ON THE 18TH OF August, 1503, after a sudden and mysterious illness Alexander VI had departed this life to the unspeakable joy of all Rome, as Guicciardini assures us. Crowds thronged to see the dead body of the man whose boundless ambition, whose perfidy, cruelty, and licentiousness coupled with shameless greed had infected and poisoned all the world. On this side the Alps the verdict of Luther’s time and of the centuries which followed has confirmed the judgment of the Florentine historian without extenuation, and so far as Borgia himself was concerned doubtless this verdict is just. But today if we consider Alexander’s pontificate objectively we can recognize its better sides. Let it pass as personal ambition that he should have been the first of all the Popes who definitely attempted to create a modern State from the conglomerate of the old Stati Pontificii, and that he should have endeavored, as he undeniably did, step by step to secularize that State and to distribute among his friends the remaining possessions of the Church. But in two ways his government shows undeniable progress: in the midst of constant tumult, during which without interruption tyranny succeeded to tyranny in the petty States, when for centuries neither life nor property had been secure, Cesare Borgia had established in the Romagna an ordered government, just and equal administration of the laws; provided suitable outlets for social forces, and brought back peace and security; and by laying out new streets, canals, and by other public works indicated the way to improve agriculture and increase manufacture. Guicciardini himself recognizes all this and adds the important comment, that now the people saw how much better it was for the Italians to obey as a united people one powerful master, than to have a petty despot in every town, who must needs be a burden on the townsfolk without being able to protect and help them. And hereGuicciardini touches the second point which marks the pontificate of Alexander VI, the appearance, still vague and confused, of the idea of a future union of the Italian States, and their independence of foreign rule and interference. Alexander played with this great political principle, though he did not remain faithful to it; to what could he have been faithful? Was not his very nature immoral and perfidious to its core? But now and then at least he made as if he would blazon on his banner the motto Italia farà da se; this brought him a popularity which nowadays it is hard to understand, and made it possible for him, the most unrighteous man in Italy, to gain the victory over the most righteous man of his time and to stifle Savonarola’s reforming zeal among the ashes at the stake.
The idea of a great reformation of the Church in both head and members had arisen since the beginning of the thirteenth century, and was the less likely to fade from the mind of nations since complaints of the evils of Church government were growing daily more serious and well-grounded and one hope of improvement after another had been wrecked. No means of bringing about this reform was neglected; all had failed. Francis of Assisi had opposed to the growing materialism and worldliness of the Church the idea of renunciation and poverty. But Gregory IX had contrived to win over the Order founded by the Saint to the cause of the Papacy, and to set in the background the Founder’s original purpose. Thrust into obscurity in the inner sanctuary of the Order, this purpose, tinged by a certain schismatic colouring, developed in the hands of the Spirituelles into the Ecclesia Spiritualis as opposed to the Ecclesia Carnalis, which stood for the official Church. Traces of this thought are to be found in Dante; we may even call it the starting-point, whence he proceeds to contrast his Monarchia with the political Papacy of the fourteenth century, and as a pioneer to develop with keen penetration and energy the modern idea of the State. The opponents of the Popes of Avignon in reality only fought against their politics without paying any attention to the moral regeneration of Christendom. Theological science in the fifteenth century raised the standard of reform against the dependence of the Papacy, the triple Schism, and the disruption of the Church. But she too succumbed, her projects foiled, at the great ecclesiastical conferences of Constance and Basel. Asceticism, politics, theology had striven in vain; the close of the Middle Ages on both sides of the Alps was marked by outbursts of popular discontent and voices which from the heart of the nations cried for reform, prophesying the catastrophe of the sixteenth century. None of these voices was mightier than Savonarola’s, or left a deeper echo. He was the contemporary and opponent of the men who were to give their name to this epoch in Rome’s history.
