberties and privileges of 
 the city had been inserted amidst the terms of surrender, 
 the Florentines themselves must have been only too 
 well aware, from Clement's notorious political reputation, 
 that such a safeguard would never be respected by the 
 unscrupulous Pope. Indeed, it was evident to all men 
 that Florence lay absolutely at the mercy of the tri- 
 umphant Clement, the relative and patron of the two 
 youths, Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici, who had 
 three years before been ignominously chased hence. 
 Even assuming Clement's determination to win back 
 Florence was natural if not laudable, it becomes im- 
 possible to censure too strongly his brutal and unpatriotic 
 methods of regaining the city ; whilst the common belief 
 that his extreme eagerness to accomplish this end was 
 prompted by paternal anxiety to push the fortunes of 
 his supposed natural son, the ill-favoured Alessandro, 
 now Duke of Civiti Penna by the Emperor's favour, 
 only makes the Pope's conduct appear less edifying and 
 excusable. Although later historians have perhaps 
 painted Clement's tyranny over recaptured Florence 
 even blacker than its reality, yet it speaks eloquently for 
 the Pontiffs own sense of his shame in the late transac- 
 tion that he no more ventured to show his face in the 
 streets of his native city during his lifetime, but ever 
 contented himself with arranging and controlling the 
 new Florentine government from a distance.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 LAST YEARS OF CLEMENT VII 
 
 Pope Clement VII. died unregretted even by those nearest to 
 his person ; deceitful, avaricious, cruel and heartless, he had all the 
 bad without any of the redeeming qualities of his race ; he was acute, 
 able and clear-sighted as a statesman, but weak and unsteady in his 
 resolutions, and never by any chance sincere. He was detested by 
 the Romans as the author of all their calamities and by everybody 
 else as one of the basest men and worst Pontiffs that ever wore the 
 sacred seal of the Fisherman (H. E. Napier, Florentine History). 
 
 DURING the summer months of 1528, shortly 
 after his return from dismal Orvieto to his 
 devastated capital, Clement, once again recon- 
 ciled to the Emperor, began to take active measures to 
 further the career of the younger and more favoured of 
 his relatives, Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici. As 
 Leo X.'s Italian policy had largely been based upon his 
 ambitious projects on behalf of the papal nephew Lorenzo 
 de' Medici, so Clement VII., a true imitator of his cousin 
 Leo, now concentrated all his efforts on obtaining a 
 principality for the boy Alessandro, whom shrewd but ill- 
 natured persons were inclined to designate as the Pope's 
 offspring rather than as the unacknowledged natural son 
 of the late Duke Lorenzo of Urbino. As neither Ippolito 
 nor Alessandro were in reality closely related to the 
 Pontiff, the latter in particular being (if his presumed 
 parentage were admitted) only the grandson of Piero il 
 Pazzo, Clement's first cousin, it seems scarcely possible 
 to deny the probable correctness of this supposition of 
 
 329
 
 330 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 the Pope's true paternity of this hideous and horrible 
 youth, who through papal and Imperial influence was ere 
 long to be acclaimed as Duke of Florence. Towards 
 Ippolito, however, the attractive if headstrong son of the 
 gracious Giuliano and the favourite of his late uncle 
 Leo X., the Pope bore far less affection ; and although 
 Ippolito was a year or more older than Alessandro, was 
 comely and courteous, and was far from being unpopular 
 with the Florentines, yet Clement was evidently bent on 
 removing this young prince out of the path of Alessandro's 
 advancement by forcibly raising him to the purple. In 
 vain did the high-mettled and pleasure-loving Ippolito 
 plead against this imposition of an ecclesiastical career for 
 which he was so obviously unsuited by natural inclination ; 
 the Pope, who had his own private and selfish reasons 
 for this resolve, was inexorable, and eventually this 
 prince, in spite of his base birth, his own protests and his 
 manifest unfitness, was compelled to enter the ranks of 
 the Sacred College. By this step, so shamelessly re- 
 pugnant on all moral grounds, did Clement accomplish a 
 cherished piece of statecraft, whereby he might not only 
 secure the hoped-for dominion of Florence for his beloved 
 Alessandro, but might also at the same time set a definite 
 barrier to any marriage in the future between Giuliano's 
 son and his cousin, the " Duchessina," Caterina de' Medici. 
 For a youthful attachment had, it seems, already been 
 formed between the handsome stripling and the little 
 pale-faced big-eyed girl, the sole heiress of her House, 
 who of these two papal nephews detested the ugly 
 Alessandro (her so-called half-brother) and adored the 
 good-looking, generous and high-spirited Ippolito. Upon 
 the mere possibility of such an union Clement looked with 
 a most jealous eye for two reasons : first, because such an 
 alliance would operate to spoil the chance of Alessandro's
 
 LAST YEARS OF CLEMENT VII 331 
 
 sovereignty over Florence ; and second, because he hoped 
 to bestow Catherine's hand upon some prince of a reigning 
 European House, whereby certain political advantages 
 might accrue to himself and the Holy See. 
 
 Having thus compelled the reluctant Ippolito to 
 accept a Cardinal's hat, Clement, who had for some time 
 past been ailing with a sickness accounted mortal, made 
 a forcible appeal to the Emperor to employ his good 
 offices for the furtherance of the career of Alessandro, 
 now an exile in Rome ever since his ignominious expulsion 
 from Florence in the previous year. "If it be the will 
 of His Divine Majesty," wrote Clement from his sick-bed, 
 " to take me, His unworthy servant, to Himself, I re- 
 commend to your Sovereign Power mine exiled nephew, 1 
 since no longer can I urge forward his interests by mine 
 own exertions. It is my sincere petition that you will 
 replace him in that position which of justice he lately filled, 
 and of which he has recently been deprived by the evil 
 behaviour of others. O let your performance of this 
 meritorious service be made as an atonement and com- 
 pensation for all that has been done in the past against 
 my proper dignity ! Further than this I crave nothing 
 of you, and I give you my paternal blessing." 2 
 
 To this urgent appeal of a doting parent or patron, 
 the Emperor replied by creating Alessandro Duke of 
 Civita Penna, and later by abetting and assisting in 
 Clement's schemes for the reduction of Florence. More- 
 over, a suitable match for this lucky young prince was 
 suggested by the magnanimous Charles himself, who 
 offered to bestow his own natural daughter, Margaret of 
 Austria, in matrimony with this Medicean upstart. Pope 
 
 1 Nipote. The word is very loosely used in Italian to express 
 nephew, grandson or (as in this case) any near relative. 
 
 2 Rastrelli, Vita di Alessandro de Medici, p. 41.
 
 332 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 and Emperor being completely in accord as to the neces- 
 sity of erecting some principality for this base-born pair 
 in the ultimate event of their marriage, it became an easy 
 matter for Clement, with the Emperor's connivance, to 
 form the reconquered city of Florence into a duchy for 
 this purpose. On 26th July, 1531, Alessandro de' Medici, 
 aged scarcely twenty years, 1 was proclaimed Duke of 
 Florence, and thus in the person of this ignoble youth 
 was every lingering vestige of the old Florentine 
 Republic definitely and forever swept away. Clement, 
 it is true, did not survive to witness this cherished union 
 between his favourite and the young Margaret of Austria, 
 but he lived long enough to be tormented in mind by 
 the sinister reports from Florence of the conduct and 
 reputation of the duke, whose reign of five years was 
 marked throughout by acts of violence, despotism and 
 illegality, and ended worthily in the brutal murder of the 
 tyrant himself within the ancient palace of the Medici. 2 
 
 Seeing that the final extinction of the old civic 
 liberties and the subsequent rule of this repulsive young 
 prince were due solely to the selfish ambition of Clement, 
 it is not surprising to find that the memory of the second 
 Medicean Pontiff is still held in deep abhorrence by the 
 descendants of his countrymen. Yet the " Sala di 
 Clemente Settimo," with its frescoes and portraits by 
 Vasari, still exists for a memorial in that Florentine 
 palace, whose great hall likewise contains a fine piece of 
 statuary representing the Pope conferring the imperial 
 diadem on Charles V., who kneels at his feet. Never- 
 
 1 The date of Alessandro's birth is unknown, but it probably be- 
 longs to the year 1512. Ippolito de' Medici was born in 1511. 
 
 2 Amongst the few existing memorials of this evil Duke of 
 Florence may be mentioned the coronet and coat-of-arms, in 
 coloured terra-cotta, affixed to the fa9ade of the Florentine church 
 of Ogni Santi.
 
 LAST YEARS OF CLEMENT VII 333 
 
 theless, it is remarkable that, either by design or acci- 
 dent, the vast picture galleries of Florence contain no 
 prominent portrait of this papal betrayer of his native 
 city ; although in the roof of one of the gorgeous saloons 
 in the Pitti Palace the observant stranger may detect the 
 form of Clement VII. seated beside that of his popular 
 cousin, Leo X. 
 
 Having thus set Alessandro firmly in the seat of 
 power over the helpless Florentines and having curbed 
 the highly inconvenient energy of the young Ippolito by 
 creating him a cardinal, Clement now found himself free 
 to turn his attention to the third member of the family 
 who had fallen under his personal guardianship. This 
 was of course Caterina de' Medici, who is described by 
 the Venetian ambassador Soriano at this time as being 
 "small in stature, thin and with indifferent features, but 
 with the large eyes that are characteristic of all the 
 Medici ". 
 
