PART OF THE TOMB OF CARDINAL ASCANIO SFORZA IN THE CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA DEL POPOLO

a similar entertainment for Duke Ernest of Saxony in the woodlands of Campo di Merlo (April 10, 1480). Leo X, however, was the first pope to enlist a regular body of huntsmen, that is to say, to surround himself with the retinue of men, dogs, horses, and snares necessary to ensure success to a regal sport. He took it up, not as a pastime, but as a regular occupation; and not satisfied with a morning's run in the outskirts of the city, he would scour for weeks at a time the whole country between Rome and the sea, in accordance, as he said, with the advice of court physicians. And indeed, no better cure could he have found to counteract his unwholesome corpulency, and the paleness of his flabby cheeks, than constant exercise in the open. The cardinals who followed him in the field, Ludovico d'Aragona, Sigismondo Conzaga, Ippolito d' Este, Marco Cornaro, Alfonso Petrucci, and Alessandro Farnese, were always ready- -as it becomes true sportsmen - to exchange the purple robe for a gray jacket of Flemish cloth, the mitre for the Spanish sombrero, the pastoral for the spear. Leo himself wore a costume which threw his master of ceremonies, Paride de Grassi, into fits of despair. De Grassi complains above all of the riding-boots because, he says, how can people pay homage to his Holiness and kiss his foot if he goes about attired in this fashion?

Leo did not actually follow the hunt on horseback; he was too stout to stand the strain of the chase; and therefore he sat on a stand, from which a good view of the field could be obtained. From this point of vantage the good man gave the order for the fray to begin in the same manner in which the ancient magistrate used to wave the white napkin as a starting signal for the chariot races. With a monocle to help his defective eyesight, Leo watched the details of the hunt, shouting words of encouragement or

reproach, warning the men of impending danger, and taking care that the laws of the field should be strictly respected, and fair play given to the sylvan host of foes. Clouds gathered round his brow if the hunt did not prove a success; but if game had been plentiful, and no accident had marred the events of the day, the courtiers knew how to take advantage of his good humor, and many briefs of personal advantage to them were submitted for his signature in the hunting-field. A sad story is told in connection with this state of things.

There was in the entourage of the Pope a young nobleman, Celso Mellini, who had made himself prominent by taking up the cause of his fellow citizens against a foreigner, a Belgian, the celebrated Christopher Longeuil, who had written or uttered certain derogatory remarks against the S. P. Q. R.1 Whether on account of his success in this affair (Longeuil had been obliged to leave Rome and Italy for the time being) or of his personal attractions as a poet, orator, and conversationalist, young Mellini was asked to join the hunt arranged for November 7, 1519.

A few days afterwards, while the Pope and his guests were still disporting themselves at La Magliana, Mellini won so heartily the good graces of the assembly by extemporizing a set of flattering verses, that the Pope then and there conferred upon him an ecclesiastical sinecure in Sicily worth several thousands a year. Although it was already late at night, and although a storm was raging in the lower valley of the Tiber, Celso Mellini, eager to carry the good tidings to his parents, started homewards with two or three followers. The rain was so blinding and the wind so violent that at

1 This curious chapter in the chronicles of Rome at the time of Leo X has been admirably illustrated by Gnoli in his memoir, Un giudizio di lesa Romanità sotto Leone X, Rome, 1891.