He had bargained with the devil, it was said, for a pontificate of twelve years, and, the time being completed, the devil was come for him.

And presently, we even have a description of Messer the Devil as he appeared on that occasion--in the shape of a baboon.

The Marquis Gonzaga of Mantua, in all seriousness, writes to relate this.

The chronicler Sanuto, receiving the now popularly current story from another source, in all seriousness gives it place in his Diarii, thus: "The devil was seen to leap out of the room in the shape of a baboon.
And a cardinal ran to seize him, and, having caught him, would have presented him to the Pope; but the Pope said, 'Let him go, let him go.
It is the devil,' and that night he fell ill and died."(1) 1 "Il diavolo sarebbe saltato fuori della camera in forma di babuino, et un cardinale corso per piarlo, e preso volendolo presentar al papa, il papa disse lasolo, lasolo che ii diavolo.

E poi la notte si amalo e morite."-- Marino Sanuto, Diarii.
That story, transcending the things which this more practical age considers possible, is universally rejected; but it is of vast importance to the historical student; for it is to be borne in mind that it finds a place in the pages of those same Diarii upon the authority of which are accepted many defamatory stories without regard to their extreme improbability so long as they are within the bounds of bare possibility.
After Alexander was dead it was said that water boiled in his mouth, and that steam issued from it as he lay in St.Peter's, and much else of the same sort, which the known laws of physiology compel so many of us very reluctantly to account exaggerations.