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The Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth [Ed. by W. Hazlitt].
The Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth - Ed. by W. Hazlitt Author:William Roscoe Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LORENZO DE MEDICI S VIEWS. 7 lectual endowments. Hence the Roman pontiffs have frequently displayed examples highly worthy of imitation, and have signalized t... more »hemselves, in an eminent degree, as patrons of science, of letters, and of art. Cultivating, as ecclesiastics, those studies which were prohibited or discouraged among the laity, they may in general be considered as superior to the age in which they have lived; and among the predecessors of Leo X., the philosopher may contemplate with approbation the eloquence and courage of Leo I., who preserved the city of Rome from the ravages of the barbarian Attila; the beneficence, candour, and pastoral attention of Gregory I., unjustly charged with being the adversary of liberal studies; the various acquirements of Silvester II., so extraordinary in the eyes of his contemporaries, as to cause him to be considered as a sorcerer; the industry, acuteness, and learning of Innocent III., of Gregory IX., of Innocent IV., and of Pius II., and the munificence and love of literature so strikingly displayed in the character of Nicholas V. Notwithstanding the extensive influence acquired by the Roman see, that circumstance had not, for a long course of time, induced the princes of Europe to attempt to vest the pontifical authority in any individual of their own family. Whether this forbearance was occasioned by an idea, that the long course of humiliation by which alone this dignity could be obtained, was too degrading to a person of royal birth, or by a contempt for every profession but that of arms, may be a subject of doubt; but from whatever cause it arose, it appears to have been, in the fifteenth century, completely removed; almost every sovereign in Italy, and perhaps in Europe, striving with the utmost ardour to procure for their ne...« less