A History of the Medici Popes by Herbert Vaughan

Author:Herbert Vaughan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ozymandias Press

LEO’S HUNTING

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TAXING THE FOLLY AND MADNESSE of such vaine men that spend themselves in those idle sports, neglecting their business and necessary affairs, Leo Decimus, that hunting Pope, is much discommended by Jovius in his life, for his immoderate desire of hawking and hunting, insomuch that (as he saith) he would sometimes live about Ostia weeks and months together, leave suters unrespected, Bulls and Pardons unsigned, to his own prejudice, and many private mens loss. —” And if he had been by chance crossed in his sport, or his game not so good, he was so impatient, that he would revile and miscall many times men of great worth with most bitter taunts, look so sowre, be so angrie and waspish, so grieved and molested, that it is incredible to relate it.” But if he had good sport, and bin well pleased on the other side, incredibili munificentiâ, with unspeakable bounty and munificence he would reward all his fellow-hunters and deny nothing to any suter, when he was in that mood (Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, Part I., sect. 2, subsec. 13).

IT is rarely that we find in the same individual a pronounced taste for letters combined with an insatiable passion for the chase;—indeed, in our own times the breach between the spheres of sport and of learning has been yet further enlarged, so that now an almost bridgeless chasm seems to yawn between the scholar and the sportsman. Nevertheless, Leo contrived to become known to posterity not only as the Papal Maecenas, but also as the Papal Nimrod. As a cardinal Giovanni de Medici had been much addicted to hunting in the Roman Campagna, often forming one of the large parties arranged by his wealthy colleagues, Ascanio Sforza and Alessandro Farnese. Indulgence in the chase had never been considered improper in the case of a cardinal, but as yet no Pontiff had ever condescended, either by reason of choice or sense of official dignity, to take more than a passing interest in this form of amusement. Leo must be adjudged therefore the first Pope regularly to abandon himself to sport, to organise hunting-parties on a scale hitherto unsurpassed and to preserve whole districts in the Campagna to supply himself and his guests with the necessary game. But even in this case precedent was strong, and there can be little doubt that at first Leo X. hesitated to persist in a practice that had not been seriously condemned in the Cardinal de Medici. For in July, 1513, only a few weeks after his accession, we find him sending a regretful refusal to a tempting invitation from that inveterate sportsman, Cardinal Farnese: “ Oh, that I could but enjoy your own freedom, so as to accept your offer ! “ But if his refusal was really due to ecclesiastical scruples (as seems highly probable) these had certainly been overcome by the close of the year, since in January, 1514, that is within a twelvemonth of his election, we find Leo openly engrossed in his favourite occupation.

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