 The unfortunate orphan girl, the last legitimate sur- 
 vivor of the senior branch of her House, had already 
 entered her fourteenth year when the Pope began to 
 entertain proposals for her speedy marriage from all 
 quarters' of Europe, for with an ample dowry and various 
 political pretensions the youthful heiress found no lack of 
 aspirants to her hand. Amongst her many suitors by 
 proxy at this time was numbered the young Duke of 
 Richmond, the favourite natural son of Henry VIII. of 
 England ; but it is needless to state that the crafty and 
 cold-blooded Clement looked to secure a far more brilliant 
 husband for his ward than a mere English duke. In the 
 delicate art of matchmaking indeed the innate cunning of 
 Clement's unpleasant character was fully revealed, for 
 the Pope was now scheming steadily to ensure the 
 promised union of Margaret of Austria with the Duke of
 
 334 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Florence and at the same time to arrange a marriage for 
 the little Catherine with a royal prince of the House of 
 France. For by this dual alliance of a daughter of the 
 Emperor and a son of King Francis with his own re- 
 lations, the restless Pope fancied he was going to 
 strengthen enormously his own political position. Yet 
 even on this meditated match with the French court the 
 shifty Clement outwardly seemed scarcely to know his 
 own mind, for "he speaks about it," comments the 
 Venetian envoy, "at one moment cordially, and at 
 another coldly, according to his irresolute nature". But 
 in all probability Clement was merely anxious to conceal 
 both from Francis and the Emperor his extreme eager- 
 ness to grasp at so brilliant and valuable a family con- 
 nection as this French alliance which he had good reason 
 to fear the Emperor might flatly forbid. The final 
 settlement of Catherine's betrothal to one out of her host 
 of suitors was therefore deferred, until the projected 
 meeting which Clement and Charles had arranged should 
 take place at Bologna towards the close of the year 
 
 1532. 
 
 Ill and depressed, yet preferring at any cost to under- 
 take this second arduous journey to Bologna rather than 
 to give Charles the opportunity of traversing the Papal 
 States so as to confer with him in Rome itself, Clement 
 set out for the appointed place about the middle of 
 November, 1532, choosing the more difficult and danger- 
 ous route by way of Perugia in order to avoid a halt 
 within sight of Florence, although his favourite Alessandro 
 was now reigning there as duke. In the papal retinue 
 during this journey northwards rode King Henry VIII.'s 
 envoy, Dr. Edmund Bonner, afterwards Bishop of Lon- 
 don, and it is through the pen of this English prelate that 
 we possess a curious account of the trials and difficulties
 
 LAST YEARS OF CLEMENT VII 335 
 
 the ailing Pontiff was forced to endure on his way to 
 meet a master whom he cordially detested, yet had per- 
 force ever to humour and reverence. 1 
 
 "To advertise your Mastership of our news," so 
 writes Bonner to Thomas Cromwell on Christmas Eve, 
 1532, "you shall understand that the i8th of November 
 the Pope, taking with him only in his journey and com- 
 pany six cardinals with no great number, entered his 
 journey towards Bologna, not keeping the common way, 
 which, as you know, is by Florence and foul enough, but 
 by Perugia and the lands of the Church ; six other car- 
 dinals to make up a brown dozen, and yet not all good 
 saints, taking their journey by Florence with the rest of 
 the company. The said journey to the Pope, by reason 
 of the continual rain and foul way, with other unfortunable 
 accidents, as the loss of certain of his mules and the 
 breaking of the leg of one Turkish horse that he had, special 
 good, and above all for the evil lodging that he had with 
 his company, was wondrous painful ; the Pope divers 
 time compelled, by reason of the foulness and danger of 
 the way, to go on foot the space of a mile or two, and his 
 company ; besides that pleasure and pastime, for lack of 
 a feather-bed, compelled to lie in the straw." 
 
 Yet Clement, though sick in mind and body, struggled 
 onward through wet weather and over miry roads, 
 finally reaching his goal on 7th December. " The 
 Pope's entry into Bononie," continues Bonner in his 
 letter to Cromwell, "was two times, the first upon Our 
 Lady's Even 2 secretly, without ceremonies or pride, only 
 within the walls of the city ; the other was in Die Con- 
 ceptionis with ceremonies accustomed, and yet no great 
 company ; the Pope riding in his long white kirtle, hav- 
 
 1 State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. vii., p. 394. 
 
 2 Eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 8th December.
 
 336 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 ing his rochet upon the same and a stole about his neck, 
 and so coming to his palace. Of any miracles done 
 upon any halt or lame or otherwise, I heard not of." * 
 
 This second meeting arranged between Pope and 
 Emperor proved neither so gorgeous nor so animated an 
 affair as the late spectacle of the Imperial coronation 
 in this very city of Bologna, held only two years before. 
 A splendid pageant, gratifying alike to the ambition of 
 Charles and to the pride of the Medici, had then con- 
 trived to shed a lustre of cheerfulness and content upon 
 the participants in the ceremony of 1530; whereas at 
 this moment it was but a question of urgent business. 
 The harassed and anxious Clement had two special 
 objects to obtain out of the conference ; the postpone- 
 ment of the calling of a General Council of the Church, 
 which the Emperor was being strongly urged to convoke ; 
 and the settlement of the little Catherine's matrimonial 
 prospects. As to the first, it was openly said that the 
 very sound of the word "Council" always struck a 
 pallor into the nervous face of the Medici, who had risen 
 by a course of unprecedented intrigues to the highest 
 dignity in Christendom, and consequently was ever 
 haunted by the fear that such a representative assembly 
 would immediately clamour for the deposition of the 
 impostor Clement VII., on account of his illegitimacy. 
 With regard to the second matter of importance, the 
 Pope was most anxious to obtain Charles's approval of 
 the suggested French marriage, and yet at the same time 
 to make certain of the projected match between his 
 favourite Alessandro and the Emperor's daughter, 
 Margaret. 
 
 Clement's methods of gaining a political point were 
 
 1 Slate Papers of Henry VIII., op. cit.
 
 LAST YEARS OF CLEMENT VII 337 
 
 always deceitful, mean and tortuous, yet they were not 
 unfrequently successful, as in this instance, when he was 
 able to return to Rome early in the year 1533, well satis- 
 fied with the reflection that he had staved off, if only for 
 a time, the dreaded convocation of a General Council of 
 the Church, and had also secured the Emperor's grudging 
 assent to the French marriage ; an assent, however, which 
 Charles had given carelessly, since in his own mind he 
 could not conceive of the splendid Francis of France 
 seriously intending to allow any son of his House to mate 
 with the daughter of a Florentine burgher line, with "one 
 who was little more than a private gentlewoman ". In 
 the late duel of diplomatic skill, therefore, at Bologna the 
 wily Pope certainly outwitted the Emperor, for Clement 
 had made sure beforehand of the sincerity of the French 
 King's professions with regard to the disposal of the poor 
 little heiress, who chanced to be the Pope's most valuable 
 political asset. Instructions were hurriedly conveyed to 
 the French envoys at Bologna, the Cardinals Tournon 
 and Grammont, to hasten with the documents bearing on 
 the forthcoming nuptials of Caterina de' Medici, titular 
 Duchess of Urbino, with Henri de Valois, Duke of 
 Orleans, second son of King Francis I. Much to his 
 surprise and annoyance, Charles perceived too late that 
 his rival of France was desperately in earnest, whilst his 
 contemptuous hatred of Clement must have been im- 
 measurably increased, when he learned of the Pope's 
 intention to preside in person at the approaching wedding 
 festivities at Marseilles, which had by mutual consent of 
 King and Pontiff been fixed upon as a convenient spot 
 for the important event. 
 
 Early in September, 1533, Catherine prepared to leave 
 Florence, where she was then residing, in order to pro- 
 ceed on her journey to France. Attended by her uncle- 
 
 22
 
 338 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 in-law, the brilliant but dissolute Filippo Strozzi 1 and by 
 her cousins Palla Rucellai and Maria Salviati, she made 
 her way to Porto Venere on the Tuscan coast, and 
 thence taking ship after a week's voyage she disembarked 
 at Nice, there to await news of the coming of the 
 Pope. Clement meanwhile had set out from Rome, and 
 sailing from the mouth of the Arno in the first week of 
 October, reached Marseilles on the eleventh day of that 
 month. At this port Francis and his court had already 
 arrived some days previously in order to do honour to 
 the expected bride and to the presence of His Holiness, 
 the approach of whose flotilla was duly reported to those 
 on shore by watchers posted on the towers of the Chateau 
 d'If. Stepping on to the quay at Marseilles, Clement 
 was received in solemn form by a deputation of French 
 bishops, cardinals and abbots ; and on the following 
 morning, which was a Sunday, the Pope entered the city 
 in full panoply of state, the two young Dukes of Orleans 
 and of Angoulme each holding one of the Pontiffs 
 hands. On Monday, i3th October, the King and Queen 
 of France with a magnificent equipage approached to 
 welcome their illustrious guest, and after this meeting of 
 Clement and Francis nine days were consumed in an 
 endless round of gorgeous banquets and ceremonies, 
 varied by occasional conferences of a political nature. 
 Thus was passed the interval of waiting for the bride's 
 arrival, which was delayed until the twenty-third day of 
 the month, when Caterina de' Medici, attended by twelve 
 maids-of-honour, at last made her appearance. As at the 
 nuptials of Catherine's own father, the young Lorenzo, 
 Duke of Urbino, the French court was deeply impressed 
 
 1 Husband of Clarice de' Medici (d. 1528), the only sister of 
 Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, Catherine's father.
 
