kiss his feet! All, for it is ill voting against a man to-day who is to be the despotic master of your fate and fortunes on the morrow! And on the following morning Giovanni de' Medici walked forth from the scrutiny duly elected without a dissentient voice.

A very decently conducted election! For no human ear heard what passed between the gay and gallant young Medicean Cardinal and that infamous and needy spendthrift the Cardinal Riario, of whose modes of life something has already been said in these pages. No indiscretest of conclavists has ventured to whisper that the universal bishoprick of souls was then bought and sold. But I will here again venture to quote from a volume of my own on the life of a contemporary, connection, and friend of the new Pope, Filippo Strozzi. "The Cardinal was accompanied," I wrote, "on his hurried journey to Rome" (from Florence, on the occa-. sion of the death of Julius II.) "by Filippo Strozzi. What on earth could a grave Churchman, going on such a mission, want of such a companion as the gay, handsome, pleasure-seeking young banker? Some silverhaired and venerable confessor, who should have beguiled the way by his exhortations as to the awful nature of the responsibilities the Cardinal was hoping to assume-such an one, it might have been supposed, would be the companion of a dignified priest bound on such an errand. But a dissipated young banker! Yet the young banker's brother, disciple of austere Savonarola as he was, tells us as simply as if it were the most ordinary business in the world what Filippo went to Rome for with the Cardinal. "Inasmuch as the latter

aspired not without good reason to the Papacy, it was likely enough that he might have to avail himself of Filippo's credit! So that it seems to have been quite as much a recognised thing, even among the strictest, in those admirable 'ages of faith,' that a candidate for heaven's vicegerency should come up to Rome with his banker to support him, as that in our days a candidate should seek similar aid in presenting himself to a select borough constituency." But the simoniacal Pope Julius's solemn Bull against simony had been solemnly read in this the Conclave immediately following his death; and the authoritative French Church historian, † quoted in a former chapter, assures us that the Holy Ghost has effectually provided that no case has ever arisen calling for the penalties fulminated by sundry Popes besides Julius against simony!

Leo X. reigned eight years and eight months, and died somewhat suddenly, not without very strong reasons for believing that he was poisoned.‡ The Venetian ambassador believed it; and the Pope's physician, Bernardino Speroni, was a subject of Venice and in confidential intercourse with the ambassador.

The interregnum which succeeded the death of Leo was, as on former occasions, a time of trouble. But already the nature of the troubles begins to wear a more modern aspect. The interval between the death of the Pope and the entry of the cardinals into Conclave was

"Life of Filippo Strozzi," by his brother Lorenzo, p. xxxiv. † Heuri de Spond, generally quoted as Spondanus.

See the very curious particulars recorded in the summary of Luigi Graderigo's (the Venetian ambassador) report to the Senate (Relat. Ambas. Ven., series ii. vol. iii. p. 71).

prolonged beyond the prescribed time; Leo having died on the 1st of December, and the Conclave not having been begun till the 27th. Despite the immense sums which Leo had received mainly from the sale of profitable offices, he left the Papal treasury absolutely empty at his death. There was not even money enough to pay the expenses of his funeral. And the Papal palace was stripped of everything of value, the moment the breath was out of his body, by his sister, who had been living in the Vatican.t The wax candles that had been prepared for the funeral of the Cardinal di San Giorgio, who died shortly before the Pope, were taken to serve for the Pope's obsequies, for there was no money to buy others. On the 14th the cardinals got a loan of two thousand ducats from the Jews on the security of the dues payable to the Sacred College; and they obtained a loan of a similar sum from Monsignore Tomaso Righi, the Clerk of the Chamber, which was advanced gratis. Other sums were borrowed on the above-named security. And, in truth, their Eminences were very hardly pressed for the means of carrying on the government of the city. Two noble barons of the Colonna family and two of the Orsini having been appointed as guardians of the Sacred Palace and Conclave during the interregnum, they came to the cardinals and declared that they could not undertake the duty unless six thousand ducats were paid them in advance, to which their Eminences were obliged to submit.

• And that quite recently. See the relation of the Venetian amba ssador, loc. cit.

↑ Ibidem.

On the 27th of December thirty-eight cardinals went into Conclave at the Vatican, but it was not till the 30th that the first scrutiny took place. The intervening time had been employed in receiving the envoys of the different Powers, and in making rules now observed for the first time as to the method of voting and the preparation of the voting papers. It was on this occasion finally decided that the voting should be secret, and the papers so arranged as to disclose the name of the person voted for without allowing the name of the voter, also written in the paper, to be seen. Minute precautions also were adopted to prevent fraud in giving the votes per accessum, as will be more fully explained in a future page. Besides the arrangement of these matters, after considerable debate, the Bull of Julius against simony was solemnly read, and all present swore by their hope of eternal salvation to observe its provisions to the letter! Then on the 30th the bargaining began, "without any reserve" (senza rispetto), says the Venetian ambassador.

The election in which this Conclave resulted was assuredly as pure from all taint of simony as any in the whole long roll of the Popes. But none the less did the Conclave reek with simony; only the chapmen in the field were so numerous that they spoiled the market, and rendered simony for once ineffective. Gradenigo, the Venetian ambassador, gives the process and result of the Conclave in compendious form thus: "All the cardinals received the Eucharist, and forthwith all began bargaining for the Papacy without any regard for decency. The cardinals in Conclave were thirty-eight;

fifteen of whom were in favour of Cardinal de' Medici, (Giulio de' Medici, afterwards Clement VII.*) and twenty-three against him; of which twenty-three eightteen wished each to be Pope himself. And after the first scrutiny the Cardinal Grimani, seeing that he had no chance, left the Conclave." (The conclavist, who has left a narrative of the Conclave, says that Grimani went out from the Conclave because his conscience revolted from the things he saw done there.) "The Cardinal Farnese" (he who was afterwards Paul III.) "had twenty-two votes; but the Cardinals Egidio and Colonna would not give him their votes. Had they done so, he would have been Pope. Farnese gave a promise to Medici to secure to him all he had, and to make him greater than ever. But the Cardinal Adrian, who was in Spain, was elected." But the conclavist, less exclusively interested in the result, gives at length the particulars of nine scrutinies which took place before the election was effected. It would be wearisome to give all these details of the various fluctuations of the votes among eighteen different names, most of which are now wholly forgotten. There absolutely were at least eighteen candidates, and the statement of the Venetian was no mere exaggerated phrase. At each new voting the numbers varied, and the chances of the election seemed to defy all prognostication. The only remaining interest in the facts, however, is this-that it was only as an escape from insoluble difficulties, and when their

* Sometimes called the cousin and sometimes the nephew of Leo X. He was in fact not legally related to him in any way, being of illegitimate birth. He was the son of the Giuliano who was killed in the conspiracy of the Pazzi.