In Germany to the Leipsic Disputation - James Aitken Wylie

passions which distinguished the Medicean chiefs
of the Florentine republic. He was refined in
manners, but sensual and voluptuous in heart, he
patronized the fine arts, affected a taste for letters,
and delighted in pomps and shows. His court was
perhaps the most brilliant in Europe. No elegance,
no amusement, no pleasure was forbidden
admission into it. The fact that it was an
ecclesiastical court was permitted to be no restraint
upon its ample freedom. It was the chosen home of
art, of painting, of music, of revels, and of
masquerades.
The Pontiff was not in the least burdened with
religious beliefs and convictions. To have such was
the fashion of neither his house nor his age. His
office as Pontiff, it is true, connected him with "a
gigantic fable" which had come down from early
times; but to have exploded that fable would have
been to dissolve the chair in which he sat, and the
throne that brought him so much magnificence and
power. Leo was, therefore, content to vent his
skepticism in the well-known sneer, "What a
profitable affair this fable of Christ has been to us!"
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