“‘Pasquin, why have you never asked to be made a buffoon?
All things now are permitted at Rome to buffoons.’
Here is another, referring to the story, current at Rome, that Leo’s death was occasioned by poison, and on account of its suddenness there was no time to administer to him the last sacraments—
“‘At the last hour of life, if, perchance, you ask why Leo
Could not the sacraments take—’tis plain he had sold them all!’
“During the short reign of the ascetic Adrian VI. Pasquin seems to have been comparatively silent, perhaps through respect for that hard, bigoted, but honest Pope. Under his successor, Clement VII., Rome was besieged, taken, and sacked by the Constable de Bourbon, and through the horrors of those days Pasquin’s voice was seldom heard. One saying of his, however, has been preserved, which was uttered during the period of the Pope’s imprisonment in the Castle Saint Angelo. With a sneer at his infallibility and his imprisonment, he says: ‘Papa non potest errare’—‘The Pope cannot err (or go astray’)—errare having both meanings. But if Pasquin spared the Pope during his life he threw a handful of epigrams on his coffin at his death.... Thus in reference to the physician, Matteo Curzio, or Curtius, to whose ignorance Clement’s death was attributed—
“‘Curtius has killed our Clement—let gold then be given
To Curtius for thus securing the public health.’
“On Paul III., the Farnese Pope, Pasquin exercised his wit, but not always very successfully. This Pope was celebrated for his nepotism, and for the unscrupulous ways in which he endeavoured to build up his house and enrich his family, and one of Pasquin’s epigrams refers to this, as well as to the well-known fact that he built his palace by despoiling the Colosseum of its travertine—
“‘Let us pray for Pope Paul, for his zeal,