side by side with beautiful Imperias and smooth-cheeked singing-boys; fishes from Byzantium and ragouts of parrots’ tongues were served on golden platters, which the guests threw from the open windows into the Tiber.  Masques and balls, comedies and carnival processions filled the streets and squares and palaces of the Eternal City with a mimicry of pagan festivals, while art went hand in hand with luxury.  It seemed as though Bacchus and Pallas and Priapus would be reinstated in their old realm, and yet Rome had not ceased to call herself Christian.  The hoarse rhetoric of friars in the Coliseum, and the drone of pifferari from the Ara Coeli, mingled with the Latin declamations of the Capitol and the twang of lute-strings in the Vatican.  Meanwhile, amid crowds of Cardinals in hunting-dress, dances of half-naked girls, and masques of Carnival Bacchantes, moved pilgrims from the North with wide, astonished, woeful eyes—­disciples of Luther, in whose soul, as in a scabbard, lay sheathed the sword of the Spirit, ready to flash forth and smite.

    [1] See Gregorovius, Stadt Rom, book xiv. ch. 3.

    [2] ‘Relazione di Marino Giorgi,’ March 17, 1517.  Alberi,
    series ii. vol. iii. p. 51.

A more complete conception may be formed of Leo by comparing him with Julius.  Julius disturbed the peace of Italy with a view to establishing the temporal power of his see.  Leo returned to the old nepotism of the previous Popes, and fomented discord for the sake of the Medici.  It was at one time his project to secure the kingdom of Naples for his brother Giuliano, and a Milanese sovereignty for his nephew Lorenzo.  On the latter he succeeded in conferring the Duchy of Urbino, to the prejudice of its rightful owners.[1] With Florence in their hands and the Papacy under their control, the Medici might have swayed all Italy.  Such plans, however, in the days of Francis I. and Charles V. had become impracticable; nor had any of the Medicean family stuff to undertake more than the subjugation of their native city.  Julius was violent in temper, but observant of his promises.  Leo was suave and slippery.  He lured Gianpaolo Baglioni to Rome by a safe-conduct, and then had him imprisoned and beheaded in the Castle of S. Angelo.  Julius delighted in war and was never happier than when the cannons roared around him at Mirandola.  Leo vexed the soul of his master of the ceremonies because he would ride out a-hunting in topboots.  Julius designed S. Peter’s and comprehended Michael Angelo.  Leo had the wit to patronize the poets, artists and historians who added luster to his Court; but he brought no new great man of genius to the front.  The portraits of the two Popes, both from the hand of Raphael, are exceedingly characteristic.  Julius, bent and emaciated, has the nervous glance of a passionate and energetic temperament; though the brand is hoar with ashes and more than half burned out, it glows and can inflame a conflagration.  Leo, heavy jawed, dull-eyed, with thick lips and a brawny jowl, betrays the coarser fiber of a sensualist.