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

I06 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
thing which occasioned much surprise.^ Besides this, during
the later years of his reign the permanent public debt was
quadrupled by the establishment of the Monti.
Although he was so parsimonious, the Pope nevertheless
practised almsgiving on a grand scale. ^ He ijot only freely
assisted the poorer Cardinals, and the bishops who had been
driven from their sees, but also his needy servants. In Rome
he contributed largely to the hospitals, especially that of
S. Spirito, to which he gave 20,000 scudi, and several times
personally visited the sick. When, in the summer of 1566,
the city was visited by a pestilence brought on by the excessive
heat, he dealt with the emergency in every possible way, sent
for doctors, and especially concerned himself in relieving the
poor by the help of the religious.^ The same thing happened
when the pestilence recurred during the summer of 1568.
The parish priests were instructed to draw up lists of the sick,
^ See TiEPOLO, 174. In his *letter of January 22, 1569 (State
Archives, Vienna) Cusano shows how difficult it was to obtain
money. In order to ease the finances in June, 1569, all the
notariships in the Papal States were sold, bringing in a sum of
70,000 scudi (*Avviso di Roma of June 11, 1569, Urb. 1040 p. 91b).
The *Avvisi of June 29 and July 9, 1569, Urb. 1040, p. loi, 107b,
Vatican Library, mention other financial schemes.
'^ Namely the Monti Novennale, Giulio, Religione and Pro-
vincia ; see Coppi, Sulle finanze dello Stato pontificio, Rome,
1855- Cf. Moroni, LXXIV., 291 ; Santori, Diario XXIII.,
330 ; XXIV., 106. According to Cerasoli Pius V. deposited
467,000 scudi in the Castle of St. Angelo, and drew out on various
occasions 288,000. Cf. Studi e docum., XIII., 305, as well as
Serafini, Le monete e le bolle plumbee nel medaghere Vaticano,
I., Milan, 1910.
^ Cf. Catena, 25, 136, 149 ; Gabutius, 204 seq. ; Laderchi,
1568, n. 48 seq. ; the periodical Cariias, 1898, n. 7.
* See Catena, 50. For the cause of the pestilence in the summer
of 1566 (heat " con un vento sirocale che abbruggiava il di et la
notte ") see *Avviso di Roma of August 31, 1566, Urb. 1040,
p. 278. Ibid. 284 and 287, *Avvisi of September 14 and 21,
1566 : *" II Papa continua tuttavia in far visitar gl'infermi et
sovenirli." Vatican Library.