and generally he was attired in blue, and his servants in long dresses of a darker colour. At that time the pomp of the Court of Rome was not by any means what it is nowadays. In the place I have named he was always to be found, conversing and disputing, since he was a most impassioned debater.' [Footnote 190: So Vespasiano relates the cause of their removal from Pisa. P. 20.] [Footnote 191: P. 23.] Tommaso was not a man of genius; his talents were better suited for collecting and digesting what he read, than for original research and composition. He had a vast memory, and was an indefatigable student, not only perusing but annotating all the books he purchased. Pius II. used to say of him that what he did not know, must lie outside the sphere of human knowledge. In speech he was fluent, and in disputation eager; but he never ranked among the ornate orators and stylists of the age. His wide acquaintance with all branches of literature, and his faculty for classification, rendered him useful to Cosimo de' Medici, who employed him on the catalogue of the Marcian Library. From Cosimo in return, Tommaso caught the spirit which sustained him in his coming days of greatness. Already, at this early period, while living almost on the bounty of the Medici, he never lost an opportunity of accumulating books, and would even borrow money to secure a precious MS.[192] He used to say that, if ever he acquired wealth, he would expend it in book-buying and building--a resolution to which he adhered when he rose to the Pontificate. [Footnote 192: Vespasiano, p. 27.] Soon after the death of Albergati in 1443, Eugenius promoted Tommaso to the see of Bologna; a cardinal's hat followed within a few months; and in 1447 he was elected Pope of Rome. So sudden an elevation from obscurity and poverty to the highest place in Christendom has rarely happened; nor is it even now easy to understand what combinations of unsuccessful intrigues among the princes of the Church enabled this little, ugly, bright-eyed, restless-minded scholar to creep into S. Peter's seat. Perhaps the simplest explanation is the best. The times were somewhat adverse to the Papacy, nor was the tiara quite as much an object of secular ambition as it afterwards became. Humanism meanwhile exercised strong fascination over every class in Italy, and it would seem that Tommaso Parentucelli had nothing but his reputation for learning to thank for his advancement. 'Who in Florence would have thought that a poor bell-ringer of a priest would be made Pope, to the confusion of the proud?' This was his own complacent exclamation to Vespasiano, who had gone to kiss his old friend's feet, and found him seated on a throne with twenty torches blazing round him.[193] [Footnote 193: _Ibid._ p. 33.]