Julius instinctively selected men of soaring and audacious genius, who were capable of planning on a colossal scale.

Leo delighted in the society of clever people, poetasters, petty scholars, lutists, and buffoons.

Rome owes no monumental work to his inventive brain, and literature no masterpiece to his discrimination.

Ariosto, the most brilliant poet of the Renaissance, returned in disappointment from the Vatican.

"When I went to Rome and kissed the foot of Leo," writes the ironical satirist, "he bent down from the holy chair, and took my hand and saluted me on both cheeks.