Paul II. bestowed special favor upon his countrymen, the Venetians, and this is supposed to have induced the acute and provident Lorenzo to attempt the establishment of the chief ecclesiastical power, also, in his own family. Giovanni de Medici was early destined to the church, and produced those important effects upon Europe and the world which were so conspicuous in his pontificate. Leo X. became pope in 1513. In his patronage of literature, he was the worthy successor of Nicholas V., and began by placing men of letters in the most honorable stations of his court. The great poets of that century, Ariosto, Sanazzaro, the Tassos, Rucellai, Guarini, and the rest, produced their works during his reign. Under his auspices, the great libraries of the age were immensely enriched, and more than one hundred professors in a single university were restored to their alienated revenues. Through the agency of the apostolical secretary, Beroaldo, the first five books of the Annals of Tacitus were published, which had lately been found in a German monastery. Chigi, a private Roman, gave to the world good editions of Pindar and Theocritus in 1515 and 1516; and, under the direction of Lascaris, Leo created an academy expressly for the study of Greek, in which a press was established, where the sciolists of Homer were printed in 1517. As an Italian prince, and as a Roman pontiff, Leo X. has been accused of indulging an unprincipled policy and vulgar epicurism. It is affirmed that Ariosto received from him nothing beyond fair promises and a kiss; that his table was usually crowded with base and impudent buffoons, and that he did not hesitate to profane Petrarch's laurel and the Capitol by a mock coronation of his laughing-stocks, Querno and Baraballo. But, as a contrast to these defects, it should be remembered that he called round his throne Bembo and Sadoleto, and fostered innumerable men of talent with a liberality which can not fail to elicit the praise of posterity. If the pope hunted, and hawked, and caroused, it was in keeping with the universal moral indifference in the East and South, that ominous calm before the tempest which preceded the mighty reformation of every thing not intrinsically a sham. To the sagacious historian it is not strange that musical retainers were magnificently recompensed, one made an archbishop, and another archdeacon; and that parasitical poets like Berni and Molza, were rewarded by Leo, while his great countryman, Machiavelli, was treated with neglect. It is a significant fact that during the fearful crisis when all the remoter nations of Europe stood aghast at the growing influence of Luther, the jocular pontiff and his secularized ministers found genial amusement in witnessing the representation of farces which exposed the hollow mummeries of priestcraft.