The House of the Medici passes for the true and most characteristic exponent of the Renaissance movement. We cannot understand the nature and historical position of the Medicean Papacy without an attempt to explain the character and development of this movement. The discovery of man since Dante and Giotto, the discovery of Nature by the naturalism of Florence, the revival of classical studies, and the reawakening of the antique in Art and Literature are its component parts; but its essence can only be grasped if we regard the Renaissance as the blossoming and unfolding of the mind of the Italian people. The early Renaissance was indeed the Vita Nuova of the nation. It is an error to believe that it was in opposition to the Church. Art and the artists of the thirteenth century recognized no such opposition. It is the Church who gives the artists employment and sets them their tasks. The circle of ideas in which they move is still entirely religious: the breach with the religious allegory and symbolism of the Middle Ages did not take place until the sixteenth century. In the fourteenth century the spread of naturalistic thought brought about a new conception of the beauty of the human body; this phase was in opposition to the monastic ideal, yet it had in it no essential antagonism to Christianity. It was a necessary stage of the development which was to lead from realism dominant for a time to a union of the idealist and realist standpoints. Many of the Popes were entirely in sympathy with this Renaissance; several of them opposed the pagan and materialistic degeneration of Humanism, but none of them accused the art of the Renaissance of being inimical to Christianity.
Its pagan and materialistic side, not content with restoring antique knowledge and culture to modern humanity, eagerly laid hold of the whole intellectual life of a heathen time, together with its ethical perceptions, its principles based on sensual pleasure and the joy of living; these it sought to bring to life again. This impulse was felt at the very beginning of the fifteenth century; since the middle of the century it had ventured forth even more boldly in Florence, Naples, Home in the days of Reggio, Valla, Beccadelli, and despite many a repulse had even gained access to the steps of the Papal throne. A literature characterized by the Facetiae, by Lorenzo Valla’s Voluptas andBeccadelli’s Hermaphroditus could not but shock respectable feeling. Florence was the headquarters of this school, and Lorenzo il Magnificoits chief supporter. Scenes that took place there in his day in the streets and squares, the extravagances of the youth of the city lost in sensuality, the writings and pictures offered to the public, would and must seem to earnest-minded Christians a sign of approaching dissolution. A reaction was both natural and justifiable. GiovanniDominici had introduced it at the beginning of the century, and FraAntonino of San Marco had supported it, while Archbishop of Florence, with the authority of his blameless life devoted to the service of his fellow-men. And so Cosimo’s foundation became the center and starting-point of a movement destined to attack his own House. At the head of that movement stood Fra Girolamo Savonarola. Grief over the degradation of the Church had driven him into a monastery and now it led him forth to the pulpits of San Marco and Santa Maria del Fiore. As a youth he had sung his dirge De Ruina Ecclesiae in a canzone since grown famous; as a man he headed the battle against the immorality and worldliness of the Curia. He was by no means illiterate, but in the pagan and sensual tendency of humanist literature and in the voluptuous freedom of art he saw the source of evil, and in Lorenzo and his sons pernicious patrons of corruption. Zeal against the immorality of the time, the worldliness of prelates and preachers, made him overlook the lasting gains that the Renaissance and humanism brought to humanity. He had no sympathy with this development of culture from the fresh young life of his own people. He did not understand the Young Italy of his day; behind this luxuriant growth he could not see the good and fruitful germ, and here, as in the province of politics, he lost touch with the pulse of national life. His plan of a theocratic State governed only by Christ, its invisible Head, was based on momentary enthusiasm and therefore untenable. He was too deficient in aesthetic sense to be able to rise in inward freedom superior to discords. Like a dead man amongst the living, he left Italy to bear the clash of those contradictions which the great mind of Julius II sought, unhappily in vain, to fuse in one conciliatory scheme.
Such a scheme of conciliation meantime made its appearance in Florence, not without the co-operation and probably the encouragement of the Medici. It was connected with the introduction of Platonism, which since the time of the Council of Florence in 1438 was represented in that city by enthusiastic and learned men likeBessarion, and was zealously furthered by Cosimo, the Pater Patriae, in the Academy which he had founded. From the learned societies started for these purposes come the first attempts to bring not only Plato’s philosophy but the whole of classical culture into a close and essential connection with Christianity. Platonism seemed to them the link which joined Christianity with antiquity. Bessarion himself had taught the internal relationship of both principles, and Marsilio Ficino and Picodella Mirandola made the explanation of this theory the work of their lives. If both of them went too far in their youthful enthusiasm and mysticism, and conceived Christianity almost as a continuation of Attic philosophy, this was an extravagance which left untouched the sincerity of their own belief, and from which Marsilio, when he grew older, attempted to free himself. Giovanni and Giulio de’ Medici, son and nephew of Lorenzo, were both Marsilio’s pupils. Both were destined to wear the tiara and took a decided part in the scheme for conciliating these contrasts, which Julius II set forth by means of Raffaelle’s brush.
