sing from art into manners, gives to this
epoch a strange complexion. Crimes for the moment disappeared, to give
place to vices; but to charming vices, vices in good taste, such as those
indulged in by Alcibiades and sung by Catullus. Leo X died after having
assembled under his reign, which lasted eight years, eight months, and
nineteen days, Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio,
Titian, Andrea del Sarto, Fra Bartolommeo, Giulio Romano, Ariosto,
Guicciardini, and Macchiavelli.

Giulio di Medici and Pompeo Colonna had equal claims to succeed him. As
both were skilful politicians, experienced courtiers, and moreover of
real and almost equal merit, neither of them could obtain a majority, and
the Conclave was prolonged almost indefinitely, to the great fatigue of
the cardinals. So it happened one day that a cardinal, more tired than
the rest, proposed to elect, instead of either Medici or Colonna, the
son, some say of a weaver, others of a brewer of Utrecht, of whom no one
had ever thought till then, and who was for the moment acting head of
affairs in Spain, in the absence of Charles the Fifth. The jest
prospered in the ears of those who heard it; all the cardinals approved
their colleague's proposal, and Adrien became pope by a mere accident.

He was a perfect specimen of the Flemish type a regular Dutchman, and
could not speak a word of Italian. When he arrived in Rome, and saw the
Greek masterpieces of sculpture collected at vast cost by Leo X, he
wished to break them to pieces, exclaiming, "Suet idola anticorum." His
first act was to despatch a papal nuncio, Francesco Cherigato, to the
Diet of Nuremberg, convened to discuss the reforms of Luther, with
instructions which give a vivid notion of the manners of the time.

"Candidly confess," said he, "that God has permitted this schism and this
persecution on account of the sins of man, and especially those of
priests and prelates of the Church; for we know that many abominable
things have taken place in the Holy See."

Adrien wished to bring the Romans back to the simple and austere manners
of the early Church, and with this object pushed reform to the minutest
details. For instance, of the hundred grooms maintained by Leo X, he
retained only a dozen, in order, he said, to have two more than the
cardinals.

A pope like this could not reign long: he died after a year's
pontificate. The morning after his death his physician's door was found