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Upon the death of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici hastened to Florence, where he was permitted to assume almost autocratic control of State affairs.  Possibly he was regarded in the light of Regent for Lorenzo’s only legitimate child, Caterina.  He had undoubtedly personal fitness for the post of Chief of the Republic.  During the brief period, barely five months, of his administration, he did very much to place public interests upon a firm and practical basis.

Very adroitly he played off the “Ottimati,” under Pietro de’ Ridolfi, against the “Frateschi,” led by Giacopo de’ Salviati, without identifying himself with either party.  Recalled to Rome on the death of Leo X., he left Cardinal Silvio Passerini of Cortona his deputy:  a man useful as a tool but of no ability or judgment.  Adrian VI., who succeeded to the Papacy, was a weak pontiff, and Rome became a hot-bed of intrigue and villainy.

A plot to assassinate Cardinal de’ Medici failed, and, in 1523, he was, after many weeks of wrangling, elected Pope, with the title of Clement VII.  In the Vatican, that “refuge for bastards and foundlings,” room was found for two boys, cousins, each the offspring of a Medici father, but illegitimate.  They were brought up under the immediate eye of the Pope, indeed one of them, the younger, was said to be the son of Clement.

Ippolito, just fourteen years old, was the bastard son of Giuliano de’ Medici, Duke of Nemours.  His mother was a noble lady of Urbino, Pacifica Brandini, but she permitted her child to be exposed in the streets, in a basket, where he was rescued, and taken into the foundling ward of the Confraternity of Santa Maria di Piano d’Urbino.  There the kindly Religious gave him the name of “Pasqualino,” indicative of the Church season of Easter, when he entered surreptitiously upon the world’s stage.

When the child was less than two years old the nuns of Santa Maria were removed to Rome, and they took with them, along with other unfortunates, little Pasqualino.  Upon a visit, which Pope Leo paid to the convent, he noticed the young boy, and as he smiled and tried to get at his Holiness, Leo was struck with his good looks and made enquiries about his origin.  In the end, Leo undertook the little fellow’s education and maintained his interest in him, and, moreover, ordered his name to be changed to Ippolito.

Alessandro—­the younger boy—­twelve years old, was the son of Lorenzo de’ Medici, created Duke of Urbino in 1536, when the Pope annexed that principality to the pontifical estates, upon the excommunication of the rightful sovereign.  His mother was a woman of colour, a Tartar slave-girl, who passed for the wife of a vetterale or courier, in the pay of the Duke.  He was a native of Colle Vecchio, near Riete, in Umbria, and went by the name of Bizio da Collo, whilst the girl was simply called Anna.  Alessandro, later on, was made to feel the baseness of his origin, for he was greeted contemptuously as “Alessandro da Colle Vecchio!” His supposed father, Bizio, died in 1519, but Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici adopted him.