After Leo X. Adrian VI. born of very obscure parents, occupied for but twenty months the chair of St. Peter. He had taught when a simple doctor of Louvain, that the pope was subject to err in matters of faith: far from retracting this doctrine when pope, he caused a work to be printed in which he professed it.³⁰² On this head, some sophist of Louvain might have, after the example of an old Greek sophist, argued in this manner:³⁰³ “If the pope be infalli− “ble, it follows that Adrian must have been so when “he asserted he was not; therefore by this very in− “fallibility they prove it not to exist. Either Ad− “rian deceives himself, and therefore the pope is in− “fallible, or Adrian is right, and then we must ac− “knowledge with him the pope may be de− “ceived.” ³⁰² Bossnet. Def. Cler. Gall. Diss. prœria. n. 38. p. 23... The text of Adrian is as follows: “Dico quod, si per Romanam ecclesiam intelligatur caput illius, puta pontifex, certum est quod possit erare, etiam in is quæ tangunt fidem, heræsim per suam determinationem aut decretalem docendo: plures enim fuerunt pontifices Romani hæretici. Idem et novissime fertur de Joanne XXII.” &c. In lib. 4, Sententiæ. ³⁰³ The Italians had no love for this pope: Pallavicini, in his Hist, of the Council of Trent, 1. 2, c. 9, n. 1, says, that Adrian VI. was indeed a very good priest, but a very indifferent pope. The natural and posthumous son of Giulio de Medicis, assassinated in 1478 by the Pazzi, Clement VII. was elected pope, infallible or not, in 1223 (?? Ed.).—The successes and genius of Charles V. restored at this time to the imperial dignity its ancient splendour and its preponderance in the affairs of Italy. Clement wished to place difficulties in the way of it; he formed against the emperor a league, which was called holy, because the pope was its head, and into which the king of France, the king of England, the Venetians, and other Italian governments, entered: but the constable of Bourbon, quitting Francis I. for Charles V. led a German, and, in great part, Lutheran army against Rome, took this city, sacked it, and compelled the people to retire to the castle of Saint Angelo. Clement did not leave it, but by pledging himself to deliver it up to the officers of the emperor, and to pay three hundred and fifty thousand gold ducats. He bound himself, to deliver up to the Imperialists Ostia, Civita—Vechia, Citta di Castello, and, to cause to be restored to them Parma and Placentia. Not being able to fulfil his engagements, the pope escaped in the disguise of a merchant to Orvieto. Affected with the great distresses of the pontiff, Francis I. resolved to march to his assistance, and made arrangements which compelled Charles to become reconciled with Clement. Charles, crowned emperor by Clement in 1530, promised to re-establish the Medicis in Florence, for