The victory of the Borgia over the monk of San Marco was not likely to discourage the skeptic and materialistic tendency, whose worst features were incarnate in Alexander VI and Cesare Borgia. PietroPomponazzi furthered it by his notorious phrase, that a thing might be true in philosophy and yet false in theology; a formula that spread its poison far and wide. Even then in Florence a genius was developing, that was to prove the true incarnation of the pagan Renaissance and modern realism. The flames which closed over Savonarola had early convinced Niccolò Machiavelli that no reform was to be looked for from Rome.
Savonarola’s distrust of humanism and his harsh verdict on the extreme realism of contemporary art were not extinguished with his life. A few years later we find his thoughts worked out, or rather extended and distorted in literature. Castellesi (Adriano di Corneto), formerly secretary to Alexander VI and created Cardinal May 81, 1503, wrote his De vera philosophia ex quattuor doctoribus Ecclesiae, in direct opposition to the Renaissance and humanism. The author represents every scientific pursuit, indeed all human intellectual life, as useless for salvation, and even dangerous. Dialectics, astronomy, geometry, music, and poetry are but vainglorious folly. Aristotle has nothing to do with Paul, nor Plato with Peter; all philosophers are damned, their wisdom vain, since it recognized but a fragment of the truth and marred even this by misuse. They are the patriarchs of heresy; what are physics, ethics, logic compared with the Holy Scriptures, whose authority is greater than that of all human intellect?
The man who wrote these things, and at whose table Alexander VI contracted his last illness, was no ascetic and no monkish obscurantist. He was the Pope’s confidant and quite at home in all those political intrigues which later under Leo X brought ruin upon him. His book can only be regarded as a blow aimed at Julius II, Alexander’s old enemy, who now wore the tiara and was preparing to glorify his pontificate by the highest effort of which Christian art was capable. Providence had granted him for the execution of his plans three of the greatest minds the world of art has ever known: never had a monarch three such men as Bramante, Michelangelo, and Raffaelle at once under his sway. With their help Julius II resolved to carry out his ideas for the glory of his pontificate and the exaltation of the Church. What Cardinal Castellesiwanted was a downright rebellion against the Pope; if he, with his following of obscurantists, were acknowledged to be in the right, all the plans of the brilliant and energetic ruler would end in failure, or else be banned as worldly, and Julius II would lose the glory of having united the greatest and noblest achievement of art with the memory of his pontificate and the interests of Catholicism.
The Pope gave Cardinal Castellesi his answer by making the Vatican what it is. The alteration and enlargement of the palace however passes almost unnoticed in comparison with the rebuilding of the Basilica of St Peter’s, on which the Pope was resolved since 1505. With the palace (1504) Bramante seemed to have set the crown on his many works; but the plans for the new cathedral, with all the sketches and alternatives which still survive and have been analyzed for us with true critical appreciation, show us Bramante not only in the height of his creative power, but as perhaps the most universal and gifted mind that ever used its mastery over architecture. The form of the Greek cross joined with the vast central cupola might be taken as a fitting symbol for Catholicism. The arms of the cross, stretched out to the four winds, tell us of the doctrine of universality; the classical forms preferred by the Latin race, the elevation with its horizontal lines accentuated throughout, bespeak that principle of rest and persistence, which is the true heritage of the Catholic south in contradistinction to the restless striving in search of a visionary ideal shown in the vertical principle of the north. St Peter’s thus, in the development planned by Julius, presented the most perfect picture of the majestic extension of the Church; but the paintings and decorations of the palace typified the conception of Christianity, humanity led to Christ, the evolution and great destiny of His Church, and lastly the spiritual empire in which the Pope, along with the greatest thinkers of his time, beheld the goal of the Renaissance and the scheme of a new and glorious future, showing Christianity in its fullest realization.
