During his cardinalate his most delightful trait was the loving kindness which he shewed to his young cousin Giulio, (Botticelli’s most precious model), the bastard of Don Giuliano de’ Medici, by Madonna Antonia Gorini of Florence, and who ended his life as the Lord Clement P.P. VII. Cardinal Giovanni got him ennobled as a Knight of St. John of Jerusalem of Malta, and Prior of Capua; and gave him an honourable position in his household as confidential counsellor: and, indeed, it was to Don Giulio, attending him as esquire in the Conclave of March 1513, that Cardinal Giovanni generously said, when the result of the squittino (scrutiny) was made known, “Come Giulio, let us enjoy the Papacy, since God hath given it to Us:” and he immediately raised His cousin to the purple, giving him His Own vacated rank of Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in Domnica_.[95] Cardinal Giovanni, like all the Medici, was congenitally myopic. In all presentments of him, there is the slight forward bend or set of the neck which marks the short-sighted man. Messer Paolo Giovio says that he surveyed the world through a concave crystal, and that this affected his skill as a sportsman. Messer Rafaele Sanzio’s portrait of him and his cousin shows him with this concave crystal spy-glass in his hand. No doubt his physical incompleteness wonderfully aided in developing his enchanting taste and temperament; for it is well-known that the best artist is the man who does not see all.[96] The crowd, waiting outside the Conclave of 1513 for the annunciation of the new Pope, were confronted by a doorway builded of the fragments of other buildings. Some of the stones bore portions of mutilated inscriptions; and the crowd amused itself by piecing these together. But there was one large stone above the lintel, whose inscription baffled explanation. It bore the letters M. C. C. C. C. X. L. and presumably had come from some edifice dated 1440. Presently, the door was flung open; and the scarlet Cardinal-Archdeacon proclaimed, “I announce to you great joy. We have for a Pope the Lord Giovanni de’ Medici, Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria _in Domnica_, who wills to be called Leo the Tenth.” And in the doorway stood the white figure of the new Successor of St. Peter, of the age of thirty eight years, His head straining a little forward, peering through His half-closed bright eyes, lifting His hand in Apostolic Benediction. Instantly a wag in the kneeling crowd explained the cryptic inscription _Multi Caeci Cardinales Creaverunt Caecum X (decimum) Leonem_; “Many short-sighted cardinals created a short-sighted one Leo the Tenth.” That is a specimen of wit in the year 1513, bright, quick, direct, pungent, and finished. * * * * *