LEO X, Pope. - Born in Florence on 11 Dec. 1475, died in Rome on 1 Dec. 1521.
I. BEFORE THE PONTIFICATE
Giovanni de' Medici, the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, had Poliziano as his teacher at the age of three, but after a few months he was given to others to be educated, and above all he was formed spiritually by the learned, joyous, manifold life of Medicean Florence. A cleric and protonotary before the age of eight, provided through his father's care with numerous benefices, abbot of Montecassino and of Morimondo at eleven, he was, at a little more than thirteen, secretly created cardinal by Innocent VIII, as a seal of friendship with Lorenzo (9 March 1489). Having taken his degree at Pisa in canon law, he received the hat three years after his creation and held the title, rather than the authority, of legate in the Patrimony and in the Florentine domain. In the Conclave of 1492, after a shrewd attempt to reconcile the Sforza and Aragonese factions, he inclined to the former and, not without simoniacal agreements, gave his vote to Rodrigo Borgia, Alexander VI. No friend of the new pope, on relations that were not too cordial with his brother Piero, he lived in the shadows, until the catastrophe of the Medicean lordship, which he had vainly tried to avert (9 Nov. 1494), forced him to wander through Italy, Germany, the Low Countries, and France, where he acquired maturity and experience.
Having returned to Rome before Sept. 1497, he gathered in the palace that he had built near S. Eustachio (Palazzo Madama) books, men of letters, and artists, and he distinguished himself by his munificence in the restoration of the deaconry church of S. Maria in Domnica and in giving Bolsena the splendid facade of S. Cristina. Legate of Bologna for Julius II (1 Oct. 1511), he was taken prisoner by the French at Ravenna (11 Apr. 1512) and, conducted to Milan, he ably restored the prestige of the pontificate and his own.
Freed by his family and peasants, he was legate in the Spanish-pontifical army, which was to bring the Medici back to Florence, and, after the sack of Prato, he re-entered the city (Sept. 1512) and governed it with mildness.
II. THE PRINCE
In the Conclave that followed the death of Julius II, he swore with the others a capitulation that greatly restricted the authority of the Pontiff; but, as was the custom, he did not keep it afterward. He was elected pope (11 March 1513), without simony, as one suited to "pacify poor Italy and settle the Church." Indeed, after the storm of Julius's pontificate, he announced a program of peace. And at the same time he wished to defend the "liberty of Italy," by preventing the French or the Spaniards from predominating alone, or, having come to an agreement, from dominating together, and above all from Milan and Naples falling into the same hand. But, short of means, variously advised by his most trusted men, first Cardinal of Bibbiena, then Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, inclined by nature to diplomatic intrigues, too mindful of the interests of his house, he pursued a policy perhaps subtle, but certainly ambiguous and tortuous. He succeeded, it is true, in securing Florence for the Medici house, where he entrusted the government first to his brother Giuliano, then to his nephew Lorenzo with an Instructione that marked the limits of a moderate lordship. If he could not procure for Giuliano, who died prematurely (1516), the great domains he dreamed of, he gave Lorenzo the duchy of Urbino, taken from the untrustworthy Francesco Maria della Rovere (1516); and, when the latter had regained it, he restored it to his nephew with a most costly war (1517). And he also strengthened the Papal State, joining Urbino to it after the death of Lorenzo (1519), subduing petty tyrants of the Marca and of Umbria, and reducing Perugia to obedience (1520).
