And within less than six months comes a still higher triumph. Pope Julius II. is dead, and, by the unanimous voice of the "College of Cardinals," Giovanni, Cardinal de Medici, ascends the papal throne, on the third of March, 1513, as Pope Leo the Tenth.
With his later life, we need not here concern ourselves. The story of the boy may perhaps lead you to read in history the interesting story of the man. Only thirty-seven, the youngest of the popes, as he was the youngest of the cardinals, he wore the triple tiara in the stormy days of the great Reformation, and made his court the centre of learning and refinement, so that his reign has been called "the golden age of Italian art and letters." He is well worth remembrance also as having been the firm friend of the American Indians amid the cruel persecutions of their Spanish conquerors. "The best of all the Medici, save his father," and "the only pope who has bestowed his own name upon his age,"—so the historians report,—we may, as we read of him, remember the boyishness, notwithstanding his high position, the diligence, notwithstanding his love of pleasure, and the loyalty to the name and fortunes of a once powerful family, that marked the youthful years of Giovanni de Medici, the Boy Cardinal.
FOOTNOTES:
[V] The marzoccho was the great stone lion of the Palazzo Vecchio.
[W] The Palle d' Oro, or golden balls, were the arms of the house of Medici, and "Palle, palle!" was their rallying cry.
[X] The Church of the Reparata, or Santa Maria Novella, in which Lorenzo the Magnificent was wounded and his brother Giuliano murdered, in the conspiracy of the Pazzi, in 1478.
[Y] Palleschi was the name given to the adherents and retainers of the house of Medici.
