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 Cardinal Wolsey once again made all kinds of offers, but there was now a feeling against all foreigners. During the night of the 18th-19th of November Giulio de' Medici was elected. He was the son of Giuliano, who fell in the Pazzi conspiracy. A certain Fioretta, daughter of Antonia, is mentioned as his mother; little or nothing was known in Florence about her and her child. Lorenzo took the orphan into his house and had him brought up with his sons. In 1494 Giulio, then sixteen years of age, followed them into exile. Living for some time in Lombardy, but mostly with Giovanni, on his cousin's rise in power he too was quickly promoted. Leo nominated him Archbishop of Florence, having specially dispensed him from the canonical hindrance of his illegitimate birth. At his very first creation of Cardinals on September 23, 1513, the Pope bestowed on him the title of Cardinal of Santa Maria in Dominica and made him Legate of Bologna, witnesses having first sworn to the virtual marriage of his father Giuliano with Fioretta. During Leo's reign, as we have already seen, Cardinal Giulio had almost all the business of government in his own hands. He secured the election of Adrian, but left Rome and the Pope on October 13, 1522, in the company of Manuel, the imperial envoy, in order to retire to Florence. A difference with Francesco Soderini brought him back in the following April to the Eternal City. He entered it with two thousand horse, and already greeted as the future Pope kept great state in his palace. A few days later Francesco Soderini, accused of high treason, disappeared into the Castle of St Angelo; he was released during the next Council. With the new reign a return of happier times was expected—una Corte florida e un buon Pontefice; the restoration of literature, fled before the barbarians; "est enim Mediceae familiae decus favere Musis." And indeed many things seemed to point to a fortunate pontificate. The new Pope was respected and rich, and now of a staid and sober life. He had ruled Rome well in Leo's day, and as Archbishop of Florence had used his power successfully. He was cautious, economical, but not avaricious; though not an author himself, an admirer of art and science; a lover of beautiful buildings, as his Villa Madama gave proof, and free from his cousin's unfortunate liking for the company of worthless buffoons. He did not hunt, but he was fond of good instrumental music, and liked to amuse himself at table with the conversation of learned men.

Very soon it became clear that Clement VII was one of those men, who, though excellent in a subordinate position, prove unsatisfactory when placed at the head. The characters of both Medici Popes are wonderfully conceived in Raffaelle's portraits: in Leo's otherwise intellectual face there is a vulgarity that almost degenerates into coarseness and sensuality, and with Clement the cold soul, lacking all strong feeling, distrustful, never unfolding itself. "In spite of all his talents," said Francesco Vettori, "he brought the greatest misery on Rome and on