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 prospered in the ears of those
who heard it; all the cardinals approved their colleague’s
proposal, and Adrien became pope by a mere accident.
He was a perfect specimen of the Flemish type, a regular
Dutchman, and could not speak a word of Italian.
When he arrived in Rome, and saw the Greek masterpieces
of sculpture collected at vast cost by Leo X, he wished
to break them to pieces, exclaiming, “Suet idola
anticorum.” His first act was to despatch
a papal nuncio, Francesco Cherigato, to the Diet of
Nuremberg, convened to discuss the reforms of Luther,
with instructions which give a vivid notion of the
manners of the time.
“Candidly confess,” said he, “that
God has permitted this schism and this persecution
on account of the sins of man, and especially those
of priests and prelates of the Church; for we know
that many abominable things have taken place in the
Holy See.”
Adrien wished to bring the Romans back to the simple
and austere manners of the early Church, and with
this object pushed reform to the minutest details.
For instance, of the hundred grooms maintained by Leo
X, he retained only a dozen, in order, he said, to
have two more than the cardinals.
A pope like this could not reign long: he died
after a year’s pontificate. The morning
after his death his physician’s door was found
decorated with garlands of flowers, bearing this inscription:
“To the liberator of his country.”
Giulio di Medici and Pompeo Colonna were again rival
candidates. Intrigues recommenced, and the Conclave
was once more so divided that at one time the cardinals
thought they could only escape the difficulty in which
they were placed by doing what they had done before,
and electing a third competitor; they were even talking
about Cardinal Orsini, when Giulio di Medici, one
of the rival candidates, hit upon a very ingenious
expedient. He wanted only five votes; five of
his partisans each offered to bet five of Colonna’s
a hundred thousand ducats to ten thousand against
the election of Giulio di Medici. At the very
first ballot after the wager, Giulio di Medici got
the five votes he wanted; no objection could be made,
the cardinals had not been bribed; they had made a
bet, that was all.
Thus it happened, on the 18th of November, 1523, Giulio
di Medici was proclaimed pope under the name of Clement
VII. The same day, he generously paid the five
hundred thousand ducats which his five partisans had
lost.