 CATERINA DK' MEDICI, QUEEN OF FRANCK
 
 LAST YEARS OF CLEMENT VII 339 
 
 by the marvellous ostentation of the Medici, 1 nor did any 
 of those present care to reflect upon the recent severe 
 measures of taxation applied in Rome and Florence, in 
 order to obtain the wherewithal to make so brave a 
 display. On Tuesday, 28th October, Clement himself, 
 to give greater solemnity and weight to the event, per- 
 formed the ceremony of the marriage which constituted 
 his ward the lawful wife of the young Henri de Valois, 
 Duke of Orleans. As the bride of fourteen years old 
 was thus united to the youthful bridegroom of fifteen 
 amidst all the pomp incidental to the wedding of a scion 
 of the royal House of France, Clement must have felt 
 an exquisite thrill of complete and satisfying triumph 
 in the successful issue of his restless intriguing ; a sense 
 of triumph which neither past failure nor present ill-health 
 nor encroaching age could at such a moment blight. In 
 truth, the chief diplomatic fruit of all his past intrigue and 
 deceit was represented by this political union of the great 
 niece of Leo X. with a prince of France, the first truly 
 royal marriage to which a Medici had as yet aspired ; and 
 it is again to Clement's ambition that the forthcoming 
 crimes and troubles of the Medicean Queen's subsequent 
 regency in France must indirectly be ascribed. 
 
 The unavoidable fatigues and constant excitement of 
 this late visit to the French court at Marseilles seem to 
 have undermined the waning powers of the Pontiff, who 
 survived the consummation of his diplomatic success 
 less then a twelvemonth. Returning from the shores of 
 
 1 A splendid relic of Clement's liberality towards Francis I. on 
 this occasion is to be found in the magnificent casket by Valerio of 
 Vicenza, preserved in the Gem Room of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. 
 This beautiful work of art contains twenty-four panels of rock-crystal 
 set in silver gilt, and elaborately engraved with subjects from the 
 New Testament. It bears also the arms and papal insignia of its 
 donor, Clement VII.
 
 340 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 France to his capital, Clement found discontent openly 
 exhibited in Rome, whilst his private life was made miser- 
 able by the ceaseless strife waged between the two papal 
 nephews. For the martial Ippolito was appearing 
 anxious to divest himself of the purple, so as to dispute 
 for the mastery of the enthralled Florentines with the 
 unpopular tyrant already in possession ; nor could any 
 threats or entreaties on Clement's part terminate the 
 endless and unseemly quarrels between the Cardinal and 
 the Duke of Florence ; a city that, for reasons previously 
 mentioned, the Pope was determined nevermore to visit. 
 A constant dread of the Imperial vengeance for his late 
 alliance with the French King likewise haunted the 
 scheming Pope, who perceived the Emperor deeply 
 incensed by the recent papal policy and more than ever 
 filled with the idea of convoking a General Council of 
 the Church to discuss and settle the many burning ques- 
 tions that were vexing Western Christendom. The 
 personal quarrel with Henry VIII. once his warmest 
 royal supporter over Queen Catherine's divorce pro- 
 ceedings, and the consequent formal revolt of England 
 from the supremacy of the Holy See, must also have 
 weighed heavily on the mind of Clement, who but for 
 an ever-present dread of the Emperor would in all prob- 
 ability have granted Henry's petition a dozen times over 
 rather than risk the catastrophe, which the helpless Pope 
 was himself, by the irony of an inexorable fate, called 
 upon to hasten. Yet Clement continued to the last 
 contriving, trifling, proposing, prevaricating through all 
 his troubles, finding apparently no relaxation from the 
 cares wherewith he was beset save by creating fresh 
 embarrassments on all sides. 
 
 Harassed on all sides by domestic quarrelling and poli- 
 tical difficulties, it is not surprising to find that by the
 
 LAST YEARS OF CLEMENT VII 341 
 
 summer of 1 534 the exhausted Pope was sinking fast to the 
 grave, a prey to one of those slow intermittent fevers for 
 which the climate of Rome was once so notorious. All 
 Italy, and indeed all Europe, awaited his expected end with 
 ill-concealed satisfaction, so that almost the only known in- 
 stance of regret or sympathy with the dying man on this 
 occasion came from a humble source, namely, from the 
 jeweller Benvenuto Cellini, whom Clement had patronised 
 in the past and with whom he not unfrequently deigned 
 to hold conversation on artistic matters. During the last 
 few months of Clement's existence, Cellini had been en- 
 gaged in preparing and stamping certain medals for the 
 Pope, amongst them one showing a design of Moses 
 striking the rock to obtain water, with the explanatory 
 legend Ut bibat populus. " Having finished my work," 
 narrates the prince of jewellers in his famous Autobio- 
 graphy, "on 22nd September, I waited on the Pope, 
 whom I found very ill in bed. Yet he gave me the 
 most kindly reception, telling me of his wish to inspect 
 both the medals themselves and the instruments where- 
 with I had stamped them. He ordered his spectacles and 
 a candle to be brought, but nevertheless he could discern 
 nothing of my workmanship. So he set to examine the 
 medals by the touch of his fingers, but after feeling thus 
 for some length of time he fetched a deep sigh, and told 
 one of the courtiers he was sorry for me, but if it pleased 
 God to restore his health, he would make me a satis- 
 factory payment. Three days later he died, and I had 
 only my labour for my pains. I took courage notwith- 
 standing, comforting myself with the thought that I had 
 acquired so much renown by means of these medals, that 
 I might depend on future employment from the next 
 Pope, and perhaps with better results. By such re- 
 flections did I prevent myself from feeling dejected."
 
 342 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Proceeding with this account of his private affairs, 
 Cellini adds that some days later, on the occasion of 
 Clement's lying-in-state, he "put on his sword and re- 
 paired to St. Peter's, where he kissed the feet of the 
 deceased Pontiff, nor could he refrain from tears "- 1 
 
 This curious expression of modified sorrow exhibited 
 by Cellini for his late patron stands, however, almost alone 
 amidst the universal outburst of relief and jubilation at 
 the news of the long-desired death of the despised and 
 discredited Medici, which occurred on 25th September, 
 1534, in the fifty-seventh year of his age and after a reign 
 of ten years and ten months. " The joy at Rome is two- 
 fold," writes Gregory of Casale three weeks later to the 
 Duke of Norfolk, "the election of the new Pope (Ales- 
 sandro Farnese, Paul III.) and the death of the old one 
 being alike cause of rejoicing." 2 Nor was this bitterness 
 of feeling limited to mere verbal execration, for the 
 Roman populace made efforts each night to pollute or 
 deface Clement's temporary tomb in St. Peter's. Several 
 times in the morning was the pontifical monument found 
 smeared with filth ; whilst on one occasion some vindic- 
 tive wag during the night hours contrived to alter the 
 lettering of the inscription, by substituting the words 
 " Inclemens Pontifex Minimus" for the proud title 
 "Clemens Pontifex Maximus," besides making other 
 changes of a derogatory nature in the late Pope's epitaph. 
 It was even planned by some indignant Romans to drag 
 the corpse itself from its coffin and draw it ignominiously 
 with a hook through the streets of the city ; an intended 
 insult that was only averted by the prompt action of the 
 Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici who set a strong guard over 
 the tomb, so long as the lawless interval during the sitting 
 
 1 Vita di B. Cellini. 
 
 2 State Papers of Henry\ VIII., vol. vii., p. 373.
 
 LAST YEARS OF CLEMENT VII 343 
 
 of the conclave lasted. The election of the Farnese 
 Pontiff naturally restored order in Rome, so that the re- 
 mains of Paul III.'s unpopular predecessor were hence- 
 forward at least allowed to rest undisturbed, until their 
 removal to the choir of the Church of Santa Mariasopra 
 Minerva, which already contained the ashes of Leo X. 
 Not many years later was raised on this spot the ponder- 
 ous but unlovely monument, the work of Antonio da 
 San Gallo and Baccio Bandinelli of Florence, which 
 commemorates in imperishable marble "this weak and 
 clumsy disciple of the principles inculcated by Machia- 
 velli's Prince"^ Giulio, bastard son of Giuliano de' 
 Medici, Pope Clement VII. 
 
 It is a general maxim of history that those sove- 
 reigns or exalted personages who have signally failed in 
 their public careers should be invariably regarded by 
 posterity with a greater measure of interest and sympathy, 
 from the very circumstance of their misfortunes. And 
 with regard to this statement, it will be sufficient to cite 
 from our own annals the striking examples of the 
 scholar-saint Henry VI., of Queen Mary of Scotland and 
 of the still-idolised Charles Stuart. But to this general 
 rule Giulio de' Medici, Clement VII., offers a notable 
 exception. For although the second Medicean Pope was 
 perhaps the most unfortunate of all the Roman Pontiffs, 
 and although his disastrous reign belonged to a picturesque 
 and turbulent age, the historian cannot obtain the smallest 
 amount of satisfaction or interest from a close contem- 
 plation of his private character. Indeed, few persons 
 have perhaps been detested or reviled by mankind with 
 better reason than this papal bastard of the House of 
 Medici ; this cold, cunning, calculating Pontiff, who was 
 the indirect cause of the Sack of Rome, the patron of the 
 
 1 Gregorovius, Tombs of the Popes.
 
 344 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 odious Duke Alessandro, the pitiless destroyer of the 
 liberties of Florence. Yet in reality the man, as we have 
 already shown, was not without his virtues, since he was 
 frugal, industrious, serious ; singularly free, in short, from 
 those failings which have been so properly censured in 
 the case of his cousin, Leo X. Nevertheless, the very 
 absence in Clement of the frivolity, the extravagance and 
 the idleness of the splendid Leo seems scarcely to be 
 accounted commendable, when we reflect upon the chill 
 indifference of his natural disposition, his parsimony and 
 avarice, and that perpetual selfish scheming, which was 
 ever adding new troubles and turmoils to the existing 
 evils of the age. A comparison between Leo X. and 
 Clement VII., drawn from a perusal of these pages, 
 ought to exhibit clearly the reasons why the former, in 
 spite of his faults and even his misdeeds, was sincerely 
 mourned at his death ; whereas the latter sank, loathed, 
 despised and dishonoured into a tomb whereon the in- 
 dignant and outraged populace of Rome endeavoured to 
 wreak a posthumous vengeance. 
 
