or at having chosen
this barbarian, the College began to talk about the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost, seeking the most improbable of all excuses for the mistake
to which intrigue had driven them. 'The courtiers of the Vatican and
chief officers of the Church,' says an eyewitness, 'wept and screamed
and cursed and gave themselves up to despair.' Along the blank walls of
the city was scrawled: 'Rome to let.' Sonnets fell in showers, accusing
the cardinals of having delivered over 'the fair Vatican to a German's
fury.'[1] Adrian VI. came to Rome for the first time as Pope.[2] He knew
no Italian, and talked Latin with an accent unfamiliar to southern ears.
His studies had been confined to scholastic philosophy and theology.
With courts he had no commerce; and he was so ignorant of the state a
Pope should keep in Rome, that he wrote beforehand requesting that a
modest house and garden might be hired for his abode. When he saw the
Vatican, he exclaimed that here the successors, not of Peter, but of
Constantine should dwell. Leo kept one hundred grooms for the service of
his stable; Adrian retained but four. Two Flemish valets sufficed for
his personal attendance, and to these he gave each evening one ducat for
the expenses of the next day's living. A Flemish serving woman cooked
his food, made his bed and washed his linen. Rome, with its splendid
immorality, its classic art and pagan culture, made the same impression
on him that it made on Luther. When his courtiers pointed to the Laocoon
as the most illustrious monument of ancient sculpture, he turned away
with horror, murmuring: 'Idols of the Pagans!' The Belvedere, which was
fast becoming the first statue-gallery in Europe, he walled up and never
entered. At the same time he set himself with earnest purpose, so far as
his tied hands and limited ability would go, to reform the more patent
abuses of the Church. Leo had raised about three million ducats by the
sale of offices, which represented an income of 348,000 ducats to the
purchasers, and provided places for 2,550 persons. By a stroke of his
pen Adrian canceled these contracts and threw upon the world a crowd of
angry and defrauded officials. It was but poor justice to remind them
that their bargain with his predecessor had been illegal. Such attempts,
however, at a reformation of ecclesiastical society were as ineffectual
as pin-pricks in the cure of a fever which demands blood-letting. The
real corruption of Rome, deep