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LEO X. (OF ROME) 



LEO X. (OF ROME). 



851 



and of the famous Hildebrand (afterwards Gregory VII.). He was 

 continually in motion between Germany and Italy, holding councils 

 and endeavouring to reform tbe discipline and morale of the clergy, 

 and also to check the progress of the Normans in Southern Italy, 

 against whom he led an army, but was defeated in Apulia and taken 

 prisoner by the Normans, who treated him with great respect, but 

 kept him for more than a year in Benevento. Having made peace 

 with them by granting to them as a fief of the Roman see their con- 

 quests in Apulia and Calabria, he was allowed to return to Rome, 

 where he died in 1054, and was succeeded by Victor IL 



LEO X., GIOVANHI DE' MEDICI, the second son of Lorenzo the 

 Magnificent, was born in December 1475. He was made a cardinal at 

 the unusually early age of thirteen, by Pope Innocent VIII., who was 

 very intimate with his father Lorenzo. After the death of Lorenzo in 

 1492, Cardinal de' Medici shared in the expulsion of his brothers, Piero 

 and Giuliano, from Florence, in November, 1494. [MEDICI.] After 

 fruitless endeavours to effect their restoration, Cardinal de' Medici 

 gave up the attempt, and quitted Italy, which country was then 

 ravaged by foreign arms, and betrayed by the wretched policy of 

 Alexander VI. Cardinal de' Medici travelled through Germany and 

 France, courting the acquaintance of men of learning, and displaying 

 his own taste for literature and the liberal arts. After the death of 

 Alexander VI. in 1503 he returned to Rome, where Julius II. employed 

 him as legate with the army against the French. Being taken prisoner 

 by the latter at the battle of Ravenna in April 1512, he was sent to 

 Milan, but soon after effected his escape. The French being driven 

 out of Lombaniy, and the Florentine republic, with the Gonfaloniere 

 Soderiui at its head, being charged with partiality towards the 

 foreigners, Cardinal de' Medici contrived to employ the arms of the 

 allied powers in replacing him and his family in their former supremacy 

 over their native country. A body of 5000 Spaniards, brave to ferocity, 

 wt re marched under Raymond de Cardona against Florence in August 

 1512. On their way they stormed the town of Frato, and massacred 

 the citizens, which so intimidated the Florentines that they immediately 

 capitulated ; and Cardinal de' Medici and his brother Giuliano soon 

 alter entered Florence, and forced the Signoria, or executive, to call a 

 ' parlamento,' or general assembly of the people, in the great square, 

 on the 16th of December. This general assembly of the sovereign 

 people had repeatedly been used by ambitious men as a ready instru- 

 ment of their views, and it proved such on this occasion. All the laws 

 enacted since the expulsion of the Medici in 1494 were abrogated. A 

 balia, or commission, was appointed, consisting of creatures of that 

 family, with dictatorial powers to reform the state. No bloodshed 

 however accompanied the re-action, but Soderini and other citizens 

 opposed to the Medici were banished. Soon after, in March 1513, 

 news came of the death of Julius II. at Rome, and Cardinal de' Medici 

 hastened to tbe conclave, leaving his brother Giuliano and his nephew 

 Lorenzo, son of Piero, at the head of the affairs of Florence. 



Cardinal de' Medici was elected pope in March, 1513, at the early 

 age of thirty-seven, when he assumed the name of Leo X. One of his 

 first acts waa to appoint two men of learning, Bembo and Sadoleto, 

 for his secretaries. He next sent a general amnesty to be published 

 at Florence, where a conspiracy had been discovered against the Medici, 

 for which two individuals were executed, and others, with the celebrated 

 Machiavelli among the rest, were arrested and put to the torture. Leo 

 ordered Giuliano to release the prisoners, and recall those that were 

 banished, and Soderini among the rest. Giuliano being invited to Rome, 

 where he was made Gonfaloniere of the Holy Church, Leo appointed 

 his nephew Lorenzo governor of Florence, and his cousin, Cardinal 

 (jiulio de' Medici, archbishop of the same. Florence was now a 

 dependency of Rome, and such it continued during the remainder of 

 Leo's life. 



The pontificate of Leo X., though it lasted only nine years, forms 

 one of the most memorable epochs in the history of modern Europe, 

 whether we consider it in a political light as a period of transition for 

 Italy, when the power of Charles V. of Spain began to establish itself 

 in that country ; or whether we look upon it as that period in the 

 history of the Western Church which was marked by the momentous 

 event of Luther's Reformation. But there is a third and a more 

 favourable aspect under which the reign of Leo ought to be viewed, 

 as a flourishing epoch for learning and the arts, which were encourage 1 

 by that pontiff, as they had been by his father, and indeed as they 

 have been by his family in general, and for which the glorious appella- 

 tion of the age of Leo X. has been given to the tirat part of the Itith 

 MBtory. 



Leo found the war renewed in Northern Italy. Louis XII. sent a 

 fresh army, under La Trimouille, to invade the duchy of Milan. The 

 Swiss auxiliaries of Duke Maximilian Sforza defeated La Trimouille at 

 Novara, and the French were driven out of Italy. The Venetians 

 however had allied themselves with Louis XII., and Leo eent Bembo 

 to Venice to endeavour to break the alliance. Differences broke out 

 betw. en Leo and Alfonso d'Este, duke of Ferrara, who demanded the 

 restoration of Reggio, taken from him by Julius II., which Leo pro- 

 mised, but never performed ; on the contrary, he purchased Modena 

 of the Emperor Maximilian, disregarding the rights of the house of 

 Este to that town. The Pope held likewise Parma and Piacenza, and 

 it appears that he intended to form out of these a territory for his 

 brother Giuliano, and he made attempts to surprise Ferrara also with 



the same view. His predecessor, Julius, had in view the independence 

 of all Italy, and he boldly led on the league for this purpose ; Leo had 

 a narrower object, his own aggrandisement and that of his family, 

 and he pursued it with a more cautious and crooked policy. 