 It is difficult to palliate or to suggest any reasonable 
 excuse for the conduct and character of Clement, beyond 
 quoting Ranke's expressive phrase, that he was "the 
 very sport of misfortune, without doubt the most ill-fated 
 Pontiff that ever sat on the papal throne ". No one can 
 extend a jot of sympathy to this callous adventurer, who 
 by ceaseless intriguing rose to be created a cardinal and 
 later to be elected Supreme Pontiff, and whom a General 
 Council of the Church, sincerely bent on religious reform, 
 would have promptly deposed. Cautious, scheming, 
 shuffling, selfish, suspicious, mean, heartless, insincere, 
 untruthful such was Clement VII. ; and it only remains 
 to add that on occasions this repellent personage could 
 show himself guilty of the most vindictive and ferocious
 
 LAST YEARS OF CLEMENT VII 345 
 
 cruelty ; as in the case of the helpless monk, Benedetto 
 da Fojano, who for taking an active part in the defence 
 of Florence was thrust into a filthy dungeon of the castle 
 of Sant' Angelo and there slowly and deliberately starved 
 to death by Clement's expressed desire. History can 
 afford many examples of princes or private persons who 
 were monsters of crime or vice, but it can scarcely exhibit 
 another character more worthy of oblivion than the 
 cowardly tyrant, whom the haughty Clarice Strozzi, the 
 niece of Leo X., had once openly denounced as an in- 
 truder into the august House of Medici. For it was 
 during the brief moment of the Florentine Republic's 
 triumph in the spring of 1527, when Clement was being 
 held a prisoner in Sant' Angelo, that the impetuous 
 Clarice, urged to use her influence to save from the angry 
 mob the trembling Ippolito and Alessandro with their 
 guardian Cardinal Passerini, had hastened to the ancient 
 palace in Via Larga and there had openly expressed her 
 contemptuous denial of any relationship between herself 
 and the three bastards bearing her family name, the two 
 cowering youths before her and the absent Pontiff 
 
 " Standing in the vast corridor of the palace," narrates 
 the Florentine historian Bernardo Segni, "did she pour 
 forth her scorn of these spurious scions of her House, 
 saying, ' You show plainly what is already known, that you 
 are not of the blood of the Medici ; and not only you, but 
 also Pope Clement, wrongfully a Pope and now most 
 righteously a prisoner in Sant' Angelo ! ' ' Reflecting 
 on Clarice's fiery speech and on Clement's despicable 
 character and inglorious reign, we are led to feel both 
 surprise and regret that in his hour of complete victory 
 the Emperor Charles V. did not depose and remove 
 this papal impostor from the scene of his late misdeeds to 
 some secure and remote fortress, where, deprived of his
 
 346 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 ill-gotten honours and powerless to vex henceforth the 
 peace of Italy and of Europe, this Medicean bastard 
 might have found time to meditate upon and to repent 
 of the appalling mischief he had already wrought in the 
 brief interval of three years between his election and the 
 Sack of Rome.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 THE LATER MEDICI POPES 
 
 ATER the death of Clement VII. the illustrious 
 name of Medici occurs twice in the annals of 
 the Papacy, but in both cases it was borne by 
 Pontiffs who were very distantly connected with the senior 
 branch of the Florentine House that produced Leo X. 
 
 The former of these is Gian-Angelo, younger son of 
 Bernardino Medici of Milan, who was elected Pope on 
 Christmas Eve, 1559, under the title of Pius IV., and 
 reigned for nearly six years, his pontificate being dis- 
 tinguished, amongst other events of importance, by the 
 closing of the protracted sittings of the Council of Trent. 
 Pius IV., "who was a man of worldly instincts, a lover 
 of the good things of this life," 1 but who ever showed 
 himself moderate and conciliatory in his political dealings, 
 is said to have been of humble birth. Nevertheless, the 
 Pope's forefathers claimed, on very doubtful grounds, to 
 be descendants of one Giambuono de' Medici of Flor- 
 ence, 2 in the thirteenth century, who is supposed to have 
 migrated to Milan. Both the sons of Bernardino were 
 successful in life, for the elder, Gian-Giacomo, was created 
 Marquis of Melegnano by the Emperor Charles V., whilst 
 the younger, Gian-Angelo, as we have said, attained to 
 the pontifical throne. Pius IV. is celebrated, moreover, 
 
 1 Gregorovius, Tombs of the Popes. 
 
 2 Belviglieri, Tavole Sincrone e Genealogiche, etc. 
 
 347
 
 348 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 as the uncle of St. Charles Borromeo, the son of his only 
 sister, whom this Pope raised to the purple at the early 
 age of twenty-two. After his decease on loth December, 
 1565, Pius IV. was interred in the great Roman church 
 of Santa Maria degli Angeli, wherein he possesses no 
 monument other than a simple tablet : a circumstance 
 that may be fairly attributed to the manifest humility and 
 hatred of pomp ever shown by his favoured nephew, St. 
 Charles Borromeo, Cardinal Archbishop of Milan. 
 
 But if Pius IV. possessed nothing save his family 
 name to link his personality with the city of Florence, 
 the fourth and last Medici Pope, Leo XL, was at least a 
 Florentine by birth and a true descendant of a collateral 
 branch of that great House. For he was one of the sons 
 of Ottaviano de' Medici, dwelling in a palace near the 
 famous convent of San Marco and for many years a 
 favourite both with Clement VII. and the worthless 
 Duke Alessandro, who had entrusted their distant kins- 
 man with the administration of the vast estates of the 
 Medici throughout Tuscany. Of Ottaviano's children, 
 the eldest son, Bernardetto, espoused Giuliade' Medici, the 
 natural daughter of his father's patron, Duke Alessandro, 
 and eventually was invested with the lordship of Ottajano 
 in the kingdom of Naples, where his descendants are still 
 flourishing. The younger brother, Alessandro, being 
 "pious, learned and most energetic," 1 was devoted to the 
 service of the Church, wherein he quickly rose to positions 
 of wealth and eminence. Highly favoured by the Grand- 
 Ducal family of Tuscany, Alessandro was appointed 
 Archbishop of Florence and was created a cardinal, 
 whilst it was through his bounty that the official residence 
 of the Florentine Archbishops, facing the ancient Baptis- 
 tery, was greatly altered and enlarged ; a fact which is 
 
 1 Ranke, History of the Popes, vol. i.
 
 THE LATER MEDICI POPES 349 
 
 commemorated by the fine escutcheon in polychrome now 
 affixed to the north-eastern angle of the present palace. 
 
 At the death of Clement VIII. in the spring of 
 1605, on ist April the Cardinal Alessandro de' Medici 
 was elected Pope to the exorbitant joy of the French 
 court, Henry IV. ordering salvoes of artillery to be 
 fired on the receipt of the tidings from Rome. But this 
 outburst of satisfaction in France was fated to be of brief 
 duration. The new Pontiff, who probably out of com- 
 pliment to the first fortunate and resplendent Pope of 
 his House, assumed the title of Leo XL, had already 
 entered his seventieth year and was suffering from an 
 incurable malady. The excitement of the conclave and 
 the fatigue of the lengthy ceremonies served to diminish 
 his remaining strength, so that at his own coronation he 
 contracted a feverish chill which produced a fatal result 
 on 27th April. Leo XL's reign, one of the shortest 
 in papal annals, lasted therefore but twenty-six days, 
 whilst his sudden decease caused no small degree of 
 disappointment at the courts of Paris and Florence, 
 where high hopes had been entertained of the newly- 
 elected Medici's foreign policy. But although Leo's 
 death was sincerely deplored both in France and in 
 Tuscany, " no one," quaintly observes an old English 
 translator of the Vite dei Pontefici^ " had so much reason 
 to lament his loss as his own family, who had not the 
 time to receive the honours designed for them, and 
 particularly his great-nephew Ottaviano de' Medici, on 
 whom Leo intended to bestow his own Cardinal's hat". 
 Indeed, it is not difficult to believe in the genuine regret 
 of the short-lived Pontiffs expectant but now dejected 
 relations. 
 
