having subsequently
dated a bull, still to be seen with its seventeen seals, "from the
unroofed episcopal palace of Viterbo." There were four or five popes
elected subsequently to this, however, without conclaves; but from the
death of Boniface VIII. in 1303 the series of conclaves has been
unbroken. Celestine V., who abdicated in 1294, drew up the rules which,
confirmed by his successor, Boniface VIII., and by many subsequent popes
from time to time down to the last century, still regulate the
assembling and holding of the conclave, modified in some degree, as
regards the food and private comforts of the cardinals, by indulgence of
later pontiffs.

In old and long-since-forgotten books concerning the conclaves many
curious particulars may be found respecting the customs and ceremonies
connected with the disposal of the body of the deceased pontiff. A
learnedly antiquarian dispute has been raised on the question whether in
early times the body of a pope was embalmed, as we understand the word,
or only exteriorly washed and perfumed. It seems, on the whole, clear
that the first pope who was, properly speaking, embalmed, was Julius
II., who died in 1513. But here is a striking account of the condition
of things in the papal palace after the death of that great, high-handed
and powerful pontiff, Sixtus IV., which occurred in 1484, after a reign
of thirteen years. The statement is that of Burcardo (Burckhardt), the
papal master of the ceremonies, the same writer whose diary, jotted down
from day to day, has revealed to us the incredible atrocities of the
court of Alexander VI., the Borgia pope, who died in 1503. "For all that
I could do," writes the master of the ceremonies, who perhaps at that
time occupied some less conspicuous post in the papal court, "I could
not get a basin, a towel, or any kind of utensil in which the wine and
the water for the odoriferous herbs could be put for washing the body of
the deceased. Nor could I obtain drawers or a clean shirt for putting on
the body, though I asked for them again and again. At length the cook
lent me the copper kettle in which he was wont to heat the water for
washing the plates, together with some hot water; and Andrew the barber
brought me his barber's basin from his shop. So the pontiff was washed.
And as there was no towel to wipe the body with, I caused him to be
wiped with the shirt in which he died, torn into two halves. I could not
change the drawers in which he