The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

GROWING POPULARITY OF PIUS V. 69
on Diego Lasso at the first consistor}', saying that his pre-
decessor had already increased the number of the Sacred
College overmuch, and had thereby lowered its dignity ; he
added that he was not thinking of making any new Cardinals. ^
When he heard that Paulus Manutius had received back his
house, Pius V. at once extended his favour to the Conservator!,
and promised that he would not burden the people with
extraordinary taxation, since he himself could manage with
very little, when a piece of bread and two eggs were enough
for him. On January 12th, 1566, the Pope's intention of
naming three Cardinals to attend to political affairs was
announced, for he wished to devote himself as far as possible
to spiritual matters. From motives of economy, and because
he was convinced that the Popes would always be protected
by the hand of God, he gave orders for the disbanding of the
light cavalry, with the exception of two companies ;
his arms,
he said, were the Holy Scriptures, and his defenders the sons
of St. Dominic. 2 He would have liked to have done without
any troops at all.^
Popular opinion, at first so unfavourable, soon changed
completely. At a public meeting of the senate, it was resolved
that all the civil officials should receive festal robes for the
Coronation, which was fixed for the feast of St. Antony, the
Pope's sixty-second birthday. In the procession on this
occasion, from which the Spanish ambassador and Marcantonio
Colonna were absent on account of the dispute about prece-
dence, the Caporioni carried the Pope to the crj^pt of the
^ See the two *reports of Arco of January 12, 1566, loc. cit.
* See the *letter of Cusano of January 19, 1566 (State Archives,
Vienna), cf. *Avviso di Roma of January 19, 1566, Urb. 1040, p.
166, Vatican Library. The complete disbanding of the light
cavalry, however, had to be suspended on account of the disturb-
ances at Ascoli and the Turkish peril (*report of Cusano of January
26, 1566, State Archives, Vienna) ; cf. the *Avviso di Roma of
Februarj' 2, 1566, Urb. 1040, p. 173, Vatican Library (see infra
p. 103, n. 1).
^ See the *letter of Arco of January 22, 1566, State Archives,
Vienna.