His own mausoleum gives proof how deeply Julius II was convinced that the chief part in this development fell to the Papacy in general, and to himself, Giuliano della Rovere, in particular. The instruction which he gave to Michelangelo to represent him as Moses can bear but one interpretation: that Julius set himself the mission of leading forth Israel (the Church) from its state of degradation and showing it, though he could not grant possession, the Promised Land at least from afar, that blessed land which consists in the enjoyment of the highest intellectual benefits, and the training and consecration of all faculties of man’s mind to union with God. He bade Michelangelo depict on the roof of the Sistine Chapel (1508-9), how after the fall of our first parents mankind was led from afar towards this high goal; symbolizing that shepherding of the soul to Christ, which Clement the Alexandrine had already seen and described. When we see the Sibyls placed among the Patriarchs and Prophets, we know what this meant in the language of the theologians and religious philosophers of that time. Not only Judaism, but also Graeco-Roman paganism, is an antechamber to Christianity; and this antique culture gave not merely a negative, but also a positive preparation for Christ. For this reason it could not be considered as a contradiction of the Christian conception : there was a positive relationship between classical antiquity and Christianity.
And so at one stroke not only the artist, but the Pope, who doubtless planned and watched these compositions, took up that mediatory and conciliating attitude, which some decades earlier had been adopted in Florence by Marsilio and Pico. But we see this thought more clearly and far more wonderfully expressed in the Camera dellaSegnatura (1509). If we consider what place it was that Raffaelle was painting, and the character and individuality of the Pope, we cannot doubt that in these compositions also we are concerned, not with the subjective inspiration of the artist who executed, but with the Pope’s own well-considered and clearly formulated scheme. In the last few years it has been recognized that this scheme is entirely based on the ideas of the universe represented by the Florentine School. Especially it has been proved that the School of Athens is drawn after the model which Marsilio Ficino left of the Accademia, the ancient assembly of philosophers, while Parnassus has an echo of that bella scuola of the great poets of old times, whom Dante met in the Limbo of the Inferno. The four pictures of the Camera della Segnatura represent the aspirations of the soul of man in each of its faculties; the striving of all humanity towards God by means of aesthetic perception (Parnassus), the exercise of reason in philosophical enquiry and all scientific research (the School of Athens), order in Church and State (Gift of Ecclesiastical and Secular Laws), and finally theology. The whole may be summed up as a pictorial representation of Pico della Mirandola’scelebrated phrase, “philosophia veritatem quaerit, theologia invenit,religio possidet”; and it corresponds with what Marsilio says in his Academy of Noble Minds when he characterizes our life’s work as an ascent to the angels and to God.
These compositions are the highest to which Christian art has attained, and the thoughts which they express are one of the greatest achievements of the Papacy. The principle elsewhere laid down is here reaffirmed: that the reception of the true Renaissance into the circle of ecclesiastical thought points to a widening of the limited medieval conception into universality, and indicates a transition to entire and actual Catholicity, like the great step taken by Paul, when he turned to the Gentiles and released the community from the limits of Judaisticteaching.
This expansion and elevation of the intellectual sphere is the most glorious achievement of Julius II and of the Papacy at the beginning of modern times. It must not only be remembered, but placed in the most prominent position, when history sums up this chapter in human development. Since Luther’s time it has been the custom to consider the Papacy of the Renaissance almost exclusively as viewed by theologians who emphasized only moral defects in the representatives of this institution and the neglect of ecclesiastical reform. Certainly these are important considerations, and our further deductions will prove that we do not neglect them nor underestimate their immense significance for the life of the Church and Catholic unity. But from this standpoint we can never succeed in grasping the situation. Ranke in hisWeltgeschichte could write the history of the first hundred years of the Roman Empire, without giving one word to all the scandalous tales that Suetonius records. The course of universal history and the importance of the Empire for the wide provinces of the Roman world were little influenced by them. Similarly, private faults of the Renaissance Popes were fateful for the moral life of the Church, but the question of what the Papacy was and meant for these times, is not summed up or determined by them. It is the right of these Popes to be judged by the better and happier sides of their government; the historian who portrays them should not be less skillful than the great masters of the Renaissance, who in their portraits of the celebrities of their time contrived to bring out the sitter’s best and most characteristic qualities. Luther was not touched in the least degree by the artistic development of his time; brought up amid the peasant life of Saxony and Thuringia he had no conception of the whole world that lay between Dante and Michelangelo, and could not see that the eminence of the Papacy consisted at that time in its leadership of Europe in the province of art. But to deny this now would be injustice to the past.
