Franz Xaver Kraus

“ Sadoleto went to Carpentras; and Bembo, who thought Adrian's pontificate even more unfortunate than Leo's death, stayed quietly in northern Italy. Evidently no one had confidence in the permanency of a state of things which could not but appear abnormal to everybody. And indeed, the silent, pedantic Dutchman, with his cold nature, his ignorance of Italian, his handful of servants, "Flemings stupid as a stone," was the greatest possible contrast to everything that the refinement of Italian culture and the well-justified element of Latin grace and charm demanded of a prince. ”

“ On the 18th of August, 1503, after a sudden and mysterious illness Alexander VI had departed this life—to the unspeakable joy of all Rome, as Guicciardini assures us. Crowds thronged to see the dead body of the man whose boundless ambition, whose perfidy, cruelty, and licentiousness coupled with shameless greed had infected and poisoned all the world. ”

“ The characters of both Medici Popes are wonderfully conceived in Raffaelle's portraits: in Leo's otherwise intellectual face there is a vulgarity that almost degenerates into coarseness and sensuality, and with Clement the cold soul, lacking all strong feeling, distrustful, never unfolding itself. "In spite of all his talents," said Francesco Vettori, "he brought the greatest misery on Rome and on himself; he lost courage at once and let go the rudder." Guicciardini too complains of Giulio's faintheartedness, vacillation and indecision as the chief source of his misfortune. ”

“ St Peter's thus, in the development planned by Julius, presented the most perfect picture of the majestic extension of the Church; but the paintings and decorations of the palace typified the conception of Christianity, humanity led to Christ, the evolution and great destiny of His Church, and lastly the spiritual empire in which the Pope, along with the greatest thinkers of his time, beheld the goal of the Renaissance and the scheme of a new and glorious future, showing Christianity in its fullest realisation. ”

“ He was by no means illiterate, but in the pagan and sensual tendency of humanist literature and in the voluptuous freedom of art he saw the source of evil, and in Lorenzo and his sons pernicious patrons of corruption. Zeal against the immorality of the time, the worldliness of prelates and preachers, made him overlook the lasting gains that the Renaissance and humanism brought to humanity. He had no sympathy with this development of culture from the fresh young life of his own people. He did not understand the Young Italy of his day ”

“ Talented natures too easily fall victims to megalomania, and by extravagant and ill-considered projects and undertakings drag their age with them into an abyss of ruin. Weak and sensual natures give themselves up to enjoyment, and consider the highest power merely as a licence to make merry. Leo was not a coarse voluptuary like Alexander VI, but he certainly was an intellectual Epicurean such as has seldom been known. Extremes should be avoided in forming a judgment of the pontificate and character of this prince. ”

“ He too, despite his immense erudition, his deep insight, left the world to its own devices when it required a mediator; for a gentle and negative criticism of human folly is, taken by itself, of little value.
Adrian could neither gain the mastery over Luther's Reformation, nor succeed in reforming even the Roman Curia, to say nothing of the whole Church. The luxurious Cardinals went on with their pleasant life; when he came to die they demanded his money and treated him, as the Duke of Sessa expressed it, like a criminal on the rack. ”

“ The discovery of man since Dante and Giotto, the discovery of Nature by the naturalism of Florence, the revival of classical studies, and the reawakening of the antique in Art and Literature are its component parts; but its essence can only be grasped if we regard the Renaissance as the blossoming and unfolding of the mind of the Italian people. The early Renaissance was indeed the Vita Nuova of the nation. It is an error to believe that it was in opposition to the Church. Art and the artists of the thirteenth century recognised no such opposition. ”

“ Nothing could be more unjust than to deny that Giovanni de' Medici himself had a highly cultured mind and an excellent knowledge of literature. It may be that Lorenzo had destined him for the Papacy from his birth; certainly he gave him the most liberal education. He gave him Poliziano, Marsilio, Pico della Mirandola, Johannes Argyropoulos, Gentile d' Arezzo for his teachers and constant companions, and, to teach him Greek, Demetrius Chalcondylas and Petrus Aegineta. ”

