around him on whom he could rely.

Sixtus IV. (1471-84) was the first of the political Popes, Leo X.
being the last. They are so called on account of the excessive
interest they displayed in Italian politics of the period, to the
neglect of the higher interests with which they were entrusted. Most
of them, with the exception of Alexander VI., were not positively
unworthy men, but they were too much concerned with secular pursuits
to undertake a reform of the gross abuses which flourished at the very
gates of their palace. The papal court was no worse and very little
better than the courts of contemporary rulers, and the greed for
money, which was the predominant weakness of the curial officials,
alienated the sympathy of all foreigners, both lay and cleric.

Julius II. (1503-13) did, indeed, undertake the difficult task of
restoring the States of the Church that had been parcelled out into
petty kingdoms by his predecessors, but his policy soon brought him
into conflict with Louis XII. of France. Louis demanded that a General
Council should be convoked, not so much out of zeal for reform as from
a desire to embarrass the Pope, and when Julius II. refused to comply
with his request the king induced some of the rebellious cardinals to
issue invitations for a council to meet at Pisa (Sept. 1511). Most of
the bishops who met at Pisa at the appointed time were from France.
The Emperor Maximilian held aloof, and the people of Pisa regarded the
conventicle with no friendly feelings. The sessions were transferred
from Pisa to Milan, and finally to Lyons. As a set off to this Julius
II. convoked a council to meet at Rome, the fifth Lateran Council (May
1512), for the threefold purpose of healing the French schism, of
proscribing certain doctrinal errors, and of undertaking the work of
reform. The earlier sessions were taken up almost entirely with the