Vincent Cronin - The Flowering of the Renaissance

It now remained to be seen whether Adrian’s successor could achieve the reform for which all Christendom waited. Giulio de’ Medici, who took the name Clement VII, was the son of Giuliano de’ Medici, stabbed to death in Florence Cathedral, and a first cousin of Leo X. Blameless in his personal life, the new Pope possessed a long handsome face, cultivated tastes and the Medici intelligence, without, however, the Medici drive. He had been born an orphan and illegitimate, and all his life he remained to an extreme degree timid and vacillating. He seemed to lack a core.

Clement was, however, full of good intentions and decided to cut the ‘spiritual’ taxes so hated abroad. This was less easy than it sounds. The taxes were payment for legal and secretarial work involved in issuing briefs, dispensations and so on, performed by more than 2000 Curia officials who had bought or inherited their jobs; that is, they or their fathers had put up capital on which they were entitled to a 10% return. If Clement reduced taxes, he would reduce the return, and would have to make good the difference from some other source. But there was no other source: in fact, as certain German princes embraced Lutheranism, income fell sharply. But Clement did make one useful discovery. He saw that the remuneration of Curia officials was being confused with what was in effect the Papacy’s public debt and, banker’s nephew that he was, began to clear up the confusion. When he had to raise money in 1526, he did so not with the creation of new offices but by issuing under the name Monte della Fede

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