Carlton Joseph Huntley Hayes

“ The expense of enlisting 10,000 Swiss was to be borne equally by pope and emperor. Charles took Florence and the Medici family under his protection and promised to punish all enemies of the Catholic faith. Leo agreed to invest Charles with Naples, to crown him emperor, and to aid in a war against Venice. It was provided that England and the Swiss might join the league. Henry VIII. announced his adherence in August. Francis I. had already begun war with Charles in Navarre, and in Italy, too, the French made the first hostile movement (23rd June 1521) . ”

“ In the past many conflicting estimates were made of the character and achievements of the pope during whose pontificate Protestantism first took form. More recent studies have served to produce a fairer and more honest opinion of Leo X. A report of the Venetian ambassador Marino Giorgi bearing date of March 1517 indicates some of his predominant characteristics:—“The pope is a good-natured and extremely free-hearted man, who avoids every difficult situation and above all wants peace; he would not undertake a war himself unless his own personal interests were involved; he loves learning ”

“ Guicciardini reckoned the cost of the war to Leo at the prodigious sum of 800,000 ducats. The new duke of Urbino was the Lorenzo de’ Medici to whom Machiavelli addressed The Prince. His marriage in March 1518 was arranged by the pope with Madeleine la Tour d’Auvergne, a royal princess of France, whose daughter was the Catherine de’ Medici celebrated in French history. The war of Urbino was further marked by a crisis in the relations between pope and cardinals. ”

“ He made his home with his elder brother Piero at Florence throughout the agitation of Savonarola and the invasion of Charles VIII. of France, until the uprising of the Florentines and the expulsion of the Medici in November 1494. While Piero found refuge at Venice and Urbino, Cardinal Giovanni travelled in Germany, in the Netherlands and in France. In May 1500 he returned to Rome, where he was received with outward cordiality by Alexander VI., and where he lived for several years immersed in art and literature. ”

“ The pope was greatly alarmed, and although he was then involved in war with France he sent about 30,000 ducats to the Hungarians. Leo treated the Uniate Greeks with great loyalty, and by bull of the 18th of May 1521 forbade Latin clergy to celebrate mass in Greek churches and Latin bishops to ordain Greek clergy. ”

“ Meanwhile he received a careful education at Lorenzo’s brilliant humanistic court under such men as Angelo Poliziano, the classical scholar, Pico della Mirandola, the philosopher and theologian, the pious Marsilio Ficino who endeavoured to unite the Platonic cult with Christianity and the poet Bernardo Dovizio Bibbiena. ”