which he succeeded. And this was the more praiseworthy in him, inasmuch as he did all these things, not for his own aggrandisement, but for that of the Church. He furthermore restrained the Orsini and the Colonna factions within the limits in which he found them upon his accession to the Pontificate; and although there were some attempts at disturbances between them, yet there were two things that kept them down: one, the power of the Church, which overawed them; and the other, the fact that neither of them had any cardinals, who were generally the fomenters of the disturbances between them. Nor will these party feuds ever cease so long as the cardinals take any part in them. For it is they who stir up the factions in Rome as well as elsewhere, and then force the barons to sustain them. And it is thus that the ambition of these prelates gives rise to the discord and the disturbances amongst the barons.

His Holiness Pope Leo X thus found the Church all-powerful on his accession; and it is to be hoped that, if his predecessors have made the Church great by means of arms, he will make her still greater and more venerable by his goodness and his infinite other virtues.