nimo
Adorno.[2] The secret springs of Leo's conduct, when he was vainly
endeavoring to steer to his own profit between the great rivals for
power in Europe, are exposed with admirable precision at both of these
points. Of the prodigality which helped to ruin this Pope, and which
made his two successors impotent, he speaks with sneering sarcasm. 'It
was as easy for him to keep 1,000 ducats together as for a stone to fly
into the air by its own weight.'[3] When the news of the capture of
Milan reached him on November 27, 1520, Leo was at the Villa Magliana in
the neighborhood of Rome.[4] Whether he took cold at a window, or
whether his anxiety and jealousy disturbed his constitution, Vettori
remains uncertain. At any rate, he was attacked with fever, returned to
Rome, and died. 'It was said that his death was caused by poison; but
these stories are always circulated about men of high estate, especially
when they succumb to acute disease. Those, however, who knew the
constitution and physical conformation of Leo, and his habits of life,
will rather wonder that he lived so long.' After summing up the
vicissitudes of his career and passing a critique upon his vacillating
policy, Vettori resumes:[5] 'while on the one hand he would fain have
never had one care to trouble him; on the other he was desirous of fame
and sought to aggrandize his kindred. Fortune, to rid him of this
ambition, removed his brother and his nephew in his lifetime. Lastly,
when he had engaged in a war against the King of France, in which, if he
won, he lost, and was going to meet obvious ruin, fortune removed him
from the world so that he might not see his own mischance. In his
pontificate at Rome there was no plague, no poverty, no war. Letters and
the arts flourished, and the vices were also at their height. Alexander
and Julius had been wont to seize the inheritance not only of the
prelates but of every little priest or clerk who died in Rome. Leo
abstained entirely from such practices. Therefore people came in crowds;
and it may be said for certain that in the eight years of his papacy,
the population of Rome increased by one third.' Vettori prudently
refuses to sum up the good and bad of Leo's character in one decisive
sentence. He notes, however, that he was blamed for not keeping to his
word: 'it was a favorite expression with him, that princes ought to give
such answers as would send petitioners away satisfied; accordingly he
made so many promises