Pius III succeeded Alexander VI, and reigned twenty-five days; on the
twenty-sixth he was poisoned also.

Caesar Borgia had under his control eighteen Spanish cardinals who owed
to him their places in the Sacred College; these cardinals were entirely
his creatures, and he could command them absolutely. As he was in a
moribund condition and could make no use of them for himself, he sold
them to Giuliano della Rovere, and Giuliano della Rovere was elected
pope, under the name of Julius II. To the Rome of Nero succeeded the
Athens of Pericles.

Leo X succeeded Julius II, and under his pontificate Christianity
assumed a pagan character, which, passing from art into manners, gives
to this epoch a strange complexion. Crimes for the moment disappeared,
to give place to vices; but to charming vices, vices in good taste,
such as those indulged in by Alcibiades and sung by Catullus. Leo X died
after having assembled under his reign, which lasted eight years, eight
months, and nineteen days, Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, Leonardo da Vinci,
Correggio, Titian, Andrea del Sarto, Fra Bartolommeo, Giulio Romano,
Ariosto, Guicciardini, and Macchiavelli.

Giulio di Medici and Pompeo Colonna had equal claims to succeed him. As
both were skilful politicians, experienced courtiers, and moreover of
real and almost equal merit, neither of them could obtain a majority,
and the Conclave was prolonged almost indefinitely, to the great fatigue
of the cardinals. So it happened one day that a cardinal, more tired
than the rest, proposed to elect, instead of either Medici or Colonna,
the son, some say of a weaver, others of a brewer of Utrecht, of whom no
one had ever thought till then, and who was for the moment acting head
of affairs in Spain, in the absence of Charles the Fifth. The jest