§ 56. LEO X. 1513-1521. 493
revenue from this source was still large. ^ The highest ecclesiastical offices were for sale, as in the reign of Alexander. Cardinal Innocent Cibo paid 30,000 ducats or, as another report went, 40,000, for his hat, and Francesco Armellini bought his for twice that amount.^
The shortagesjwere provided for by resort to the banker and the usurer and to rich cardinals. Loan followed loan. Not only were the tapestries of the Vatican and the silver plate given as securities, but ecclesiastir.al bf^pftfip.es, the gems of the papal tiara and the rich sta,tues of the saints were put in pawn. Sometimes the pope paid 20 per cent for sums of 10,000 ducats and over.^ It occasions no surprise that Leo's death was followed by a financial collapse, and a number of cardinals passed into bankruptcy, including Cardinal Pucci, who had lent the pope 150,000 ducats. From the banker, Bernado Bini, Leo had gotten 200,000 ducats. His debts were estimated as high as 800,^00 ducat^. It was a common joke that Leo squandered three pontificates, the legacy Julius left and the revenues of his successor's pontificate, as well as the income of his own.
For the bankers and all sorts of money dealers the Medicean period was a flourishing time in Rome. No less than 30 Florentines are said to have opened banking institutions in the city, and, at the side of the Fuggers and Welsers, did business with the curia. The Florentines found it to be a good thing to have a Medicean pope, and swarmed about the Vatican as the Spaniards had done in the good days of Calixtus III. and Alexander VI., the Sienese, during the reign of Pius II., and the Ligurians while Sixtus IV. of Savona was pope. They stormed the gates of patronage, as if all the benefices of the Church were intended for them.*
^ Schulte, I. 174, 223 sqq.
2 Pastor, IV. 368, has said, Urn Geld herbeizuschaffen schreckte man vor keinem Mittel zurilck. DoUinger, Papstthum, p. 485, quotes a contemporary as saying ea tempestate Bomce, sacra omnia venalia erant, etc.
3 These figures are given by Schulte, I. 224-227, upon the basis of Sanuto and other contemporary writers. The ill odor of usury was avoided by representing the charges of the bankers as gifts.
* Pastor, IV. 371, in his striking way says, Der Zndrang der Florentiner in derersten Zeit dieses Pontificals war ein enormer. Die Begehrlichkeit dieser
494 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
Leo's father, Lorenzo, said of his three sons that Piero was a fool, Giuliano was good and Giovanni shrewd. The last characterization was true to the facts. Leo X. was shrewd, the shrewdness being of the kind that succeeds in getting temporary personal gain, even though it be by the sacrifice of high and accessible ends. His amiability and polish of manners made him friends and secured for him the tiara. He was not altogether a degenerate personality like Alexander VI., capable of all wickedness. But his outlook never went beyond his own pleasures. The Vatican was the most luxurious court in Europe ; it performed no moral service for the world. The love of art with Leo was the love of color, of outline, of beauty such as a Greek might have had, not a taste controlled by regard for spiritual grace and aims. In his treatment of the European states and the Italian cities, his diplomacy was marked by dissimulation as^degpicn^ble as anythatjvfls pi^ctised by secuIaFcouiMtsl Witliout a scruple he could solemnly make afthe saroe moment contradictory pledges. Perfidy seemed to be as natural to him as breath. ^
At the same time, Leo followed the rubrics of religion. He fasted, so it is reported, three times a week, abstained from meat on Wednesday and Friday, daily read his Breviary and was accustomed before mass to seek absolution from his confessor. But he\va^jYiihoiLt_.Siin_ctity, without deep religious ^nviction. The issues of godliness had no appreciable effect upon him in the regulation of his habits. Even in his patronage of art and culture, he forgot or ignored Ariosto, Machia-
Leute war grenzenlos. The Fuggers, who carried on the most extensive dealings with the papal treasury and the sacred college, had been firmly established in Rome since the beginning of Alexander VI.'s pontificate. They came originally from Langen to Augsburg, where they started business as weavers, and then branched off into trading in spices and other commodities reaching Europe through Venice, and in copper and other metals, under the name of Ulrich Fugger and Brothers (George and Jacob), and their capital, estimated by the taxes they paid, increased, between 1480 and loOl, 1,634 per cent. Schulte, p. 3. After its transfer to Rome, the house became the depository of the papal treasurer and cardinals, and was the intermediary for the payment of annates and servitin to the papal and camera treasuries. The exact amounts, as furnished in the ledger entries, are given by Schulte. 1 See Pastor's terrific indictment, IV. 359 sq.