But that perpetual wavering of his kindled the conflagration in Italy and in Europe and took prestige away from the Church. In the first months he followed the anti-French policy of Julius II, while yet avoiding committing himself and, as "father of Christendom," making attempts at peace. Then, for fear of the Spaniards, he appeared Francophile; as the designs of Francis I against Milan took shape, he drew close against him to Spain, to the Swiss, to the Emperor. Because of the king's resounding victories, he lost heart; he concluded a Treaty with the king at Viterbo (13 Oct. 1515) and met with him at Bologna (11-14 Dec.), renouncing Parma and Piacenza and promising the king the investiture of Naples upon the death of the Catholic; he obtained from him protection for the Medici dominion in Florence, and laid the foundations of the concordat with France. He could not prevent the agreement of Noyon between the kings of France and of Spain (13 Aug. 1516), nor that Treaty of Cambrai (11 March 1517), by which the two potentates and the emperor Maximilian divided Italy among themselves. In the new conflict between Francis I and Charles of Habsburg for the imperial succession, not desiring the election of either of the two, and less of the second, who to the crown of Spain joined that of Naples, after having attempted (6 March 1518) to obtain a five-year truce for all Christendom and a papal arbitration for every controversy, he made both kings hope for his support, negotiating compensations, and with both at once he made a separate alliance, while also promoting the election of a third, less powerful candidate. As the election of Charles appeared probable, he seemed resolved to support Francis; once it had become certain, he gave it his consent; but he secured himself with a secret agreement with France (Oct. 1519). In the end, because of the necessity of having the help of Charles V against the Lutheran movement, he allied himself with him by the secret Treaty of 8 May 1521, published on 29 June, which bound together the two "Heads of Christendom." After the imperial victory in Lombardy, he received a triumphal welcome in Rome (25 Nov. 1521); a few days later, already near his end, he received news that Parma, like Piacenza before it, had been regained for the Church. Death prevented him from seeing the Church and Italy at the mercy of his ally.
As ruler of the Papal State, he maintained security and peace; he promoted agriculture; he gave thought to the draining of the Pontine marshes. Generally mild, benevolent also toward the Jews, to whom he even granted the establishment of a printing press in Rome, he attracted to the court with "good words" Gian Paolo Baglioni, lord of Perugia, and sent him to a death that was, moreover, well deserved. And a conspiracy, probably exaggerated by design, against the person of the Pope was punished harshly with the death of Cardinal Alfonso Petrucci and with the imprisonment of four other cardinals, who obtained pardon only with enormous sums (1517); perhaps the need for money was one of the principal causes of this intrigue. For his inconsiderate liberality and the enormous expenses of the war of Urbino not only led L. to dissipate the treasure of Julius II; but drove him to procure money by increases of taxes, loans, pledges, the sale of offices even the highest, tithes and jubilees and indulgences, whose proceeds were not always directed to the lofty aims announced. And the influx of swarms of Florentines displeased the Romans, for they installed themselves in many offices, particularly in the most lucrative ones.
III. THE PATRON
Men of letters and artists exalted L. with enthusiastic praises. And truly patronage is for him a title of glory. He had Bibbiena as his adviser, Bembo, Sadoleto, and Colocci as secretaries; he held Castiglione, Alberto Pio da Carpi, Gianfrancesco Pico, Molza, and Bernardo Accoliti dear; he urged Vida to compose the Christiad, Sannazzaro to publish the De partu Virginis, and Zaccaria Ferreri to reform the Breviary linguistically. He gave nothing to Machiavelli, beyond pardon after the Boscoli conspiracy; but to Guicciardini he gave the offices of advocate of the consistory and governor of Modena and Reggio, to Trissino diplomatic missions, to Giovio a chair in the University of Rome. Though he showed himself cold toward Ariosto, he granted him privileges for the publication of the Furioso: to Erasmus he lavished favors and accepted his defense from the accusation of heresy. He protected Aldus Manutius's printing workshop; he favored scholars of Oriental languages, of heraldry, of numismatics. And to countless others — poets, humanists, improvisers, musicians, actors, buffoons — he was generous, not always with discernment and measure.
Of Rome, grown greatly in population, he wished to make the intellectual center of the world as well. He gathered men of letters and artists there; he reformed (Nov. 5, 1515) the University, which had a brief flourishing, with many others teaching there, up to 88, men of worth, such as Nifo, Luca Paciolo, Giovio, Fedra Inghirami. He enlarged the private library and the Vatican, taking care to collect books from all over Europe, with an outcome not equal to the effort. He created in Rome, as in Florence, a Greek college, which was directed by Giano Lascaris and had a printing press attached; he granted Mazzocchi a privilege for the collection of Roman topographical inscriptions; he encouraged Raphael to prepare the archaeological plan of Rome. Most of these undertakings lacked continuity; some did not even begin.