“ He was the Pope's confidant and quite at home in all those political intrigues which later under Leo X brought ruin upon him. His book can only be regarded as a blow aimed at Julius II, Alexander's old enemy, who now wore the tiara and was preparing to glorify his pontificate by the highest effort of which Christian art was capable. Providence had granted him for the execution of his plans three of the greatest minds the world of art has ever known: never had a monarch three such men as Bramante, Michelangelo, and Raffaelle at once under his sway. ”

“ The moment demanded a Pope who could reconcile and unite all the great and valuable elements of the Italian Renaissance, the ripened fruit of the modern thought sprung from Dante and Petrarch, with the conceptions and conscience of the Germanic world. Both the German professors who now posed as leaders of Christendom, Adrian Dedel and Martin Luther, were lacking in the historic and aesthetic culture which would have enabled them to understand the value of Roman civilisation. ”

“ Not the objective historian, but the flattering politician, spoke in Erasmus when he lauded the three great benefits which Leo had conferred on humanity: the restoration of peace, of the sciences, and of the fear of God. It was a groundless suspicion that overshot the mark, when Martin Luther accused Leo of disbelief in the immortality of the soul; and John Bale (1574) spread abroad the supposed remark of the Pope to Bembo: "All ages can testifye enough, how profitable that fable of Christ has been to us and our compagnie." ”

“ Leo, noble by birth and education, brought many aptitudes to the Papacy, especially a remarkable knowledge of classical literature, humanity, kindness, the greatest liberality, an avowed intention of supporting artists and learned men, who for many years had enjoyed no such favour in the Holy See. He would have made an ideal Pope had he added to these qualities some knowledge of the things of religion, and a little more inclination to piety, both of them things for which he cared little. ”

“ We can even mark a narrower limit, and say that the four wall-paintings of the Stanza della Segnatura mark the point at which medieval and modern thought touch one another; the narrow medieval world ceases, the modern world stands before us developed in all its fulness and freedom. One may indeed doubt whether all the meaning of this contrast was quite clear to the mind of Julius II ”

“ This expansion and elevation of the intellectual sphere is the most glorious achievement of Julius II and of the Papacy at the beginning of modern times. It must not only be remembered, but placed in the most prominent position, when history sums up this chapter in human development. Since Luther's time it has been the custom to consider the Papacy of the Renaissance almost exclusively as viewed by theologians who emphasised only moral defects in the representatives of this institution and the neglect of ecclesiastical reform. ”

“ Although the Curia was not equal to its task, had Italy been still in a healthy state the nation and public opinion could have forced the Papacy into right courses. But here also corruption had long since set in. Strong moral force, such as proclaims itself in Dante, in Caterina of Siena, was gone from the people; they had but lately given its last prophet to the flames in the Piazza della Signoria at Florence. No nation can sin thus against its best men without punishment. ”

“ With regard to the political methods of Leo some difference of opinion may still be entertained. Some have seen in him the single-minded and unscrupulous friend of Medicean Florence, prepared to sacrifice alike the interests of the Church and of the Papacy to the advancement of his family. To others he is the clear-sighted statesman who, perceiving the future changes and difficulties of the Church, sought for the Papacy the firm support of a hereditary alliance.
Truth may lie midway between these two opinions. If we view Leo as a man, similar doubts encounter us. ”

“ The programme laid down by Julius II, had it been carried out, might have saved Italy and preserved the Catholic principle, when imperilled in the North. The task was to bring modern culture into harmony with Christianity, to unite the work of the Renaissance, so far as it was really sound and progressive, with ecclesiastical practice and tradition into one harmonious whole. The recognition of the rights of intellectual activity, of the ideal creations of human fancy, and of the conception of the State, were the basis for this union. ”

“ Perhaps the greatest misfortune lay and still lies, as Newman has said, in the fact that the Latin races never realised, and do not even yet realise, what they have lost in the Germanic races. From the time of Paul III, and still more from that of Paul IV onwards, the old Catholicism changes into an Italianism which adopts more and more the forms of the Roman Curialism. The idea of Catholicity, once so comprehensive, was sinking more and more into a one-sided, often despotic insistence on unity, rendered almost inevitable by the continual struggle with opponents. ”

