pontiff. Of the elegance of his taste he had in his youth given a sufficient specimen in his poetical writings; but his riper years had been devoted to more serious studies; and Leo, who had long consulted him in matters of the first importance, availed himself greatly of his advice in selecting the other persons on whom it might be proper to confer this high dignity. The principal of the Dominicans, Tomaso de Vio, and of the Franciscans, Cristoforo Numalio, were also at the same time received into the college; and although this might be attributed to the wish of the pope to avoid the appearance of partiality to the Augustines, by the choice made of Egidio, yet it is acknowledged that they were men whose personal merits well entitled them to this distinction; and the former of them, who from the place of his birth was denominated the cardinal of Gaeta, or Cajetanus, soon afterwards acted an important part in the religious controversies which agitated the Christian world. Another distinguished person now elected into the college, was Lorenzo Campeggio of Bologna, who had already served the pontiff on several important embassies, and who was afterwards appointed legate to England, to decide, in conjunction with Wolsey, the great question of divorce between Henry VIII. and Catharine of Aragon; where he obtained, by the favour of that monarch, the episcopal see of Salisbury.* Among those whom Leo selected from his personal knowledge of their virtues and their acquirements, may also be enumerated Giovanni Picolomini, archbishop of Siena, a near relation of the pontiffs Pius II. and Pius III.; Niccolo Pandolfini of Florence; Alessandro Cesarini, bishop of Pistoja; Giovanni Domenico de' Cupi, and Andrea della Valle, both distinguished citizens of Rome; and Domenico Jacobatio, author of the celebrated treatise on the councils of the church, which is usually annexed to the general collection of those proceedings. Nor did Leo on this occasion forget his own relations, many of whom had long anxiously looked up to him for preferment, nor those stedfast friends, to whom, in the course of his eventful life, he had been so highly indebted. Among the former were Niccolo Ridolfi, Giovanni Salviati, and Luigi Rossi, the sons of three of his sisters, all of Ariosto denominates him the ornament and honour of the Roman senato; and Erasmus has addressed to him several letters, in terms of great respect. whom afterwards distinguished themselves as men of superior talents and munificent patrons of learning; but the last of these was the particular favourite of the pontiff, having been educated with him under the same roof, and his constant attendant through all his vicissitudes of fortune. In conferring the dignity of cardinal on Ercole Rangone, of Modena, Leo not only did credit to his judgment, on account of the eminent qualifications of that young nobleman, but gave a striking proof of his gratitude for the kindness shown him by Bianca Rangone, the mother of Ercole, when he was hurried by the French as a prisoner through Modena. Nor was this the only remuneration which that lady received from the pontiff; as he had already provided her with a suitable residence in Rome, and assigned to her use extensive gardens near the castle of S. Angelo. From a like grateful sense of favours, and on account of long attachments to his interests, Leo is supposed, on this occasion, to have distinguished Francesco Armellini of Perugia, Sylvio Passerini of Cortona, Bonifazio Ferreri of Vercelli, and Francesco de' Conti, and Paullo Emilio Cesio of Rome. Nor did he forget Raffaello Petrucci, whom he had lately established as chief of the republic at Siena, and on whom he had lavished many favours which might have been elsewhere much better bestowed. In order, however, to give greater splendour and celebrity to this extensive nomination, as well as to gratify the more distant states and sovereigns of Christendom by the adoption of their relations, or more illustrious citizens, into the sacred college, Leo selected from different parts of Europe several additional members, who were distinguished by their high birth or acknowledged talents. Of the royal family of France, he conferred this dignity on Louis of Bourbon; of whom it has been said, that the splendour of his virtues would have rendered him illustrious, had he been of the humblest origin. Emanuel, king of Portugal, was gratified by the adoption into the college of his son Alfonso, then only seven years of age; but this was accompanied by a restriction that he should not assume the insignia of his rank until he should attain his fourteenth year. The high reputation acquired by Adrian of Utretcht, the preceptor and faithful counsellor of Charles of Spain, afterwards emperor by the name of Charles V., recommended him on this occasion to the notice of the pontiff; whom, by a singular con currence of favourable circumstances, he succeeded in the course of a few years, in the apostolic chair. Gulielmo Raimondo Vick,* a native of Valencia, was selected from the kingdom of Spain. The families of Colonna and Orsini, which had been so frequently dignified with the honours of the church, received the highest proof of the pontifical favour in the persons of Pompejo Colonna and Franciotto Orsino. A yet more decisive partiality was shown to the family of Trivulzio, of which two members, Scaramuccio bishop of Como, and Agostino, were at the same time received into the college. The citizens of Venice and of Genoa were honoured by the nomination of Francesco Pisani, from among the