The Medici had not stood aloof from this evolution, which reached its highest point under Julius II. Search has been made for the bridge by means of which the ideas of Marsilio and his fellow thinkers were brought from Florence to Rome. But there is no real need to guess at definite personages. Hundreds of correspondents had long since made all Italy familiar with this school of thought. Among those who frequented the Court of Rome, Castiglione, Bibbiena, Sadoleto,Inghirami, and Beroaldus had been educated in the spirit of Marsilio. His old friend and correspondent Raffaelle Riario was now, as Cardinal of San Giorgio and the Pope’s cousin, one of the most influential personages in the Vatican. But before all we must remember Giovanni de’ Medici and his cousin Giulio, the future Popes. They were Marsilio’spupils, and after the banishment of their family he remained their friend and corresponded with them, regarding them as the true heirs of Lorenzo’s spirit; Raffaelle has represented the older cousin Giovanni standing near Julius II in the Bestowed of Spiritual Laws.
It was a kingdom of intellectual unity, which the brush of the greatest of painters was commissioned to paint on the walls of theCamera della Segnatura; the same idea which Julius caused to be proclaimed in 1512, in the opening speech of Aegidius of Viterbo at the Lateran Council, referring to the classical proverb: “simplex sermoveritatis”. The world of the beautiful, of reason and science, of political and social order, had its place appointed in the kingdom of God upon earth. A limit was set to the neglect of secular efforts to explore nature and history, to the disregard of poetry and art, and its rights were granted to healthy human reason organized in the State; Gratiae etMusae a Deo sunt atque ad Deum referendae, as Marsilio had said.
The programme laid down by Julius II, had it been carried out, might have saved Italy and preserved the Catholic principle, when imperiled in the North. The task was to bring modern culture into harmony with Christianity, to unite the work of the Renaissance, so far as it was really sound and progressive, with ecclesiastical practice and tradition into one harmonious whole. The recognition of the rights of intellectual activity, of the ideal creations of human fancy, and of the conception of the State, were the basis for this union. It remains to be shown why the attempt proved fruitless.
The reign of Julius II was one long struggle. The sword never left his grasp, which was more used to the handling of weapons than of Holy Writ. On the whole, the Pope might at the close of his pontificate be contented with the success of his politics. He had driven the French from Italy, and the retreat of Louis XII from Lombardy opened the Bates of Florence once more to the Medici. The Council of Pisa, for which France had used her influence, had come to naught, and its remnant was scattered before the anger of the victorious Pontiff. And as he had freed Italy from the ascendancy of France so he now hoped to throw off that of Spain. It may be a legend that as he was dying he murmured “Fuori i barbari” but these words certainly were the expression of his political thought. But this second task was not within his power. On the 3rd of May, 1512, he had opened the Lateran Council to counteract that of Pisa. At first none of the great Powers was represented there; 15 Cardinals, 14 Patriarchs, 10 Archbishops, and 57 Bishops, all of them Italians, with a few heads of monastic Orders, formed this assembly, which was called the Fifth General Lateran Council. Neither Julius nor Leo was ever able to convince the world that this was an ecumenical assembly of Christendom. Julius died in the night of February 20-1, 1513. Guicciardini calls him a ruler unsurpassed in power and endurance, but violent and without moderation. Elsewhere he says that he had nothing of a priest but vesture and title. The dialogue, Julius Exclusus, attributed sometimes to Hütten, sometimes to Erasmus, and perhaps written by Fausto Andrelini, is the harshest condemnation of the Pope and his reign. But at bottom the pamphlet is exceedingly one-sided and the outcome of French party-spirit. Although in many cases the author speaks the truth, and for instance even at that time (1513) unfortunately was able to put such words into the Pope’s mouth as “Nos Ecclesiam vocamus sacras aedes,sacerdotes, et praecipue Curiam Romanam, me imprimis, qui caput sum Ecclesiae”, yet this is more a common trait of the office than a characteristic of Julius II. It almost raises a smile to read in Pallavicino, that on his death-bed the magnanimity of Julius was only equaled by his piety, and that, although he had not possessed every priestly perfection, perhaps because of his natural inclinations, or because of the age, which had not yet been disciplined by the Council of Trent, yet his greatest mistake had been made with the best intention and proved disastrous by a mere chance, when, as Head of the Church, and at the same time as a mighty Prince, he undertook a work that for these very reasons exceeded the means of his treasury, the building of St Peter’s. We see that neither his enemies nor his apologists had the least idea wherein Julius’ true greatness consisted. With such divided opinions it cannot surprise us that contemporaries and coming generations alike found it difficult to form a reasoned and final judgment of the pontificate which immediately followed.
Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici came forth from the conclave summoned on March 4, 1513, as Pope Leo X. Since Piero had been drowned on the 9th of December, 1503, Giovanni had become the head of the House of Medici. He was only 38 years of age at the election, to which he had had himself conveyed in a litter from Florence to Rome, suffering from fistula. The jest on his shortsightedness, “multi coeciCardinales creavere caecum decimum Leonem”, by no means expressed public opinion, which rejoiced at his accession. The Possesso, which took place on April 11th, with the great procession to the Lateran, was the most brilliant spectacle of its kind that Christian Rome had ever witnessed. What was expected of Leo was proclaimed in the inscription which Agostino Chigi had attached to his house for the occasion :
“Olim habuit Cypris sua tempora, tempora Mavors
Olim habuit, ma nunc tempora Pallas habet”.
But other expectations were not wanting and a certain goldsmith gave voice to them in the line :
“Mars fuit; est Pallas; Cypria semper ero”.
To Leo X the century owed its name. The Saecula Leonis have been called the Saecula Aurea, and his reign has been compared with that of Augustus. Erasmus, who saw him in Rome in 1507 and 1509, praises his kindness and humanity, his magnanimity and his learning, the indescribable charm of his speech, his love of peace and of the fine arts, which cause no sighs, no tears; he places him as high above all his predecessors as Peter’s Chair is above all thrones in the world.Pallavicino says of Leo that he was well-known for his kindness of heart, learned in all sciences, and had passed his youth in the greatest innocence. That as Pope he let himself be blinded by appearances, which often confuse the good with the great, and chose rather the applause of the crowd than the prosperity of the nation, and thus was tempted to exercise too magnificent a generosity. Such expressions from one who is the unconditional apologist of all the Popes cannot make much impression, but it is noticeable that even Sarpi says: “Leo, noble by birth and education, brought many aptitudes to the Papacy, especially a remarkable knowledge of classical literature, humanity, kindness, the greatest liberality, an avowed intention of supporting artists and learned men, who for many years had enjoyed no such favor in the Holy See. He would have made an ideal Pope had he added to these qualities some knowledge of the things of religion, and a little more inclination to piety, both of them things for which he cared little”.
The favorable opinion entertained of Leo X by his contemporaries long held the field in history. His reign has been regarded as at once the zenith and cause of the greatest period of the Renaissance. His wide liberality, his unfeigned enthusiasm for the creations of genius, his unprejudiced taste for all that beautifies humanity, and his sympathy for all the culture of his time have been the theme of a traditional chorus of laudation. More recent criticism has recognized in the reign of Leo a period of incipient decline, and has traced that decline to the follies and frailties of the Pontiff.
With regard to the political methods of Leo some difference of opinion may still be entertained. Some have seen in him the single-minded and unscrupulous friend of Medicean Florence, prepared to sacrifice alike the interests of the Church and of the Papacy to the advancement of his family. To others he is the clear-sighted statesman who, perceiving the future changes and difficulties of the Church, sought for the Papacy the firm support of a hereditary alliance.
Truth may lie midway between these two opinions. If we view Leo as a man, similar doubts encounter us. Paramount in his character were his gentleness and cheerfulness, his good-nature, his indulgence both for himself and others, his love of peace and hatred of war. But these amiable qualities were coupled with an insincerity and a love of tortuous ways which grew to be a second nature. Nor must we overlook the fact that Leo’s policy of peace was a mere illusion; his hopes and intentions were quite frustrated by the actual course of affairs. On his personal character the great blot must rest that he passed his life in intellectual self-indulgence and took his pleasure in hunting and gaming, while the Teutonic North was bursting the bonds of reverence and authority which bound Europe to Rome. Even for the restoration of the rule of the Medici in Florence the Medicean Popes made only futile attempts. Cosimo I was the first to accomplish it. Leo had absorbed the culture of his time, but he did not possess the ability to look beyond that time. A diplomatist rather than a statesman, his creations were only the feats of a political virtuoso, who sacrificed the future in order to control the present.
