trumpets," said Marforio, "you sing and strike your lyre: this is to
understand the temper of your Lord."

"Inter bella, tubas, caedes, canis ipse, lyramque
Percutis. Hoc sapere est ingenium Domini."[7]

But the character of most of those pasquinades which belong to the
pontificate of Leo is so coarse as to render them unfit for
reproduction. A general licentiousness pervaded Rome, and the vices of
the Pope and the higher clergy, veiled, but not hidden, under the
displays of sensual magnificence and the pretended refinements of
degraded art, were readily imitated by a people taught to follow and
obey the teachings of their ecclesiastical rulers. Corruption of every
sort was common. Virtue and vice, profane and sacred things, were
alike for sale. The Pope made money by the sale of cardinalates and
traffic in indulgences. "Give me gifts, ye spectators," begged
Pasquin; "bring me not verses: divine Money alone rules the ethereal
gods."

"Dona date, astantes; versus ne reddite: sola
Imperat aethereis alma Moneta deis."

Leo's fondness for buffoons, with whom he mercilessly amused himself
by tormenting them and exciting them to make themselves ridiculous, is
recorded in a question put to Pasquin on one of his changes of figure.
"Why have you not asked, O Pasquil, to be made a buffoon? for at Rome
everything is now permitted to the buffoons."

"Cur non te fingi scurram, Pasquille, rogâsti?
Cum Romae scurris omnia jam liceant."