former, and of Giovan-Battista Pallavicini, from the latter. For similar reasons, in all probability, Ferdinando Ponzetto, a Florentine citizen, was added to the number. An eminent historian has indeed informed us, that in many instances the pope had no other motive for conferring this high honour than the payment of a large sum of money;35 and if we consider the exhausted state of his treasury, by the expenses incurred in the war of Urbino, and other causes, it is by no means improbable that this information is well founded. This important and decisive measure, by which the pontiff diminished the influence of the cardinals then in the college, and called to his society and councils his confidential friends and relatives, may be regarded as the chief cause of the subsequent tranquillity and happiness of his life, and of the celebrity and splendour of his pontificate. Until this period, he had been constantly engaged in adverse undertakings or negotiations of peculiar difficulty, and surrounded with persons on whom he could place no well-founded reliance; but his contests with foreign powers were now terminated, if not wholly to his wishes, at least in such a manner as to allow him that relaxation which he had never before enjoyed; whilst his apprehensions of domestic danger were removed, or alleviated, by the constant presence of those friends whose fidelity he had before experienced. In the gratification of his natural propensity to liberality, and in the aggrandisement of his friends and favourites, he found an additional satisfaction, by contributing towards the respectability Fabron. Vita Leon. X. P. 125. and honour of that church, of which he was the chief, and which from this time displayed a degree of magnificence which had never before been equalled. The revenues of the numerous benefices, rich abbeys, and other ecclesiastical preferments bestowed upon each of the cardinals and great dignitaries of the church, frequently amounted to a princely sum, and a prelate was considered as comparatively poor, whose annual income did not amount to eight or ten thousand ducats. On the death of Sixtus della Rovere, the nephew of Sixtus IV.,36 in the year 1517, Leo appointed his cousin Giulio de' Medici vice-chancellor of the holy see; which office alone brought him the annual sum of twelve thousand ducats. Nor was it only from within the limits of Italy that the cardinals and prelates of the church derived their wealth and their dignities. All Europe was then tributary to the Roman see; and many of these fortunate ecclesiastics, whilst they passed their days amidst the luxuries and amusements of Rome, supported their rank, and supplied their dissipation, by contributions from the remotest parts of Christendom. The number of benefices held by an individual was limited only by the will of the pontiff; and by an ubiquity, which although abstractedly impossible, has been found actually and substantially true, the same person was frequently at the same time an archbishop in Germany, a bishop in France or England, an abbot or a prior in Poland or in Spain, and a cardinal at Rome. By the example of the supreme pontiff, who well knew how to unite magnificence with taste, the chiefs and princes of the Roman church emulated each other in the grandeur of their palaces, the sumptuousness of their apparel, the elegance of their entertainments, and the number and respectability of their attendants; nor can it be denied, that their wealth and influence were frequently devoted to the encouragement of the fine arts, and the remuneration of men of genius in every department of intellect. Soon after the creation of the new cardinals, such of them as resided in Rome were invited by the pontiff to a sumptuous entertainment in the apartments of the Vatican, which had then been recently ornamented by those exquisite productions of Raffaello d'Urbino, which have ever since been the theme of universal applause. The Roman citizens, who partook of the affluence the church, in a general abundance G of all the necessaries of life, re-echoed the praises of the pontiff; who by a liberal policy abrogated the monopolies by which they had been oppressed, and allowed all kinds of merchandise to be freely imported and exported throughout his dominions. Hence the city of Rome became a granary, always supplied with provisions, and was frequently chosen as a residence by mercantile men from other parts of Italy, who contributed by their wealth and industry to the general prosperity.37 Nor was this prosperity less promoted by the security which the inhabitants enjoyed from a strict and impartial administration of justice; it having been a maxim with the pontiff, not to endanger the safety and tranquillity of the good, by an ill-timed lenity towards the guilty. The happiness enjoyed by the Roman people during the remaining part of the life of Leo X. forms indeed the truest glory of his pontificate. That they were sensible of this happiness, appears not only from the sentiments of admiration and regret with which the golden days of Leo were referred to, by those who survived to experience the calamities of subsequent times, but from a solemn decree of the inhabitants, to perpetuate the remembrance of it by a statue of the pontiff, which was accordingly executed in marble by Domenico Amio, a disciple of Sansovini, and placed in the Capitol, with the following inscription: OPTIMO PRINCIPI. LEONI. X. MED. IOAN. PONT. MAX. OB. RE 3 TITVTAM. RESTAVRATAM Q. ARTES. ADSCITOS. PATRES. BVBLATVM. VECTIGAL.DA TVMQ CONGIARIUM. 8. P. 2. R. P. |