In the field of building, he rebuilt the Via Alessandrina and began the Leonina (Ripetta) and the arrangement of the Piazza del Popolo; he brought to completion the Logge of the courtyard of S. Damaso. In matters of art, with a brief (Aug. 27, 1515) he saved the treasures of antiquity from destruction, and gathered many of them in the Belvedere. Raphael, aided by his disciples, finishing the Stanza di Eliodoro, represented in the figure of Leo the Great the features of L. X; in the Stanza dell'Incendio he symbolized in the deeds of Leo III and Leo IV the exploits and intentions of the distant successor; for the Stanza di Costantino he designed the Triumph of the Church; while in the cartoons for the tapestries, the Parthenaic sculptures of the modern age, he glorified its most ancient history, and in the Logge (1513-19) he harmonized his Bible with the ingenious pagan creations of Giovanni da Udine; Giovanni himself and Perin del Vaga decorated the ceiling of the papal hall in the Borgia apartment. But the grandiose works begun by Julius II came to a halt, or proceeded with difficulty; and first among them the Fabric of St. Peter's, for which Fra Giocondo, Raphael, and Antonio da Sangallo could do little, to whom, after the death of Bramante (1514), its care was successively entrusted. Michelangelo first received the commission for the facade of S. Lorenzo in Florence, then that of the New Sacristy; but he did not even begin the work. The obscurity of the period that followed L.'s death made his age appear more luminous, so that the century took its name from him; but, even as regards patronage, he remained inferior to the very great Julius.
IV. THE PONTIFF
Leo's more strictly religious activity was certainly not negligible, but it was inadequate to the need and the peril of that hour, so grave for the Church. From the very beginning of his pontificate he set himself the defense of Christendom against the threats of the infidels; he gave aid to Hungary, urged the Christian powers to the Crusade, and had a memorial drawn up (Nov. 1517) by a commission of cardinals, ambassadors and experts, which examined in depth the problem of holy war. But the distrust, especially of Germany, toward an enterprise that to many smacked of being a pretext for extracting money, the war of Urbino, and political machinations thwarted the design.
Leo was able instead to continue from the VI session (27 Apr. 1513) and to conclude with the XII (16 March 1517) the Lateran Council (V) opened by Julius II, proposing as its aim the re-establishment of peace, the condemnation of errors, and the reform of the Church.
An end was put to the Gallican schism with the submission of Carvajal and Sanseverino, who received pardon by humbling themselves (27 June 1513), with the declaration of the French envoys abandoning the Council of Pisa and adhering to the Lateran (19 Dec. 1513), and with the approval of the French Concordat (19 Dec. 1516). There were condemned (19 Dec. 1513) the doctrines on the mortality of the individual soul and on the collective soul, and the theory of the twofold truth, rational and revealed; and priests who wished to cultivate humanistic studies were required first to study theology and canon law for five years. Decrees were issued that removed certain abuses in the Curia, tended to improve the selection of bishops and abbots, to put a curb on commendams and the accumulation of benefices, and to raise the standard of religious and moral life of the clergy and the laity (5 May 1514). The discord between bishops and regulars was mitigated, if it could not be removed, by diminishing the exemptions of the latter and increasing the authority of the former (4 May 1515); and limits were marked out between the rights of the secular and the regular clergy (19 Dec. 1516). Laws were laid down for the exercise of preaching; a long-standing question was resolved by approving the Monti di pietà and allowing compensation to lenders; the printing of books without the license of the bishop and the inquisitor, or, for Rome, of the vicar and the Master of the Sacred Palace, was forbidden (4 May 1515). Measures of pacification, of defense of the faith, of reform, for the most part advantageous, the seed of greater things; but which neither went as deep as was necessary, nor, above all, were effectively applied.