 1 The Lives of the Popes. From the Latin of Baptista Platina 
 and others. Translated by Paul Rycaut, London, 1685.
 
 3so THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Leo XL's fine monument by Algardi with its stately 
 allegorical figures of Minerva and of Abundance adorns 
 the northern aisle of St. Peter's. If it appear peculiar 
 to the inquiring stranger that so vast a memorial should 
 have been erected to a Pontiff who reigned for less than 
 a month's space, let such an one draw a lesson from the 
 sculptured garlands that decorate this papal tomb, for 
 they speak eloquently of the brevity and variableness of 
 all earthly honours, even the hardest won and the best 
 deserved. Sic florui, such is the terse motto borne by 
 the blossoming wreaths on Leo's sepulchre, which deli- 
 cately conveys thus the ancient warning of the Psalmist 
 that " the days of Man are but as grass ; for he flourished! 
 as a flower of the field ".
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 LEON. X. PONT. MAX. IAMBICI 1 
 In Liicretiae Statuam 
 
 Libenter occumbo ; mea in praecordia 
 Adactum habens ferrum ; juvat mea manu 
 It praestitisse, quod Viraginum prius 
 Nulla ob pudicitiam peregit promptius. 
 Juvat cruorem contueri proprium, 
 Illumque verbis execrari asperrimis. 
 
 Sanguen mi acerbius veneno colchico 
 Ex quo canis Stygius, vel Hydra praeferox 
 Artus meos compegit in poenam asperam ; 
 Lues flue, ac vetus reverte in toxicum. 
 Tabes amara exi, mihi invisa et gravis, 
 Quod feceris corpus nitidum et amabile. 
 
 Nee interim suas monet Lucretia 
 Civeis, pudore et castitate semper ut 
 Sint praeditae, fidemque servant integram 
 Suis maritis, cum sit haec Mavortii 
 Laus magna populi, ut castitate foeminae 
 Laetentur, et viris mage iste gloria 
 Placere studeant, quam nitere et gratia. 
 Quin id probasse caede vel mea gravi 
 Lubet, statim animum purum opertere extrahi 
 Ab inquinati corporis custodia. 
 
 1 Lines addressed to an antique statue of Lucretia, unearthed in the 
 Trastevere of Rome, by Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, afterwards 
 Pope Leo X. (Roscoe, vol. ii., Appendix XCVIII.) 
 
 351
 
 352 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 {Lucre tia speaks, after driving the dagger into her breast ;) 
 
 Gladly I fall to earth, the cruel steel 
 
 Driv'n to my heart ; and yet I find delight 
 
 In this self- slaughter, since it needs must prove 
 
 That none was ever shown more prompt than I. 
 
 With joyful eyes I mark my life-blood flow, 
 
 And curse the crimson stream with scathing words. 
 
 O Blood of mine, more hateful than the drugs 
 Which Cerberus or Hydra can produce, 
 Depart all-tainted to thine ancient source ! 
 Hence bitter-sweet and vile disease of Life, 
 That once did fill my frame with comeliness ! 
 
 Thus doth your Lucrece warn her happier peers 
 Ever to bide in purity and grace, 
 And ever hold intact the marriage vow. 
 For is it not the chiefest boast of Rome 
 That all her matrons walk in Virtue's path, 
 Seeking to rule their lords by chastity, 
 And not by beauty or the art to please ? 
 Thus am I willing by mine own sad end 
 To preach this lesson ; that the faithful soul 
 Must not survive in the polluted clay.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ACADEMY, Roman, 163, 168. 
 
 Accolti, Bernardo, 164-166, 207. 
 
 Actaeon, 206. 
 
 Adonis, 209. 
 
 Adrian, Cardinal of Corneto, 248, 251, 
 
 252, 254. 
 Adrian VI., Pope (Adrian of Utrecht), 
 
 248, 256, 286-288, 291, 294, 295. 
 .<Eneas, 205. 
 Alamanni, Piero, 15. 
 Albizzi, family of, 92. 
 Albizzi, Francesco, 95. 
 Alborese, Cardinal, 106. 
 Alexander the Great, 35, 190. 
 Alexander VI., Pope (Roderigo Borgia), 
 
 13, 20, 34-36, 47, 49, 118, 204, 319. 
 Alfonso, Cardinal of Portugal, 256. 
 Alidosi, Cardinal, 64, 65, 158. 
 Altoviti, family of, 183. 
 Amboise, Cardinal d', 60. 
 Ammirato, Scipione, 97, 156. 
 Anchises, 225. 
 
 Angelico, Fra, 16, 276, 277, 281. 
 Angouleme, Duke of, 338. 
 Antonio da San Marco, 121. 
 Apollo, in, 205, 207. 
 Aragon, Cardinal of, 106, 113, 180, 189, 
 
 191. 
 
 Aretino, Pietro, 139, 148, 167, 200. 
 Ariadne, 180. 
 Ariosto, Ludovico, 163-166, 175, 178- 
 
 180, 185, 207. 
 Aristotle, 37. 
 Arnolfo di Cambio, 3. 
 
 BAGLIONI, Gian-Paolo, 59. 
 
 Baglioni, Malatesta, 328. 
 
 Bainbridge, Cardinal Christopher, 245. 
 
 Bale, John, 280, 281. 
 
 Balue, Cardinal de, 13. 
 
 Bandinelli, Baccio, 145, 154, 275, 343. 
 
 Baraballo, 169-171, 217. 
 
 Barcelona, treaty of, 326. 
 
 Barile, Giovanni, 171, 229. 
 
 Bartolommeo, Fra, 174. 
 
 Bembo, Pietro, 138, 146, 148, 156, 164, 
 165, 207, 208, 211, 227,233,239, 276, 
 281. 
 
 Benedetto da Fojano, Fra, 345. 
 
 Benedetto da Rovezzano, 93. 
 
 Bentivoglio of Bologna, 41, 60. 
 
 Bernini, 262. 
 
 Beroaldo, 166. 
 
 Bibbiena, Cardinal of, see Dovizi. 
 
 Boccamazzo, Domenico, 197, 198, 200. 
 
 Boissy, Adrian de, 152. 
 
 Boniface VIII., Pope, 117, 272, 322. 
 
 Bonner, Dr. Edmund, 334, 335. 
 
 Borgia, Caesar, 50, 56. 
 
 Borgia, Lucrezia, 124. 
 
 Borgia, Roderigo, see Alexander VI. 
 
 Borromeo, St. Charles, 348. 
 
 Boscoli, 98. 
 
 Bossi, Count Luigi, 213. 
 
 Bosso, Matteo, 17. 
 
 Bourbon, Cardinal Louis de, 256. 
 
 Bourbon, Constable of France, 140, 
 300, 309, 312-318, 322. 
 
 Bramante, 173, 220, 221, 231, 237. 
 
 Brand, John, 214. 
 
 Brandolini, Raffaele, 167, 168. 
 
 Buonarotti, see Michelangelo. 
 
 Buoninsegni, Domenico, 297. 
 
 CABOT, Sebastian, 33. 
 
 Cajetan, Cardinal (Tommaso de Vio), 
 
 256, 321. 
 
 Calabria, Duke of, 40. 
 Calcio, game of, 32. 
 Cambi, 155. 
 
 Canossa, Ludovico da, 148, 149. 
 Caradosso, 216. 
 
 Caraffa, Cardinal Oliviero, 20, 34. 
 Cardona, Raymond of, 66, 68, 69, 81, 
 
 82, 86, 89, 92, 140. 
 Carvajal, Cardinal, 73, 100. 
 Cassandra, 225. 
 Cast'glione, Count Baldassare, 157, 
 
 181, 207, 220, 241, 258. 
 Catherine of Aragon, 325, 340. 
 
 353
 
 354 
 
 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Cellini, Benvenuto, 94, 153, 293, 298- 
 302, 316, 317, 323, 341, 342. 
 
 Cesarini, Gian-Giorgio, 135. 
 
 Charlemagne, 153, 225. 
 
 Charles VIII. of France, 39, 40, 44, 45, 
 129, 139. 
 
 Charles V., Emperor, 134, 157, 256, 
 266, 267, 286, 291, 307-309, 312, 
 
 324, 325-327. 331-333, 336, 337. 34, 
 345, 347. 
 
 Chigi, Agostino, 120, 187, 188, 234, 
 238, 240. 
 
 CLEMENT VII., Pope (Giulio di 
 Giuliano de 1 Medici), Career of: 
 Natural son of Giuliano the Elder, 
 7 ; his education with his cousins, 7 ; 
 is enrolled amongst the Knights of 
 Rhodes, but prefers an ecclesiastical 
 career, 46; attaches himself to his 
 cousin Giovanni (afterwards Pope 
 Leo X.), 46 ; travels in Germany and 
 France, 47, 48 ; meets at Savona 
 with the future Julius II., 49 ; resides 
 with his cousin Giovanni at Rome, 
 53 54 ! his escape at the battle of 
 Ravenna, 70; is entrusted with an 
 important mission to Julius II. in 
 Rome, 71 ; is sent by the Pope to 
 Milan, 73 ; plays a conspicuous part 
 in the restoration of the Medici to 
 Florence, 82, 91 ; rides in the capacity 
 of a Knight of Rhodes in the pro- 
 cession of Leo X., 122 ; meets Francis 
 I. at the gates of Bologna, 150; 
 attends Leo's hunting-parties, 207 ; 
 he is nominated Archbishop of 
 Florence, 246 ; is declared legitimate 
 by Leo X., and is created a Cardinal, 
 247 ; Guicciardini's criticism of his 
 character, 247 ; he is sent by Leo to 
 settle the affairs of Florence, 261- 
 263 ; his growing influence over Leo 
 X., 265, 266; he is absent with the 
 Imperial army at the time of Leo's 
 death, 268 ; he is disappointed by the 
 result of the conclave, 285, 286 ; he 
 returns to Florence, 287 ; but is 
 speedily recalled to Rome by Adrian 
 VI., 288; he is elected Pope under 
 the title of Clement VII. in the 
 ensuing conclave, 289-291 ; his per- 
 sonal appearance and manners, 292 ; 
 his past patronage of Raphael, 293, 
 294 ; he commands the decoration of 
 the Hall of Constantine in the Vati- 
 can, 295-297 ; his curious emblem, 
 297 ; his patronage of Benvenuto 
 Cellini, 298-302; of Michelangelo, 
 
