How archaeology devoted itself after his day to
the study of the venerated city and grew into a special science, and
how the Vitruvian Academy at all events proposed to itself great him,
cannot here be related. Let us rather pause at the days of Leo X, under
whom the enjoyment of antiquity combined with all other pleasures to
give to Roman life a unique stamp and consecration. The Vatican
resounded with song and music, and their echoes were heard through the
city as a call to joy and gladness, though Leo did not succeed thereby
in banishing care and pain from his own life, and his deliberate
calculation to prolong his days by cheerfulness was frustrated by an
early death. The Rome of Leo, as described by Paolo Giovio, forms a
picture too splendid to turn away from, unmistakable as are also its
darker aspects--the slavery of those who were struggling to rise; the
secret misery of the prelates, who, notwithstanding heavy debts, were
forced to live in a style befitting their rank; the system of literary
patronage, which drove men to be parasites or adventurers; and, lastly,
the scandalous maladministration of the finances of the State. Yet the
same Ariosto who knew and ridiculed all this so well, gives in the
sixth satire a longing picture of his expected intercourse with the
accomplished poets who would conduct him through the city of ruins, of
the learned counsel which he would there find for his own literary
efforts, and of the treasures of the Vatican library.
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