Even outside the activity displayed in the Council, Leo did not show himself insensible to various needs of the government of the Church. He favored the religious Orders, and in particular that of the Minims, whose founder, Francis of Paola, he canonized (1 May 1519); after attempting to unite the whole Franciscan Order, he sanctioned the division between Conventuals and Observants (1517); he published bulls against magic, divination and the duel; he approved the "Compagnia del Divino Amore," one of the most notable manifestations of the Catholic pre-Reformation. He established cordial relations with the Maronites and with the united Greeks, whom he defended against the hostility of the Latin clergy; he also attempted to bring the Ethiopians and the Russians closer to the Roman See. He raised his voice against the slavery of the Indians and sought to protect them from the violence of the conquerors.
But too many scandals of prelates and courtiers he tolerated around himself; he was too fond of hunting, of profane festivities, of spectacles, to the point of attending the performance of the Calandria and the Suppositi and of wishing or permitting the Mandragola to be given in Rome.
In the very creation of cardinals, and in particular in that (1 July 1517) of as many as 31 at one time, to which the Sacred College consented, terrified by the harsh vengeance against Petrucci and his real or supposed accomplices, if worthy men were included, too many others were admitted who owed the purple to kinship or friendship with the Pope, to political motives, or to the payment of enormous sums. This conduct of his devalued the purposes and attempts at reform.
And Leo appeared too weak in the face of tendencies dangerous to the authority of the pontiff and to the unity of the Church, even if his complaisance can be partly excused by the gravity of the circumstances. The Concordat with Francis I (18 Aug. 1516) abolished the Pragmatic Sanction, rejected the doctrine of the superiority of the council, and assured the French Church the support of the Crown; but it abandoned this Church into the hands of the King, to whom were granted almost unlimited powers of appointing bishops and abbots and, indirectly, the resolution of a very great part of cases, even ecclesiastical or mixed, even on appeal. To the King of Spain Leo confirmed the concession of the Cruzada; and he tried in vain to take from him the right of retención de bulas and to subject the Spanish Inquisition to common law. To the King of Portugal he granted the right of patronage over all the benefices of the overseas countries; to the King of Poland privileges, and to the Polish archbishop of Gnesen the office of legatus natus. To Henry VIII of England he gave (26 Oct. 1521) the title of defensor fidei, which he had merited by his Assertio septem Sacramentorum; but to the very powerful chancellor Wolsey he had not only granted the purple (10 Sept. 1515), but also the office of legate, allowing him to unite political and religious authority.
In the face of the new doctrines spread in Germany (v. LUTERO, MARTIN), he showed even excessive tolerance. He hesitated long before pronouncing in the battle between theologians and humanists over the works of Reuchlin, and only on 23 June 1520 did he condemn the Augenspiegel.
V. THE FIGURE
In Leo's person there was a singular contrast. To the enormous and obese figure, with its flabby face and nearsighted, protruding eyes, idealized by Raphael but portrayed with brutal realism by Sebastiano del Piombo and Varignana, were opposed the harmonious voice, the eloquent speech, the friendly and at times fascinating manner. And the same contrast, proper, moreover, to that age, was present in his spiritual character. Sincerely a believer, pious, honest in his conduct, greatly beneficent, he was at the same time eager to "live and enjoy life," held "every toil in horror," and did not want "bothers"; he was prudent, yes, but doubtful, timid, secretive in his designs, not averse to duplicity and falsehood, too fond of his own. His very culture, rich and varied, had something of superficiality and dilettantism about it. He died, after a very rapid illness, with signs of genuine piety. But he was not mourned; rather, he became the target of atrocious and unjust accusations; buried first in St. Peter's, only later did his bones rest in the pompous monumento disegnato dal Sangallo, eseguito da Baccio
Bandinelli, nel coro di S. Maria sopra Minerva. -
Vedi tav. LXXV.
Bibliography13 works
Giovanni Battista Picotti