“ If both of them went too far in their youthful enthusiasm and mysticism, and conceived Christianity almost as a continuation of Attic philosophy, this was an extravagance which left untouched the sincerity of their own belief, and from which Marsilio, when he grew older, attempted to free himself. Giovanni and Giulio de' Medici, son and nephew of Lorenzo, were both Marsilio's pupils. Both were destined to wear the tiara and took a decided part in the scheme for conciliating these contrasts, which Julius II set forth by means of Raffaelle's brush. ”

“ Leo had absorbed the culture of his time, but he did not possess the ability to look beyond that time. A diplomatist rather than a statesman, his creations were only the feats of a political virtuoso, who sacrificed the future in order to control the present. ”

“ For it is not the individual who decides in such matters; without being aware of it he is borne on by his time and must execute the task that history has laid upon him. Great men of all times are those who have understood the cry from the inmost heart of a whole nation or generation, and, consciously or unconsciously, have accomplished what the hour demanded.
It has been in like manner represented that literature passed through a golden age under Leo X ”

“ The Guelf movement of the Middle Ages, which had its home in the free States of Tuscany and North Italy, was dead and gone; it could no longer give life or withhold it. And the old Ghibelline principle was dead too. ”

“ But on the one hand it was of too short a duration to ripen any of its fruits, and on the other it failed, not only because of Italian corruption and the general dislike to foreigners, but also because the last Teutonic Pope could not comprehend the development of Italian culture, the right of the Latin world to its own characteristics, and the aesthetic interests swaying all minds south of the Alps. The predominance of the worldly and sensuous elements in life, in science, and even in art came into play ”

“ Savonarola's distrust of humanism and his harsh verdict on the extreme realism of contemporary art were not extinguished with his life. A few years later we find his thoughts worked out, or rather extended and distorted in literature. Castellesi (Adriano di Corneto) , formerly secretary to Alexander VI and created Cardinal May 31, 1503, wrote his De vera philosophia ex quattuor doctoribus Ecclesiae, in direct opposition to the Renaissance and humanism. The author represents every scientific pursuit, indeed all human intellectual life, as useless for salvation, and even dangerous. ”

“ It was another merit of Leo's that he established a Greek printing-press, which printed several books in 1517 and 1518. Chigi had some years before set up a Greek press in his palace, from which came the first Greek book printed in Rome, a Pindar, in 1515. The Pope himself kept up his interest in Greek studies, and retained as custodian of his private library one of the best judges of the Greek idiom, Guarino di Favera, who published the first Thesaurus linguae Graecae in 1496, and whom he nominated Bishop of Novara. ”

“ The opponents of the Popes of Avignon in reality only fought against their politics without paying any attention to the moral regeneration of Christendom. Theological science in the fifteenth century raised the standard of reform against the dependence of the Papacy, the triple Schism, and the disruption of the Church. ”

“ But in two ways his government shows undeniable progress: in the midst of constant tumult, during which without interruption tyranny succeeded to tyranny in the petty States, when for centuries neither life nor property had been secure, Cesare Borgia had established in the Romagna an ordered government, just and equal administration of the laws; provided suitable outlets for social forces, and brought back peace and security; and by laying out new streets, canals, and by other public works indicated the way to improve agriculture and increase manufacture. ”

“ He allowed Michelangelo to return to Florence, and, though he loaded Raffaelle with honours, it is a fact that he was five years behindhand with the payment of his salary as architect of St Peter's. A letter of Messer Baldassare Turini da Pescia turns on the ridiculous investiture of the jester Mariano with the tonaca of Bramante, performed by the Pope himself when Bramante was scarce cold in his grave. This leaves a most painful impression, and makes it very doubtful whether Leo ever took his patronage of the arts very seriously. ”

“ It was a necessary stage of the development which was to lead from realism dominant for a time to a union of the idealist and realist standpoints. Many of the Popes were entirely in sympathy with this Renaissance; several of them opposed the pagan and materialistic degeneration of Humanism, but none of them accused the art of the Renaissance of being inimical to Christianity. ”