Читать книгу The Reformation: History in an Hour - Edward Gosselin A - Страница 14

Renaissance Popes

Since the papacy of Nicholas V in 1447–55, priests and bishops had visited an increasingly cosmopolitan and humanist Rome on Church business, and consequently many hotels were built to house them. Scores of brothels and a multitude of concubines accommodated some of these Church leaders. Many thousands of Romans participated in the prostitution trade and some cardinals, bishops and monastic orders had a hand in running several of the brothels.

Portrait of Pope Leo X c.1518, by Raffaello Sanzio

The Rome of Pope Leo X (reigned 1513–21, pictured above) disgusted Martin Luther. He felt it was bad enough that humans believed they could determine a price for divine intercession in the form of indulgences, but the blatant corruption that seemed to exist at the very heart of the Church had created for him a cognitive dissonance. Consequently, soon after his return to Saxony and Wittenberg, Luther sought inspiration and solace in the words of St Paul, and from these readings he gained the confidence that he no longer needed to accept the decretals from what he considered to be the corrupt and flawed leaders of his Church.