Even the greatness of the Maecenas crumbles before recent criticism. The zenith of Renaissance culture falls in the age of Julius II. Ariosto’s light verses, Bibbiena’s prurient, La Calandria, the paintings in the bath-room of the Vatican, the rejection of the Dante monument planned by Michelangelo, the misapplication of funds collected for the Crusade to purposes of mere dynastic interest, Leo’s political double-dealing, which disordered all the affairs of Italy, and indeed of Christendom; all this must shake our faith in him as protector of the good and beautiful in art. His portrait by Raffaelle, with its intelligent but cold and sinister face, may assist to destroy any illusions which we may have had about his personality.
The harshness and violence of Leo’s greater predecessor, Julius, brought down on him the hatred of his contemporaries and won for his successor an immense popularity without further effort. The spiritual heir of Lorenzo il Magnifico, Rome and all Italy acclaimed Leo pacisrestauratorem, felicissimum litteratorum amatorem; and Erasmus proclaimed to the world that “an age, worse than that of iron, was suddenly transformed into one of gold”. And there can be no doubt that when Leo X was greeted on his accession, like Titus, as the deliciaegeneris humani he made every disposition to respond to these expectations and prove himself the most liberal of patrons. The Pope, however, did not long keep this resolution; his weakness of purpose, his inclination to luxury, enjoyment, and pleasures, soon quenched his sense of the gravity of life and all his higher perceptions; so that a swift and sad decline followed on the first promise.
On Leo’s accession he found a number of great public buildings in progress which had been begun under his great predecessor but were still unfinished. Among them were the colossal palace planned by Bramante in the Via Giulia, St Peter’s also began by him, and his work of joining the Vatican with the Belvedere, besides the loggie and buildings in Loreto. Leo, who was not in the least affected by the passion of building -il mal di pietra- did not carry on these undertakings. He even hindered Michelangelo from finishing the tomb of Julius II, so little reverence had he for the memory of the Pope to whom he owed his own position. Only the loggie were finished, since they could not remain as Bramante had left them. Even after Bramante’s death there was no lack of architects who could have finished St Peter’s. Besides Raffaelle, who succeeded to his post as architect, Sangallo and Sansovino, Peruzzi and Giuliano Leno waited in vain for commissions. While Raffaelle in a letter relates that the Pope had set aside 60,000 ducats a year for the continuation of the building, and talked to Fra Giocondo about it every day, he might soon after have told how Leo went no further, but stopped at the good intention. As a matter of fact work almost entirely ceased because the money was not forthcoming. There is therefore no reason to reproach Raffaelle with the delay in building. On the contrary, by not pressing Leo to an energetic prosecution of the work, Raffaelle probably did the building the greatest service; since the Pope’s mind was full of plans, for which Bramante’s great ideas would have been entirely forsaken. No one could see more clearly than Raffaelle the harm which would have thus resulted.
Leo X not only neglected the undertakings of his predecessor; he created nothing new in the way of monumental buildings beyond the portico of the Navicella, and a few pieces of restoration in San Cosimateand St John Lateran. The work he had done beyond the walls in his villas and hunting lodges (in Magliana, at Palo, Montalto, andMontefiascone) served only the purposes of his pleasure. Of the more important palaces built in the city two fall to the account of his relatives Lorenzo and Giulio, that of the Lanti (Piazza de’ Caprettari) and the beautiful Villa Madama on the Monte Mario, begun by Raffaelle, GiulioRomano, and Giovanni da Udine, but never finished. Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici it was who carried on the building of the Sacristy in San Lorenzo at Florence, in which Michelangelo was to place the tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo; but the façade which the Pope had planned for the church was never executed. Nor were any of the palaces built by dignitaries of the Church under Leo X of importance, with the exceptions of a part of the Palazzo Farnese and the Palazzo di Venezia. Even the palaces and dwelling-houses built by Andrea Sansovino, Sangallo, and Raffaelle will not bear comparison with the creations of the previous pontificate, nor with the later parts of the Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola.