Leo re-opened the council of the Lateran, which had begun under 

 Julius II., for the extinction of the schism produced by the council of 

 Pisa, which had been convoked by Louis XII., in order to check the 

 power of that pope, who was his enemy. Circumstances were now 

 changed, and Louis XII. made his peace with Leo in 1514, renounced 

 the council of Pisa, and acknowledged that of the Lateran. Louis XII. 

 died in the following year, and his successor Francis I., among his 

 other titles, assumed that of Duke of Milan, which was the signal of a 

 new Italian war. The Venetians joined him, whilst the Emperor 

 Maximilian, Ferdinand of Spain, Duke Sforza. and the Swiss, made a 

 league to oppose the French. The Pope did not openly join the 

 league, but he negociated with the Swisa by means of the cardinal of 

 Sion, aud paid them considerable sums to induce them to defend the 

 north of Italy. The Swiss were posted near Susa, but Francis, led by 

 old Trivulzio, passed the Alps by the Col de 1'Argentier, entered the 

 plains of Saluzzo, and marched upon Pavia, whilst the Swiss hastened 

 back to defend Milan. The battle of Marignano was fought on the 

 14th of September 1515. The Swiss made desperate efforts, and would 

 probably have succeeded, had not Alviano with part of the Venetian 

 troops appeared suddenly with cries of " Viva San Marco," which 

 dispirited the Swiss, who believed that the whole Venetian army was 

 coming to the assistance of the French. The result was the retreat of 

 the Swiss, anil the entrance of the French into Milan, who took posses- 

 sion of the Duchy. Leo now made proposals of alliance to Fraucis, 

 who eagerly listened to them, and they had a conference at Bologna 

 in December 1515, in which a concordat was agreed upon, regulating 

 the appointment to the sees and livings in the French kingdom, which 

 concordat remained in force till the French Revolution. A marriage 

 was also agreed upon between Lorenzo, the pope's nephew, and 

 Madeleine de Boulogne, niece of Francis de Bourbon, duke of Vendome, 

 from which marriage Catherine de' Medici, afterwards Queen of France, 

 was born. 



In 1516 Leo, under some frivolous pretences, deprived Delia Rovere, 

 the nephew of Julius II., of his duchy of Urbino, Pesaro, and Sini- 

 gaglia, which he gave to his nephew Lorenzo de' Medici. Soon after- 

 wards a conspiracy to murder the pope was discovered at Rome, and 

 Cardinal Petrucci, who was at the head of it, was hanged. In 1517 

 the council of the Lateran was finally closed, and in the same year 

 Leo authorised the sale of indulgences in Germany, which was the 

 immediate cause of the Reformation. [LuiHEU.] For some years 

 after however Leo took little notice of the progress of Luther's 

 opinions in Germany ; and indeed to the end of his life Leo's mind 

 appears to have been much more concerned with what occurred around 

 him in Italy than with the remote controversy carried on in Saxony, 

 the consequences of which he probably did not foresee. 



In 1518 a league of five years was proclaimed by Leo among the 

 Christian princes to oppose the advance of the Turks, who were 

 threatening Italy. For this purpose the pope gave to the Christian 

 princes the disposal of part of the revenues of the clergy, which they 

 readily appropriated to themselves, without doing anything against 

 the Turks. 



Gian Paolo Baglione of Perugia, a celebrated condottiero, had seized 

 upon tlie government of his native town. Leo cited him to appear at 

 Rome, with promises however of safety for his person. Upon his 

 arrival Baglione was arrested, put to the torture, made to confess 

 many crimes, and at last beheaded. Perugia was then annexed to the 

 Papal State, as well as the duchy of Urbino after the death of Lorenzo 

 de' Medici, who left no male issue. 



The alliance of Leo with Francis I. was a hollow one, each party 

 mistrusting the other. At last Leo, thinking an alliance with the 

 young monarch of Spain and Emperor of Germany was likely to be 

 much more advantageous to him, concluded a secret treaty, offensive 

 and defensive, with Charles V., on the 8th of July 1521, by which it 

 was stipulated that the duchy of Milan was to be taken from the 

 French and given to Francesco Maria Sforza, and Parma and Piacenza 

 to be restored to the pope. Leo subsidised a body of Swiss, and 

 Prospero Colonna with the Spaniards from Naples joined the Pap;>l 

 forces at Bologna, crossed the Po at Casalmaggiore, joined the Swiss, 

 and drove the French governor Lautrec out of Milan. In a short 

 time the duchy of Milan was once more clear of the French, and 

 restored to the dominion of Sforza. Parma and Piaceuza were again 

 occupied by the Papal troops. Leo at the same time declared Alfonso 

 d'Este a rebel to the Holy See for having sided with the French, 

 whilst the duke on his part complained of the bad faith of the pope 

 in keeping possession of Modena and Reggio. The news of the taking 

 of Milan was celebrated at Rome with public rejoicings, but in the 

 midst of all this Leo fell ill, on the 25th of November, and died on 

 the 1st of December 1521, being forty-six years of age, not without 

 suspicion of poison, though some have maintained that he died a 

 natural death. 



Leo was generous, or rather prodigal ; he was fond of splendour, 

 luxury, and magnificence, and therefore often in want of money, 

 which he was obliged to raise by means not always creditable. He 

 had a discerning taste was a ready patron of real merit was fond of 



