Under the
following popes satirical epigrams came into fashion, and reached, in
the opposition to Alexander VI and his family, the highest pitch of
defiant invective. Sannazaro, it is true, wrote his verses in a place
of comparative safety, but others in the immediate neighbourhood of the
court ventured on the most reckless attacks. On one occasion when eight
threatening distichs were found fastened to the doors of the library,
Alexander strengthened his guard by 800 men; we can imagine what he
would have done to the poet if he had caught him. Under Leo X, Latin
epigrams were like daily bread. For complimenting or for reviling the
Pope, for punishing enemies and victims, named or unnamed, for real or
imaginary subjects of wit, malice, grief, or contemplation, no form was
held more suitable. On the famous group of the Virgin with Saint Anne
and the Child, which Andrea Sansovino carved for Sant' Agostino, no
fewer than 120 persons wrote Latin verses, not so much, it is true,
from devotion, as from regard for the patron who ordered the work. This
man, Johann Goritz of Luxemburg, papal referendary of petitions, not
only held a religious service on the feast of Saint Anne, but gave a
great literary dinner in his garden on the slopes of the Capitol. It
was then worth while to pass in, review, in a long poem 'De poetis
urbanis,' the whole crowd of singers who sought their fortune at the
court of Leo.
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