Charles V might despise the upstart Farnese as Francis I had laughed at Cesare Borgia, but the self-made Italians of the Renaissance--churchmen, merchants, and condottieri, were forces which hereditary monarchy could not do without. Spain had the riches of the New World; France and England were breeding the manhood of Europe; but Italy held the keys to the past--to the culture for which men’s souls longed. The time was not yet--in 1540--although it was close at hand, when Italy’s deliberate choice of evil rather than good finally made her, by weakening and corrupting her, a captive to Spain. Time was not yet; and in that last lingering glow of her greatness and freedom the old Pope, Paul III, moves as her incarnate spirit. To a figure slight and stately, though with stooping shoulders, was united a shrewd and kindly countenance, with a massive nose and flowing beard, mobile lips and piercing eyes. His voice was modulated, and his manner gracious and noble. This outer man held guard over a mind so crafty and tenacious, so secretive and resourceful, that to the Venetian ambassador--ever the most astute observer--he remained a fascinating and baffling enigma; while for Cardinal Mendoza and the Emperor he was an antagonist whom, for all their secret Austrian contempt and bitter hatred, they could not afford to ignore. It was remarked that the Pope never wished to hear or to speak of his predecessor. He felt that the election of Clement VII had robbed him of fourteen years of the papacy. Posterity may well share his prejudice, for it seems safe to assume that, had Paul III been Pope in 1527, Bourbon’s soldiers would never have got within sight of the city walls; there would have been, in fact, no sack of Rome. The Pope felt with all the force of his Italian nature the danger to Italy from the side of Spain. Better patriot than priest, he had made secret treaties with the Protestants as a weapon against the Spaniard; and while no one realized more keenly than he the necessity of reforms in the Church, yet he dreaded them lest they might in any way weaken the strength of the papacy. His singular ability to unite the fortunes of his family with profitable political undertakings runs throughout his long life; but this nepotism, which no pope ever carried further, and for which he has been unsparingly censured by historians, represents the kindliest strain in his nature. It was the human side; and it was the direct cause of his death. In a dispute over retaining the Duchy of Parma in his family, the Pope’s grandson, Octavius, opposed the old pontiff. Paul felt this ingratitude deeply, and spoke openly about it to the Venetian ambassador. The day after All Saints’ Day, 1549, the old man repaired to his villa on Monte Cavallo “to ease his mind,” and from there he sent for Alessandro Farnese II. He came, this magnificent young cardinal, handsome, courtly, the great art patron, the lover of