Pope Leo X
Pope Leo X reigned from 1513 to 1521, presided over the beginning of the Reformation, and is generally judged to have failed to grasp what was happening. Born Giovanni de' Medici in Florence in 1475, the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, he was made an abbot at seven and a cardinal at thirteen, on condition he wait three years to take up the office. He was driven from Florence with his family in 1494, travelled Europe, and returned in 1512 with Spanish troops to restore Medici rule. He was elected pope the following year at thirty-seven, and was not yet a priest. He spent enormously — on the papal court, on hunting, on musicians, on the poets and painters he patronised, and on the rebuilding of St Peter's begun by Julius II. He commissioned Raphael for the Vatican tapestries and made him superintendent of antiquities. The papal treasury was exhausted within two years, and he borrowed heavily and sold offices to cover it. To fund St Peter's he authorised a renewed sale of indulgences in Germany, part of the proceeds going secretly to Albert of Brandenburg to repay the bankers who had financed his purchase of the see of Mainz. The Dominican Johann Tetzel preached it aggressively, and in October 1517 Martin Luther responded with the Ninety-five Theses. Leo treated it initially as a squabble among monks. He issued Exsurge Domine in 1520 giving Luther sixty days to recant, and excommunicated him by Decet Romanum Pontificem in January 1521. He named Henry VIII Defender of the Faith the same year. He died suddenly in December 1521, leaving the papacy deeply in debt.
- Lived: 1475 CE – 1521 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: pope, patron