 302-306 ; his tortuous and mistaken 
 policy, 306-309 ; his critical position 
 after the battle of Pavia, 310-313 ; 
 his timid behaviour before the siege 
 and sack of Rome, 314, 315; his 
 flight to the Castle of Sant' Angelo, 
 318, 319; his miserable plight and 
 final capitulation to the Emperor, 
 322-324; his escape to Orvieto, 324 ; 
 receives an important embassy from 
 Henry VIII. of England at Orvieto, 
 325, 326 ; his alliance with Charles 
 V. and Francis I., 326 ; he crowns 
 Charles V. at Bologna, 327 ; recovers 
 possession of Florence, 328 ; his atti- 
 tude towards Alessandro and Ippolito 
 de' Medici, 329, 330 ; his de\-otion 
 for the former, 331-333 ; his matri- 
 monial schemes for Caterina de' 
 Medici, 333, 334; holds a second 
 conference with Charles V. at 
 Bologna, 334-336 ; results of the 
 meeting, 337 ; attends the wedding 
 of Catherine with Henry Duke of 
 Orleans at Marseilles, 338, 339 ; finds 
 domestic feuds on his return to Rome, 
 340 ; his intercourse with Benvenuto 
 Cellini, 341 ; his death in Rome and 
 the universal joy thereat, 342 ; his 
 monument in Santa Maria sopra 
 Minerva, 343 ; estimate of his 
 character, 343-346. 
 
 Clement VIII., Pope, 349. 
 
 Colonna, family of, 117, 309, 312, 316, 
 
 3*7- 
 
 Colonna, Fabrizio, 66, 69, 123. 
 Colonna, Cardinal Giovanni, 34. 
 Colonna, Cardinal Pompeo, 71, 257, 
 
 289, 309, 322. 
 Colonna, Vittoria, 267. 
 Commodus, 211. 
 Conclave of 1492, 34, 35. 
 Conclave of 1503, 49, 50. 
 Conclave of 1513, 105-108. 
 Conclave of 1522, 285, 286. 
 Conclave of 1523, 288-290. 
 Condivi, 305. 
 
 Constantine, 118, 226, 296. 
 Cornaro, Cardinal, 187, 189, 197, 208, 
 
 209. 
 
 Council of Lateran, 72, 119, 258. 
 Council of Pisa and Milan (Concilia- 
 
 bulo), 68, 73, 81. 
 Creighton, Bishop Mandell, 134. 
 Cromwell, Thomas, 335. 
 Cupid, 181, 233, 234. 
 Cybo, Francesco, 13, 49, 252. 
 Cybo, Giambattista, see Innocent VIII.
 
 INDEX 
 
 355 
 
 Cybo, Cardinal Innocenzo, 179, 189, 
 
 igi, 204, 207, 240, 243, 246. 
 Cybo, Cardinal Lorenzo, 20, 36. 
 
 DANDOLO, Matteo, 197. 
 
 Dante, 202. 
 
 Delia Rovere, Francesco, see Sixtus IV. 
 
 Delia Rovere, Francesco-Maria, see 
 Urbino, Duke of. 
 
 Delia Rovere, Giulio, see Julius II. 
 
 Delia Robbia, Luca, 232. 
 
 Demetrius of Chalcedon, 161. 
 
 Diana, 206. 
 
 Donatello, 86, 145, 242. 
 
 Dovizi, Cardinal Bernardo da Bibbiena, 
 X 4> 53> 82, 106, 138, 142, 143, 175, 
 176, 185, 186, 188, 189, 191,207, 226, 
 227, 233, 234, 240, 245, 247, 258. 
 
 Duprat, Chancellor of France, 148, 152. 
 
 EGIDIUS of Viterbo, 77, 256. 
 Elizabeth, Duchess of Urbino, 155. 
 Emblems of the Medici family, 18, 97, 
 
 122, 230. 
 
 Erasmus, 61, 166, 167. 
 Este, Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, 63, 67, 
 
 69, 72, 101, 124, 149, 152, 311. 
 Este, Beatrice, 48. 
 Este, Ferrante, 185. 
 Este, Cardinal Ippolito, 89, 106, 189. 
 Este, Isabella, Marchioness of Mantua, 
 
 76, 176, 185-191, 315, 316. 
 
 FABRONI, Angelo, 10. 
 
 Falloppio of Modena, 208. 
 
 Farnese, Cardinal Alessandro (after- 
 wards Pope Paul III.), 108, 113, 193, 
 201, 204, 205, 2.S6'28g, 300, 342, 343. 
 
 Farnese, Pier-Luigi, 203, ^05. 
 
 Ferdinand, King of Naples, 35, 38, 40. 
 
 Ferdinand the Catholic, King of Spain, 
 79, 81, 134, 140, 151, 156, 157. 
 
 Ferruccio, Federigo, 327. 
 
 Fetti, Fra Mariano, 173, 174, 179, 186, 
 199, 205, 209, 270, 271. 
 
 Ficino, Marsilio, 7, 18. 
 
 Filiberta of Savoy, 138. 
 
 Fleurange, Seigneur de, 260. 
 
 Flodden, battle of, 137. 
 
 Foxe, Dr. Edward, 325. 
 
 Fracastoro, 164. 
 
 France, Mary Tudor, Queen of, 138. 
 
 Franciotto, Cardinal, 53, 54. 
 
 Francis I., King of France, 129, 138-141, 
 148, 150-152, 154, 225, 252, 259, 266, 
 267, 271, 273, 286, 291, 302, 307, 308, 
 326, 334, 337-339- 
 
 Frangipani, family of, 117. 
 
 Fredis, Felice de', 153, 154. 
 Frosinone, battle of, 311, 312. 
 Frundsberg, Georg von, 310-313. 
 
 GAETANI, family of, 117. 
 
 Gardiner, Dr. Stephen, 325. 
 
 Gaston de Foix, 67, 69, 70, 139. 
 
 Gavinana, battle of, 327. 
 
 Gheri, Goro, 260. 
 
 Giacomo da Brescia, 105. 
 
 Giacomo del Duca, 136. 
 
 Gian-Battista da Vercelli, 249, 254. 
 
 Giberti, Matteo, 311. 
 
 Giorgi, Marino, 142, 143. 
 
 Gonsalvo da Cordova, 50. 
 
 Gonzaga, Cardinal Ercole, 316. 
 
 Gonzaga, Federigo, 70. 
 
 Gonzaga, Cardinal Ghismondo, 106, 
 
 108. 
 Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, 46, 76, 
 
 185- 
 
 Gorini, Simonetta, 246. 
 Gozzoli, Benozzo, 5. 
 Gradasso da Norcia, 296. 
 Grammont, Cardinal, 337. 
 Grapaldo of Parma, 206. 
 Grassis, Paris de, 101, 113, 119, 150, 
 
 196, 236, 268, 269, 282. 
 Gregory VII., Pope, 133. 
 Gregory of Casale, 326, 342. 
 Guasti, Cesare, 89. 
 Guicciardini, Francesco, 103, 109, 141, 
 
 163, 166, 167, 247, 254, 280, 283, 289, 
 
 291. 
 
 HADRIAN, 318, 323. 
 
 Henry IV., King of France, 349. 
 
 Henry VII., King of England, 134, 
 
 270. 
 Henry VIII., King of England, 134, 
 
 137, 138, 166, 286, 291,325, 333, 334, 
 
 34- 
 
 Hercules. 145, 180. 
 Horace, 165. 
 
 INGHIRAMI, Tommaso, 53. 
 
 Innocent III., Pope, 118. 
 
 Innocent VIII., Pope, 12-16, 21, 34, 
 
 194, 246. 
 
 Isabella, Duchess of Milan, 48. 
 Isimbardi, Ottaviano, 74, 75, 77. 
 lulus, 225. 
 
 JAMES IV., King of Scotland, 137. 
 
 Jews of Rome, 125, 321. 
 
 Jovius (Paolo Giovio), 4, 49, 53, 66, 67, 
 
 77, 170, 178, 199, 203, 209, 213, 271, 
 
 280, 297, 317, 319.
 
 356 
 
 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 Julius II., Pope (Giuliano Delia 
 Rovere), 20, 35, 49, 50, 55-58, 60-64, 
 79, 82, 91, 100-104, 194, 216, 221, 
 222, 227, 228, 254, 255, 267, 282, 292, 
 304, 321. 
 
 LANCETTO, 208, 209. 
 
 Landsknechts, 310-313, 319, 320. 
 
 Landu:ci Luca, 18, 43, no, 146, 147. 
 
 Lanfredini, 13. 
 
 Lang, Cardinal Matthew, 81, 98. 
 
 Lannoy, 310, 311, 313. 
 
 Lanzi, 232, 233. 
 
 Laocoon, the, 153, 154. 
 
 La Pallice, 67. 71, 72. 
 
 Lascaris, John, 169. 
 
 Lauremian Library, 4, 162, 303, 304. 
 
 Lautrec, 65, 67. 
 
 League of Cambrai, 62, 157. 
 
 Leigue, Holy, 66, 80. 
 
 Leda, 299. 
 
 Leo. St., 223 
 
 Leo III., Pope, 153, 225. 
 
