CHAP. I.]

HISTORY OF GREGORIO LETI.

3

and Sixtus V. passed to posterity under an ignoble disguise. A pig-driver as a child, later a giddy and youthful monk, then a restless, insupportable, and ambitious subordinate-a facetious talker-a fanatical inquisitor, an hypocritical cardinal, who threw away his crutches as soon as he had secured his election by a vulgar artifice-a tyrannical Pope-the friend of the King of Navarre, at that time chief of the Huguenots, dreaming only of waging war against Philip II., the most powerful sovereign of Christendom, and his principal supporter, and finally poisoned by the King whose suspicious nature he had contrived to rouse, such is the Sixtus of Gregorio Leti, such as he has been depicted over and over again, such as he has appeared in all historical summaries, such as the youth have been taught to look upon him, and such as he has been endlessly represented in painting and in sculpture.

A hundred years after Leti, Padre Tempesti of the order of the Conventualists, to which Sixtus had belonged, undertook to redress the wrong done to that Pope's memory.' The book is the work of a monk who claims for his order one of the glories of the Papal succession. It constitutes as conscientious a panegyric as a panegyric can be, and being based upon contemporary manuscripts, upon many official documents of an authenticity which cannot be contested, but also upon others which lack it altogether, may be considered as a valuable collection of materials for the use rather of the learned than of the general public. Being

1 Storia di Sisto Quinto. 1754.

little known, the learned monk's book failed to obtain its end in its failure to secure many readers. Close upon a century more had elapsed when Leopold von Ranke, enlightened by Padre Tempesti, and making use of new information, had the honour of being the first person who understood and portrayed in a masterly manner, and with a much nearer approach to the truth, though in very few pages, the characteristics of the great Pontiff. Thanks to the German historian, light began to dawn, although not as yet completely. Several essential phases of his remarkable existence, such as the transactions relative to the affairs of France, and in general the nature of the relations between the Courts of Rome and Madrid, which are so important in the appreciation of the character of Sixtus V., have remained in the dark.

At the time when Ranke wrote his History of the Popes' of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the archives of Simancas, which contained the correspondence of the Spanish ambassadors, were not yet thrown open to the literary world. In these archives are to be found the reports made to Philip II. by Count Olivarès, his ambassador ordinary at the Court of Rome; by the Duke de Sessa, his representative in the Holy City; by Don Bernardino of Mendoza, his ambassador in France; together with the King's instructions, drawn up by the Secretary of State, Ydiaquez, and corrected and augmented by the King himself.

Sixtus V. was his own Minister for Foreign Affairs. He was wont to transact business personally and vivâ voce with foreign ambassadors. The despatches and

5

CHAP. I.] RELATIONS WITH FOREIGN STATES. instructions addressed to the several Nuncios which exist at the Vatican are few in number, and often refer to verbal instructions or to remarks made by travellers. In all these documents, drawn up either by himself or by a congregation of cardinals, and always signed by Cardinal Montalto, his grand-nephew,1 Sixtus V. shows himself such as he wished to appear. In the reports of the ambassadors which gave accounts of their interviews with the Pope, and related their impressions of the moment, Sixtus is represented as he appeared to their mostly just and discerning glance, though passion might at times blind their judgment. They were ever anxious to sound his inmost thoughts, and there to look for the truth. His secret relations with the Court of Spain, which have hitherto been very imperfectly known, relate to matters of the highest interest, and to questions of the most vital importance in his times and reign. Hence the importance of the archives preserved at Simancas.

The ambassadors of Spain, in the opinion of the Romans, held, to use a modern expression, the first place among the members of the Corps Diplomatique. The representatives of Philip exercised most influence, and enjoyed the highest authority at Court and with the Sacred College, but their Venetian colleagues possessed the confidence and friendship of Sixtus V. Both the one and the other were remarkable for their statesmanlike powers of appreciation and their experience, engaged as they constantly were in the

1 Venice-Alberto Badoer to the Doge, May 9, 1590. 'Dispacci.' Rome, 'filza' 24.

transaction of the most important and complicated business. This is easily conceived when it is remembered that the sun never set within the boundaries of the Spanish king's realm, and that the Republic of Venice, thanks to its exceptional position at Constantinople, often served as an intermediary between the Porte and the seat of Christianity. Charles V.'s monarchy, mixed up as it was with all the quarrels which troubled the world and itself, made up of so many conflicting elements, had required, on the part of that prince, and, indeed, had developed in him, a greater talent for negotiation than for administration. The fate of the Republic of St. Mark, placed as it was between the two branches of the House of Hapsburg, between France and the Sultan, depended henceforth, as indeed the issue of the League of Cambrai had shown it, far less upon its military and maritime resources, which were allowed to be insufficient against a coalition of European Powers, than upon the wisdom of its rulers and the ability of its diplomatists. It is in the itinerary cabinet of Charles V. and in the midst of the excellent' college of Venice that analogous wants gave birth to modern diplomacy, and that the art of negotiating and thus of supporting the interests of the State without having recourse to the uncertainty of arms for their safeguard, took the form, and adopted the rules and usages, which govern it even to this day.

most

King Philip II. required detailed and continuous reports from his agents abroad. He was wont to read these with the most scrupulous attention, and often made remarks upon them in his own illegible hand

CHAP. I.]

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE.

7

writing. These important historical marginal notes, which it is so difficult to decipher, often shed floods of light upon the inmost thoughts of that prince, on his bent of mind, and on the ultimate aim of his politics. Nothing escaped him in this equally broad and narrow minded, deep and minute examination. Accessories, insignificant details, often arrested his attention and absorbed his thoughts. Thus, for instance, on one occasion he was told that Sixtus V., in a late allocution, had recalled a precedent of Henry VII. of England. Philip at once discovered the Pope's error, who mistook Henry VII. for Henry II.,and in giving the report to his secretary of state, wrote in the margin : 'I do not think it is Henry VII., but a former sovereign. You will let me know.'1 The drafts of his answers, corrected and revised by himself, were often altogether altered and transformed before being written out for his signature and sent to his ambassadors. Hence the care with which the latter used to draw up their correspondence; not as regards style, which was too often diffuse, careless, and even obscure, but so far as it was their duty to keep their master well informed of the progress of the negotiations with which they were entrusted.

They were men of business as well as statesmen, faithful, zealous, and often ardent executors of the sovereign's will, fearless of giving their opinion and of advising the King, who in his reply was not above explaining his motives for either accepting or declining to follow their

1 Olivaris to Philip II., January 9, 1589. Relacion del cardenal Ascanio Colonna. Arch. Simancas, S. de E. Leg. 952.