XIII. After these important arrangements the CHAP. king returned from Bologna to Milan, and soon afterwards repassed the Alps to prepare for new contests, with which he was threatened by the emperor elect and the kings of Leo re England and Aragon. The pope, after hav- turns to ing by the desire of the king conferred on Florence. Adrian Boissi the hat of a cardinal, quitted a place where he had been treated with disrespectful coldness, and accompanied by twelve cardinals repaired to Florence, where he arrived on the twenty-second day of December, 1515. Being now freed for a while from the cares of state, he had here an opportunity of indulging his natural disposition in splendid representations and acts of munificence towards his fellow-citizens. The day of the nativity was celebrated in the church of S. Maria del ❝qui le rendit le distributeur des dignitès, et de la plus "grande partie des domains de l'eglise. Des biens des❝tinès au soulagement des pauvres, et à l'entretien des ministres de la religion, devinrent le prix de la corrup❝tion, et la firent naitre. Le Roi tint, pour ainsi dife, "dans sa main tous les prelats, dont l' ambition et la cu"pidité etoient insatiables; et par leurs secours disposa de "tous les ecclesiastiques, dont le pouvoir est toujours si "considerable dans une nation." et. v. Thuani Histor. lib. i. p. 18. Ed. Buckley. A. D. 1515. A. Et. 40. A. Pont. III. XIII. CHAP. del Fiore with unusual exultation; and on the first of the new year he presented to the Gonfaloniere Pietro Ridolfi, who then resigned his authority to his successor, a cap of state and a sword, which had been previously sanctioned by the apostolic benediction. On the same day he also assembled in the cathedral the archdeacon and canons of Florence, and being himself seated in state, in the midst of his cardinals and prelates, he gave to the chapter, the members of which were then prostrate before him, a mitre ornamented with jewels of the estimated value of ten thousand ducats. (a) At the same time, as a proof of the affection which he bore to the church, of which he had himself from his infancy been a canon, he enlarged the incomes of the ecclesiastics attached to it, and directed that the canons should rank as protonotaries of the holy A. D. 1515. A. Pont. III. A. Et. 40. 1516. (a) "Donò Leone X. ai Canonici una Mitra, di tanta "bellezza, e cotanto di perle, di balasci, di zaffiri, di "smeraldi, di diamanti, e di rubini adornata, che secondo "ne' libri publici di Canonica è registrato, passava il pre"gio di diecimila ducati." Ammirato, Hist. Flor. lib. xxix. iii. 319. holy see, and should wear the habit of such CHAP. dignity on all public occasions.(a) XIII. A. D. 1516. A. Pont. IV. Raffaello Petrucci Having thus distributed his bounty and left to seven altars in the principal church the less expensive favour of his pontifical indulgence, Leo returned to Rome. The first ob- obtains the ject that required his attention was the state of Siena; where the inability of Borghese Petrucci, who at the age of twenty-two years chief authority at Si ena. VOL. III. H had (a) Notwithstanding the liberality of the pontiff, the Florentines, who were affected by the general scarcity of provisions which then prevailed in most parts of Italy, were well pleased when he and his numerous attendants took their final departure. Paris de Grassis protests that he neither could nor would remain any longer in a place where the inhabitants.seemed inclined to famish their Roman visitors. He therefore left the pontiff, and hastened to his brother, the cardinal Germano de Grassis, at Bologna; where he seems to have made himself amends by his good living for the penance which he underwent at Florence. He afterwards returned to that city, to accompany the pontiff to Rome, but Leo dismissed him to attend the host, whilst he made a circuitous tour of about twelve days; and although Paris was greatly scandalized that the pontiff should travel without the host, yet he confesses that he did not remonstrate on the occasion, lest the pope should give him orders to wait for him in such a miserable place; but hastened with it as quickly as possible to Rome. v. App. No. CXXXIV. XIII. A. D. 1516. A. Et. 41. CHAP. had succeeded to the government on the death of his father Pandolfo, was so apparent as to give just cause for dissatisfaction among the inA. Pont. IV. habitants. This circumstance induced his cousin Raffaello Petrucci, then bishop of Grosseto and keeper of the castle of S. Angelo, to aspire to the chief dignity, to which he was also encouraged by Leo; who, in consideration of his long attachment and services, and with the view of placing in so important a station a person attached to his own interests, furnished him with two hundred lances and two thousand infantry under the command of Vitello Vitelli, with which the bishop proceeded towards Siena. (a) The rumours of these hostile preparations having reached the city, Borghese assembled the chief inhabitants, for the purpose of interesting them in his favour and preparing for their defence; but the indications of displeasure and animosity which he there perceived induced him to relinquish all hopes of maintaining his authority. He therefore privately effected his escape from the city (a) Jovius denominates him "vir stabili fide, sed ig"6 narus literarum et probris omnibus coopertus." Vita Leon. x. lib. iii. p. 71. et v. Fabroni, vita Leon. x. 115. et not. 48, XIII. city and fled towards Naples accompanied by CHAP. Fabio his younger brother; but leaving behind him his wife, his child, his friends, and his fortunes, to the mercy or the resentment of his adversaries.(a) The satisfaction which the pontiff had experienced in the success of his measures was, however, speedily interrupted by domestic calamities and personal dangers. In the month of March, 1516, he received information of the loss of his brother Giuliano, who died at Florence, on the seventeenth day of that month, after having supported his indisposition with great patience and resignation. His death was a subject of real regret to the citizens of Florence, who had the fullest confidence in his sincerity and good intentions, which they contrasted with the qualities of his nephew Lorenzo in a manner by no means favourable to the popularity of the latter. His obsequies were celebrated with great magnificence; but the noble monument erected to his memory by Michael-Agnolo in the chapel of S. Lorenzo H 2 at (a) Jovius vita Leon. x. lib. iii. p. 71. Fabron. vila Leon. x. p. 114. A. D. 1516. A. Et. 41. A. Pont. IV, Death of Giuliano de' Medici. |