Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/144

118 118 ITALIAN WARS. I'ART lie feeling, and the representations of pretended • friends, consented to the removal of the French forces from the neighbourhood, and trusted for suc- cess to his personal influence. He over-estimated its vreight. It is foreign to our purpose to detail the proceedings of the reverend body, thus convened to supply the chair of St. Peter. They are dis- played at full length by the Italian writers, and must be allowed to form a most edifying chapter in ecclesiastical history.^ It is enough to state, that, on the departure of the French, the suffrages of the Sept. 22. conclave fell on an Italian, who assumed the name of Pius the Third, and who justified the policy of the choice by dying in less time than his best friends had anticipated ; — within a month after his elevation. '° Julius II. The new vacancy was at once supplied by the election of Julius the Second, the belligerent pon- tiff who made his tiara a helmet, and his crosier a sword. It is remarkable, that, while his fierce, inexorable temper left him with scarcely a personal friend, he came to the throne by the united suffrages of each of the rival factions, of France, Spain, and, above all, Venice, whose ruin in return he made the great business of his restless pontificate." 9 Guicciardini, in particular, has who caused TeDeumsand thanks- related them with a circumstantial- givings to be celebrated in the ity which could scarcely have been churches, for the appointment of exceeded by one of the conclave "so worthy a pastor over the itself. Istoria, lib. 6, pp. 316-318. Christian fold." See Peter Mar- io Bembo, Istoria Viniziana, lib. tyr, Opus Epist., epist. 265. 6. — Ammirato, Istorie Fiorentine, " MachiavcUi, Legazione Prima torn. iii. lib. 28. a Roma, let. 6. — Bembo, Istoria The election of Pius was ex- Viniziana, lib. 7. tremely grateful to queen Isabella, Oct. 31. I