- Originally:
- Giovanni de’ Medici
- Born:
- December 11, 1475,
Florence
[Italy]
- Died:
- December 1, 1521,
Rome
(aged 45)
Leo X
(born December 11, 1475, Florence [Italy]?died December 1, 1521, Rome) was one of the leading
Renaissance
popes
(reigned 1513?21). He made
Rome
a cultural center and a political power, but he
depleted
the papal treasury, and, by failing to take the developing
Protestant Reformation
seriously, he contributed to the dissolution of the Western
church
. Leo excommunicated
Martin Luther
in 1521.
Early life and ecclesiastical career
Leo X was born
Giovanni de’ Medici
, the second son of
Lorenzo the Magnificent
, ruler of the Florentine republic and member of the bourgeois
Medici family
. Destined for religious life, Giovanni received the
tonsure
?a ceremony involving the cutting of hair from the head, thus indicating the change of status from a layperson to a cleric?at the early age of eight, and five years later he became the
cardinal
deacon of the church of Santa Maria in Domnica in Rome. However, a stipulation of this latter appointment was that he could not assume the insignia of his rank or receive the full privilege of his office (i.e., become a member of the Sacred College of Cardinals) for three years. At the court of his father, he received the finest education available in
Europe
; one of his several tutors was the philosopher
Pico della Mirandola
. From 1489 to 1491 Giovanni studied
theology
and
canon law
at the University of
Pisa
. In 1492 he became a member of the College of Cardinals and attempted to take up residence in Rome. The death of his father later in the same year, however, brought him back to
Florence
, where he lived with his elder brother, Piero.
The election of Pope
Alexander VI
took Giovanni back to Rome for the
papal conclave
(assembly of
cardinals
to elect the pope); otherwise he lived in Florence until he was
exiled
in November 1494 with the other members of the Medici family on the charge of betraying the republic. For the next six years Cardinal de’ Medici traveled throughout northern Europe. In 1500 he returned to
Italy
and settled in Rome. Upon the death of his brother Piero, he became the head of the Medici family. In 1503 he took part in the conclaves that elected first Pope
Pius III
(in September) and then Pope
Julius II
(in October). Named
papal legate
to
Bologna
and
Romagna
in 1511, he supervised the reestablishment of Medici control of Florence the following year; although his younger brother, Giuliano, actually held the first place in the Florentine republic, it was the cardinal who ruled.
Election to the papacy
After the death of Julius II on February 21, 1513, the Sacred College of Cardinals was summoned to elect a successor. The conclave met on March 4, and, with minimal deliberation, the cardinals, who desired a peace-loving successor to the warlike Julius, elected Cardinal de’ Medici on March 11. Taking the title of Leo X, the pontiff-elect was ordained a
priest
on March 15 and
consecrated
bishop of Rome
on the 17th. Two days later the papal coronation took place.
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The new
pope
was the personification of
Renaissance
ideals. Having spent his youth at the court of
Lorenzo de’ Medici
, he had acquired the mannerisms and tastes of one of the most brilliant societies of Europe and posed a sharp contrast to the soldier-pope whom he succeeded. He fit extremely well into the atmosphere of calm and quiet of which Rome was desirous after 10 years under Julius II. Leo was lavish in his spending not only of the church’s money but also of his own. Under his
patronage
Rome again became the cultural center of Europe. The construction of
St. Peter’s Basilica
?initiated under Julius II?was accelerated, the holdings of the
Vatican Library
were greatly increased, and the arts flourished. Even the piety of the
papacy
was restored to some extent after the low reputation it had reached under the
Borgia
popes (
Calixtus III
and
Alexander VI
).
The
Fifth Lateran Council
occupied the new pope during the first five years of his pontificate. Called by Julius II two years before his death, the council was designed to nullify the efforts of nine rebellious cardinals who had called for a council to meet at
Pisa
in order to revive the
conciliar movement
, which promoted the idea that a general church council had greater authority than the pope and could
depose
him. Although “Pisa II” collapsed when first the
Holy Roman emperor
Maximilian I
and then the French king
Louis XII
withdrew their support, the Lateran Council opened in 1512. Leo X, who inherited the council before it was a year old, was little inclined to preside over the sweeping reforms that the church so desperately needed on the eve of the
Protestant Reformation
. Poorly attended and dominated by Italian
bishops
, the council debated the principal issues of the day, but there was neither direction nor encouragement from the pontiff, nor the urgency and necessity that would spur on the
Council of Trent
some 40 years later. The Lateran Council was
dissolved
on March 16, 1517, without significant action, just before
Martin Luther
’s circulation of his
Ninety-five Theses
. (
See
Researcher’s Note: The posting of the theses
.)
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Struggle for political power
Leo X was not only the head of the Western
Christian
church but also the temporal ruler of the
Papal States
and head of the Medici family that ruled the Florentine republic. To exert his influence in Italy, he resorted to the common practice of
nepotism
(granting offices or benefits to relatives, regardless of merit). He appointed his cousin Giulio de’ Medici (the future pope
Clement VII
) to the influential
archbishopric
of Florence. He also named his younger brother, Giuliano, and his nephew
Lorenzo
to be Roman patricians. Giuliano’s premature death in 1516 brought an end to the pope’s plan to create a central Italian kingdom for him. On July 1, 1517, following (and as a result of) an attempt upon his life earlier in the year, Leo named 31 new cardinals in order to secure the support of the College of Cardinals. One cardinal, Alfonso Petrucci, was strangled in prison, and several others were imprisoned and executed when they were
implicated
in the attempted
assassination
.
In his struggle to dominate
Italy
, Leo X was confronted by the awesome power of
Spain
and the determination of the French kings.
Louis XII
of
France
marched into Italy in 1513 to make good his claims to
Milan
and
Naples
. Reluctantly Leo formed the
League of Mechlin, in which Spain provided the major military strength. The French were defeated at
Novara
, and Louis renounced his claims and withdrew his army. The peace was short-lived. The ascent of
Francis I
in 1515 to the throne of France led to the renewal of the war. Although Leo again formed the coalition of Spain, the
Holy Roman Empire
, and
England
, Francis won the
Battle of Marignano
(September 14, 1515). The pope made peace with the French king and then followed it up with the
Concordat of Bologna
.
Promulgated
in the form of a
papal bull
(
Primitiva
) on August 18, 1516, the
concordat
regulated church-state relations in France for the next 275 years. The French kings were given the power to nominate bishops,
abbots
, and priors, though the popes did retain the right to nominate candidates to fill vacant
benefices
in curia
and certain other benefices. Though the pope always had the power to veto the king’s nominations, in practice the lay monarch’s choice was tantamount to an appointment. This control over the church in France on the part of the kings explains, in part, why the monarchy showed little interest in
Protestantism
during the 16th century.
The death of the Holy Roman emperor,
Maximilian I
, in 1519 brought Leo further into the political arena. The
Habsburg
candidate,
Charles I
of Spain, had succeeded his maternal grandparents
Ferdinand II
of
Aragon
and
Isabella I
of
Castile
in 1516 and now sought to follow his paternal grandfather, Maximilian, to the powerful German throne. Both
Francis I
and
Frederick the Wise
of
Saxony
, however, immediately put forward their candidacy. Leo?fearing that if the empire were joined to either France or Spain, Italy would come under the power of the victor?threw his support in favor of Frederick. The election of Charles I of Spain as
Charles V
of the Holy Roman Empire led to war between France and Spain, and, although Leo would have preferred to remain neutral, he cast his lot with the new emperor when Francis again invaded Italy.