Sculpture had flourished under Pius II in the days when Mino of Fiesole and Paolo Romano were in Rome; it could point to very honorable achievements under Alexander VI and Julius II (AndreaSansovino’s monuments of the Cardinals Basso and Sforza in Santa Maria del Popolo); but this art also declined under Leo X; for the work done by Andrea Sansovino in Loreto under his orders falls in the time of Clement VII, after whose death in 1534 the greater part of the plastic ornament of the Santa Casa was executed. The cardinals and prelates who died in Rome between 1513 and 1521 received only poor and insignificant monuments, and Leo’s colossal statue in Ara Celi, the work of Domenico d’Amio, can only be called a soulless monstrosity.
Painting flourished more under this Pope, who certainly was a faithful patron and friend to Raffaelle. The protection he showed to this great master is and always will be Leo’s best and noblest title to fame. But he allowed Leonardo to go to France, when after Bramante’s death he might easily have won him, had he bestowed on him the post ofpiombatore apostolico, instead of giving it to his maître de plaisirs, the shallow-minded Fra Mariano (sannio cucullatus). He allowed Michelangelo to return to Florence, and, though he loaded Raffaellewith honors, it is a fact that he was five years behindhand with the payment of his salary as architect of St Peter’s. A letter of MesserBaldassare Tunni da Pescia turns on the ridiculous investiture of the jester Mariano with the tonaca of Bramante, performed by the Pope himself when Bramante was scarce cold in his grave. This leaves a most painful impression, and makes it very doubtful whether Leo ever took his patronage of the arts very seriously. In the same way his love of peace is shown in a very strange light during the latter half of his reign by the high-handed campaign against the Duke of Urbino (1516); the menace to Ferrara (1519); the crafty enticing of Giampaolo Baglione, Lord of Perugia, to Rome and his murder despite the safe-conduct promised him; the war against Ludovico Freducci, Lord of Fermo; the annexation of the towns and fortresses in the province of Ancona; the attempt on the life of the Duke of Ferrara; the betrayal of Francis I and the league with Charles V in 1521. The senseless extravagance of the Court, the constant succession of very mundane festivals, hunting-parties, and other amusements, left Leo in continual embarrassment for money and led him into debt not only to all the bankers but to his own officials. They even drove him to unworthy extortion, such as followed on the conspiracy of Cardinal Petrucci and the pardon granted to his accomplices, or that which was his motive for the creation of thirty-one cardinals in a single day.
All this taken together brings us to the conclusion that Leo’s one real merit was his patronage of Raffaelle. Despite the noble and generous way in which his reign began the Pope soon fell into an effeminate life of self-indulgence spent among players and buffoons, a life rich in undignified farce and offensive jests, but poor in every kind of positive achievement. The Pope laughed, hunted, and gambled; he enjoyed the papacy. Had he not said to his brother Giuliano on his accession: “Godiamoci il papato poichè Dio ci l’ ha dato?”. Though he himself has not been accused of sensual excesses the moral sense of the Pope could not be delicate when he found fit to amuse himself with indecent comedies like La Calandria, and on April 30, 1518, attended the wedding of Agostino Chigi with his concubine of many years’ standing, himself placing the ring on the hand of the bride, already mother of a large family.
Nor can Leo’s reign, apart from his own share in it, be regarded as the best period of the Renaissance. The great masters had done their best work before 1513. Bramante died at the beginning of Leo’s pontificate, Michelangelo had painted the Sistine Chapel from 1508 to 1512, Leonardo the Cena in 1496, Raffaelle the Stanza della Segnatura, 1508-11. The later Stanze are far inferior to that masterpiece; the work of his pupils comes more to the fore in the execution of the paintings. And in his own work, as also in that of Michelangelo, the germ of decadence is already visible, and a slight tendency to barocco style is to be seen in both. The autumn wind is blowing, and the first leaves begin to fall.
The truth results that the zenith of Renaissance art falls in the time between 1496 and 1512, during which the Last Supper, the roof of the Sistine Chapel, and the Stanza della Segnatura were painted, and Bramante’s plans for St Peter’s were drawn up. We can even mark a narrower limit, and say that the four wall-paintings of the Stanza dellaSegnatura