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this wine till he himself gave orders to do so; unfortunately, during
supper the cup-bearer left his post for a moment, and in this
interval a careless butler served the poisoned wine to the pope, to
Caesar Borgia, and to Cardinal Corneto.

Alexander VI died some hours afterwards; Caesar Borgia was confined
to bed, and sloughed off his skin; while Cardinal Corneto lost his
sight and his senses, and was brought to death's door.

Pius III succeeded Alexander VI, and reigned twenty-five days; on the
twenty-sixth he was poisoned also.

Caesar Borgia had under his control eighteen Spanish cardinals who
owed to him their places in the Sacred College; these cardinals were
entirely his creatures, and he could command them absolutely. As he
was in a moribund condition and could make no use of them for
himself, he sold them to Giuliano della Rovere, and Giuliano della
Rovere was elected pope, under the name of Julius II. To the Rome of
Nero succeeded the Athens of Pericles.

Leo X succeeded Julius II, and under his pontificate Christianity
assumed a pagan character, which, passing from art into manners,
gives to this epoch a strange complexion. Crimes for the moment
disappeared, to give place to vices; but to charming vices, vices in
good taste, such as those indulged in by Alcibiades and sung by
Catullus. Leo X died after having assembled under his reign, which
lasted eight years, eight months, and nineteen days, Michael Angelo,
Raffaelle, Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio, Titian, Andrea del Sarto,
Fra Bartolommeo, Giulio Romano, Ariosto, Guicciardini, and
Macchiavelli.

Giulio di Medici and Pompeo Colonna had equal claims to succeed him.
As both were skilful politicians, experienced courtiers, and moreover
of real and almost equal merit, neither of them could obtain a
majority, and the Conclave was prolonged almost indefinitely, to the
great fatigue of the cardinals. So it happened one day that a
cardinal, more tired than the rest, proposed to elect, instead of
either Medici or Colonna, the son, some say of a weaver, others of a
brewer of Utrecht, of whom no one had ever thought till then, and who
was for the moment acting head of affairs in Spain, in the absence of
Charles the Fifth. The jest prospered in the ears of those who heard
it; all the cardinals approved their colleague's proposal, and Adrien
became pope by a mere accident.

He was a perfect specimen of the Flemish type a regular Dutchman, and
could not speak 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