Leo X was a fat, clever, cultivated man, with no great virtues and no real vices. "Let us enjoy the Papacy since God has given it to us," is the sentiment put into his mouth, and serves to characterize his reign. Bred in his father's intellectual circle, and a member of the luxurious Roman society, Leo shared the tastes of both. He was a connoisseur of works of art, and derived genuine aesthetic pleasure from them; he was also fond of agreeable company, good cookery, the chase, and most forms of social amusement. His political conduct was not of much real consequence, as matters had gone too far. In the interminable struggle between Charles V and Francis I, the Papacy tried to hold a balance of power, and bargained with both sides; but, as the Spaniards, in possession of both Milan and Naples, were the stronger, the Papacy generally found its advantage on that side. As to the larger matter of the ecclesiastical unity of Christendom there was practically nothing to be done. The causes which split the Teutonic world from the Latin were already matured. It was too late to stop the Reformation. Luther might have been dealt with more shrewdly, but the forces behind him could not have been kept in check. Leo excommunicated Luther (1520), and the Imperial Diet at Worms condemned him and his doctrine, but the unity of the Church was doomed. To Leo succeeded his cousin Clement VII, after a brief pontificate by the last foreign Pope. Clement was incompetent, and failed to realize the gravity of his situation; neither he nor Rome understood the crisis they had reached. The prevailing state of mind may be inferred from this extract from the diary of a young Roman burgher: "I saw this Pope the first day of May, 1525, come in the morning of the Feast of SS. Philip and James to the Church of the Holy Apostles, and after celebrating high mass, remain all day and night in the palace of the Colonna.... That day it was an old and foolish custom in the Colonna palace (which connects with the church and has windows looking in it), to throw various kinds of fowls and animals into the church to the people who were there, all of the lowest sort. They also put a pig in the middle of the church up high, and whoever was able to climb up and take it, won it; and on top of the roof were kegs and pots of water, which they poured on the persons who climbed up. The amusement of those gentlemen, and of the rest who looked on, was to see the crowd in a mess, battling, shrieking, pushing, shoving, like beasts,--a merrymaking not becoming in a church or any sacred edifice." The diary adds: "Now let people learn to know the souls of the great and especially of priests, how wicked, deceitful, and false they are, how full of fraud and knavery."[20] There were plenty of other facts to prove this conclusion. The merrymaking was doomed to cease.