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.

It was under this pontificate, and during the seven months in which
Rome, conquered by the Lutheran soldiers of the Constable of Bourbon,
saw holy things subjected to the most frightful profanations, that
Francesco Cenci was born.

He was the son of Monsigno