 Leo IV., Pope, 225, 2^6. 
 
 LEO X., I'ope (Giovanni di Lorenzo 
 de' Medici), Career of: Second son 
 of Lorenzo the Magnificent, 2 ; his 
 birth in Palazzo Medici in Florence, 
 5 ; his brot icrs and sisters, 6 ; his 
 early recollections, 7 ; has Politian 
 for his tutor, 8, 9 ; receives the ton- 
 sure and is granted preferment, 9, 
 10 ; is nominated by Innocent VIII. 
 Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria in 
 Domenica, 13 ; certain conditions 
 imposed by the Pope, 14 ; he publicly 
 receives the scarlet hat, 16-18 ; his 
 personal appearance in his youth, 19 ; 
 he sets out for Rome, 19 ; his letter 
 to his father, 21, 22 ; he receives an 
 important letter from the Magnificent 
 Lorenzo, 23 ; is invested with lega- 
 tine authority in Tuscany, 30 ; his 
 letter to his elder brother Piero de 1 
 Medici, 31, 32 ; attends the conclave 
 which elects Alexander VI., 35 ; re- 
 turns to Florence, 36 ; his brave 
 conduct prior to the expulsion of the 
 Medici, 42 ; crosses the Apennines in 
 disguise and finds safety in Bologna, 
 43 ; blood-money is placed on his 
 head by the Florentine Republic, 44; 
 he is joined by his cousin Giulio, 46 ; 
 sets out with a party of friends to 
 travel in Northern Europe, 47 ; his 
 interview with the Emperor Maxi- 
 milian, 48 ; meets with the future 
 Julius II. at Savona, 49; by Piero's 
 
 death he becomes the acknowledged 
 head of his family. 53 ; his friendship 
 with Cardinal Franciotto, 53, 54 ; 
 makes his palace in Rome a literary 
 and artistic centre, 54 ; his extrava- 
 gance, 55 ; contrast between him and 
 Julius II., 57, 58; accompanies 
 Julius II. on his campaigns, 59-62 ; 
 is appointed one of the judges of the 
 Duke of Urbino's conduct, 65 ; is 
 nominated Cardinal-Legate of 
 Bologna, 65, 66; is present at the 
 battle of Ravenna, 67, 68 ; is made 
 prisoner by the French. 70 ; is sent 
 to Bologna, and thence to Modena 
 and Milan, 72 ; his difficult position 
 at Milan, 72; his successful attempt 
 at escape, 74-76; importance of this 
 incident, 77 ; his efforts for a 
 Medicean restoration in Florence. 82 ; 
 enters Florentine territory with the 
 Spanish army of Cardona, 83 ; his 
 former connection with Prato, 86 ; 
 criticism of his conduct during the 
 siege and sack of Prato. 87-92 ; his 
 state entry into Florence, 96 ; his 
 measures for the government of 
 Florence, 96-98 ; he sets out to attend 
 the conclave in Rome, 99 ; he arrives 
 in Rome ill, 105 ; he is elected Pope 
 under the title of Leo X., 106-108; 
 Guicciardmi's account of the new 
 Pontiff, 109 ; his general appearance 
 at this period, in, 112: he is crowned 
 in St. Peter's, 113 ; his splendid pro- 
 cession to the Lateran, 124-127 ; 
 speculation as to his foreign and 
 domestic policy, 129, 130; his aims 
 in Italy, 131, 132; his policy abroad, 
 J 33 I 34! his popularity in Rome, 
 136; his letters to Henry VIII. of 
 England and other European princes, 
 137 ; his alarm at the invasion of 
 Italy by Francis I. of France, 140; 
 his secret instructions to Lorenzo de' 
 Medici and to Cardinal Schinner 
 before the battle of Marignano, 141 ; 
 his altercation with the Venetian 
 envoy, 142, 143 ; he decides to hold 
 a conference with King Francis, 151, 
 152 ; enters Florence amid public 
 rejoicings, 144-147 ; he proceeds to 
 Bologna, 149, 150; his meeting with 
 King Francis, 151, 152 ; returns to 
 Florence, 154 ; arrives in Rome, 156 ; 
 his grief at his brother's death, 157; 
 his action against the Duke of Urbino, 
 158 ; he drives out Francesco-Maria
 
 INDEX 
 
 357 
 
 Delia Rovere and proclaims his own 
 nephew Lorenzo Duke of Urbino, 159 ; 
 his patronage of scholars and poets, 
 of whom he is the papal Maecenas, 
 162-167; his delight in musicians, 
 improvvisatori and buffoons, 167, 168 ; 
 his love of practical jesting, 168-172 ; 
 his friendship with Fra Mariano 
 Fetti, 173 ; his patronage of the 
 drama, 174-180; witnesses moresche 
 and processions, 180, 181 ; his thrift- 
 lessness and lavish expenditure, 182- 
 185; he entertains Isabella of Mantua, 
 185-191 ; his love of the chase, 192, 
 193 ; his life at the Villa Magliana, 
 194-196 ; his hunting and fishing ex- 
 peditions, 19^-202; his portrait in 
 the poems of Molosso and Postumo, 
 203-210 ; criticism of his conduct, 
 211-214; his patronage of Raphael 
 and Michelangelo, 215-217; his 
 treatment of the latter, 217-219; his 
 constant employment of Raphael at 
 the Vatican, 219237; his regret at 
 Raphaels death, 240; his portrait 
 painted by Raphael, 242, 243 ; his un- 
 popularity with the Cardinals, 245, 
 246 ; he legitimises his cousin Giulio 
 de' Medici and creates him a Cardinal, 
 247 ; he is menaced by Petrucci's 
 plot, 248-250 ; his creation of thirty- 
 one Cardinals, 255-257 ; his ambitious 
 schemes for the papal nephew, 258, 
 259 ; his hopes shattered by the early 
 death of Lorenzo de' Medici, 264; 
 consequent effect on his foreign 
 policy, 265, 266 ; he forms a definite 
 alliance with the Emperor Charles V., 
 267 ; his sudden illness and its cause, 
 
 269, 270; his death at the Vatican, 
 
 270, 271 ; his burial in St. Peter's, 
 273 ; suspicion of poisoning, 273, 
 274 ; his monument in Santa Maria 
 sopra Minerva, 275, 276; estimate 
 and criticism of his character, public 
 and private, 277-284. 
 
 Leo XI., Pope (Alessandro de' Medici), 
 
 348-350. 
 Lica, 208. 
 Licaba, 208. 
 Lionardo da Vinci, 216. 
 Lippi, Fra Lippo, 86. 
 Lomellino, no. 
 Louis XI., King of France, 9. 
 Louis XII., King of France, 48, 60, 71, 
 
 80, 129, 134, 137, 138, 224. 
 Louis XIV., 161. 
 Lucretia, 162, 351, 352. 
 Luther, Martin, 181, 256, 284, 321, 323. 
 
 MACHIAVELLI, Niccolo, 2, 6, 39, 59, 83, 
 
 85, 88, 93, 103, 133, 159, 163, 166, 167, 
 
 I 75, 177. J 7 8 . 262, 26 3, 279, 297, 343. 
 
 Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, 258, 
 
 260, 261. 
 
 Madonna dell' Impruneta, no. 
 Malespina, 76, 273. 
 Mantegna, 34. 
 
 Manuel I., King of Portugal, 170, 256. 
 Marcus Aurelius, 126. 
 Margaret of Austria, 331-333. 
 Marguerite de Valois, 139, 140. 
 Marignano, battle of, 140, 141, 143. 
 Marone da Brescia, 167, 168. 
 Martin IV., Pope, 202. 
 Marzocco, 11, 145. 
 Masaccio, '.3. 
 Maxentius, 295. 
 Maximilian, Emperor, 47, 48, 51, 79, 81, 
 
 130, 134, 137, 140, 149, 266, 295. 
 MEDICI, members of the House of 
 Alessandro, Duke of Florence, 266, 
 
 288, 313, 323, 328-332. 
 Alessandro, see Leo XI. 
 Bernadetto, 348. 
 Bernardino, 347. 
 
 Caterina (afterwards Queen of 
 France), 261, 262, 264, 265, 288, 
 
 302, 313, 330, 331, 337-339- 
 Clarice, 51, 314, 329, 345. 
 Contessina, 6, 127, 257. 
 
 Cosimo il Vecchio, 4, 260, 264, 265. 
 Cosimo I., Grand-Duke of Tuscany, 
 
 51, 257, 304, 305. 
 Giambuono, 347. 
 Gian-Angelo, see Pius IV. 
 Gian-Giacomo, Marquis of Meleg- 
 
 nano, 347. 
 
 GIOVANNI, see LEO X. 
 Giovanni delle Bande Nere, 304, 
 
 3- 
 
 Giulia, 348. 
 Giuliano the Elder, 7, 246, 292, 
 
 303, 343- 
 
 Giuliano the Younger, 6, 41, 46, 81, 
 91, 95, 96, 134-138, 141, 148, 152, 
 155-157, 184, 185, 261, 262, 303. 
 
 GIULIO, see CLEMENT VII. 
 
 Ippolito, Cardinal, 153, 156, 226, 
 266, 275, 288, 296, 313, 323,328- 
 330, 34, 345- 
 
 Lorenzo I. (II Magnifico), 3, 6, 7, 
 10-13, 15, 21-27, 2 9> 3 2 > 74> 97i 
 131, 144, 169, 173, 180, 211, 218, 
 260, 284, 303. 
 
 Lorenzo II., Duke of Urbino, 51, 
 84, 96, 107, 124, 134, 140, 148, 
 155. 157-159, 188, 245, 258-263, 
 266, 303, 329.
 
 358 
 
 THE MEDICI POPES 
 
 MEDICI, members of the House of cont. 
 
 Lucrezia, 6, 271. 
 
 Luisa, 6. 
 
 Maddalena, 6, 49. 
 
 Ottaviano, 348, 349. 
 
 Piero I. (II Gottoso), 3. 
 
 Piero II. (II Pazzo), 6, 29, 32, 33, 
 
 38-41, 50, 51, 262, 329. 
 Michelangelo Buonarotti, 2, 85, 136, 
 162, 216-219, 227, 241, 258, 262, 293, 
 299, 302-306. 
 Michelet, Jean, 139, 142. 
 Michelozzi, Michelozzo, 4. 
 Michiel, Marcantonio, 241. 
 Minerva, 120, 207, 275. 
 Molosso, Baldassare (alias Tranquillo), 
 
 203-210. 
 
 Molza of Modena, 164, 207. 
 Moncada, 309. 
 
 Montefeltre of Urbino, 46, 158, 220. 
 Moro de' Nobili, 260. 
 
 NARDI, Jacopo, 88. 
 
 Navarro, Pedro, 66, 72, 140. 
 
 Nemours, Duke of, see Medici, Giuliano 
 
 de'. 
 
 Nero, 211. 
 
 Nicholas V., Pope, 282. 
 Novara, battle of, 132, 137, 223. 
 Noyon, treaty of, 157. 
 
 ORANGE, Philibert, Prince of, 304, 312, 
 317, 322, 327. 
 
 Orlando, 253. 
 
 Orleans, Duchess of, 138. 
 
 Orleans, Duke of, 138. 
 
 Orleans, Duke of (Henri de Valois, after- 
 wards Henry II. of France), 337-339. 
 
 Orsini, family of, 117, 195. 
 
 Orsini, Alfonsina, 32, 38, 156, 261. 
 
 Orsini, Cardinal, 210. 
 
 Orsini, Clarice, 5, 6, 8, 9. 
 
 Orsini, Giulio, 123. 
 
 Orsini, Valeric, 209. 
 
 Ottaviani, 231. 
 
 PALLESCHI, 40, 92, 94, 96, 109. 
 Pallone, game of, 32. 
 Paolucci, Alfonso, 179, 180. 
 Passerini, Cardinal, 264, 313, 323. 
 Pastor, Professor Ludwig, 277, 284. 
 Paul III., Pope, see Farnese. 
 Pavia, battle of, 307, 308. 
 Pazzi, family of, 7, 246, 251. 
 Penni, Gian-Francesco, 295. 
 Penni, Gian-Giacomo, 127. 
 Perugino, 220, 221, 288. 
 
 Peruzzi, Baldassare, 135, 174, 176, 177, 
 179, 221. 
 
 Pescara, Marquis of, 267. 
 
 Petrarch, 169, 170. 
 
 Petrucci, Cardinal Alfonso, 106, 123, 
 127, 155, 189, 191, 204, 248-254, 284. 
 
 Petrucci, Borghese, 248. 
 
 Petrucci, Cardinal Raffaele, 248, 256. 
 
 Philip, Don, 48. 
 
 Philomus, in. 
 
 Piacentino, Fra, 270. 
 
 Piagnoni, no, 173. 
 
 Piatese, 70. 
 
 Piccolomini, see Pius II. and Pius III. 
 
 Pico della Mirandola, 7, 16. 
 
 Pistofilo, 89. 
 
 Pius II., Pope (-(Eneas Silvius Piccolo- 
 mini), 15, 50. 
 
 Pius III., Pope (Francesco Piccolomini), 
 20, 50. 
 
 Pius IV., Pope (Gian-Angelo Medici), 
 
 347, 348. 
 
 Pius VII., Pope, 294. 
 Plato, 37, 228. 
 Plautus, 136. 
 Poco-in-testa, 249, 254. 
 Politian (Angelo Poliziano), 7-9,37, 161. 
 Primiero, game of, 184. 
 Psyche, 234. 
 Ptolemy, 239. 
 Pucci, Cardinal, 98, 123, 245, 318. 
 
 QUERNO, Camillo, 168, 171. 
 
 RAMAZOTTO, 96. 
 
 Rangone, Bianca, 72, 256. 
 
 Rangone, Cardinal Ercole, 207, 256. 
 
 Ranke, Leopold, 344. 
 
 Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino), 
 103, 104, 146, 153, 167, 179, 186, 194, 
 215-217, 219-243, 284, 292-294. 
 
 Ravenna, battle of, 67, 71, 114, 124. 
 
 Renzo da Ceri, 315, 318. 
 
 Rhodes, Knights of, 46, 122, 287, 314. 
 
 Riario, Cardinal, 20, 106-108, 186, 187, 
 245, 248, 251-254, 288, 299. 
 
 Richmond, Duke of, 333. 
 
 Ridoln, family of, 6, 123. 
 
 Ridolfi, Cardinal, 207, 257. 
 
 Romano, Giulio, 226, 293, 296, 299. 
 
 Roscoe, William, 10, 162, 213, 263. 
 
 Rossi, Cardinal, 243, 257. 
 
 Rucellai, Giovanni, 175. 
 
 Rucellai, Palla, 338. 
 
 Rufus, King William, 214. 
 
 SACRO Possesso, procession of, 114, 
 119-127, 182, 224.
 
 INDEX 
 
 359 
 
 Sadoleto, Jacopo, 146, 164, 207, 281. 
 Salviati, family of, 92, 123, 183. 
 Salviati, Cardinal, 180, 207, 257, 301. 
 Salviati, Jacopo, 16, 257. 
 Salviati, Maria, 338. 
 San Gallo, Antonio da, 275, 343. 
 San Gallo, Francesco da, 51. 
 Sannazzaro, 146, 164, 272. 
 Sanseverino, Cardinal, 68, 71, 73, 100, 
 
 199, 204, 206. 
 Sansovino, Jacopo, 145. 
 Sarpi, Fra Paolo, 282. 
 Sarto, Andrea del, 145, 146, 153. 
 Sauli, Cardinal, 121, 155, 248, 250, 252, 
 
 253- 
 
 Savelli, Luca, 87. 
 Savonarola, Girolamo, 2, 36-38, 139, 
 
 173- 
 
 Schinner, Cardinal, 63, 140, 141. 
 Sebastiano del Piombo, 219, 305. 
 Segni, Bernardo, 345. 
 Serapica (Giovanni Lazzaro de Magis- 
 
 tris), 146, 148, 200, 204, 205, 234, 
 
 274. 
 Sforza, Cardinal Ascanio, 13, 20, 34, 
 
 193- 
 
 Sforza, Ludovico, 38, 39. 
 Sforza, Maximilian, 137, 140, 141. 
 Silvester, or Postumo, 207, 208. 
 Sixtus IV., Pope (Francesco Delia 
 
 Rovere), 10, 12, 20, 235, 251. 
 Socrates, 228. 
 Soderini, Cardinal, 106, 107, 150, 245, 
 
 248, 251, 285, 287, 289, 290. 
 Soderini, Gian-Vittorio, 81. 
 Soderini, Piero, 80, 81, 83-85, 92, 93. 
 Sodoma, 221. 
 Soriano, 333. 
 Spagna Lo, 194. 
 Speroni, 273, 274. 
 Spurs, battle of the, 137. 
 Stanza, Simone, 16. 
 Stefano di Castrocaro, 30. 
 Strozzi, family of, 92, 123, 183. 
 Strozzi, Filippo, 51, 314, 323, 328. 
 
 Swiss Guard, 63, 124, 296. 
 Sylvester, Pope and Saint, 118, 296. 
 
 TAGLIACARNE, 216. 
 Tebaldeo, 164, 207. 
 Tiresia, 210. 
 Titus, 117, 153. 
 Tornabuoni, family of, 123. 
 Tornabuoni, Lucrezia, 8. 
 Torrigiano, 270. 
 Tournon, Cardinal, 337. 
 Trissino, Gian-Giorgio, 175. 
 Trivulzi, Gian Giorgio, 76, 140. 
 Turks, 130, 152. 
 
 UDINE, Giovanni da, 231-233, 293, 303, 
 
 306. 
 
 Ulrich von Hutten, 259. 
 University of Rome, 163. 
 Urban IV., Pope, 163. 
 Urbino, Duke of (Francesco-Maria 
 
 Delia Rovere), 64, 65, 82, 123, 151- 
 
 153, 155. l8 9, 245, 273, 308, 314, 317, 
 
 323- 
 Urbino, war of, 159, 245, 248, 256. 
 
 VAILA, battle of, 62, 157. 
 
 Valeriano, 104. 
 
 Vasari, Giorgio, 9, 18, 147, 148, 176, 
 
 177, 223, 233, 236, 237, 257, 295, 
 
 332- 
 
 Vasco da Gama, 33. 
 Venus, 121, 181, 233, 234. 
 Vergil, 164, 165. 
 Vettori, Francesco, 96, 103, 183, 274, 
 
 279. 
 
 Vida, 164, 207. 
 
 Villari, Professor Pasquale, 279. 
 Volpato, 251. 
 
 WOLSEY, Cardinal, 245, 286, 289. 
 YVES d' Allegre, 66, 67. 
 ZAZZI, Rinaldo, 74-76.
 
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