Editing Pope Leo X (section)

===Patron of learning===
Leo X raised the Church to a high rank as the friend of whatever seemed to extend knowledge or to refine and embellish life. He made the capital of [[Christendom]], Rome, a centre of [[European culture]]. While yet a cardinal, he had restored the church of Santa Maria in Domnica after Raphael's designs; and as pope he had [[San Giovanni dei Fiorentini]], on the [[Via Giulia]], built, after designs by [[Jacopo Sansovino]]<ref>{{cite book|last1=Heydenreich |first1=L. |last2=Lotz |first2=W.|chapter=Architecture in Italy 1400–1600|title=Pelican History of Art|year= 1974|pages=195–196}}</ref> and pressed forward the work on St Peter's Basilica and the Vatican under [[Raphael]] and [[Agostino Chigi]]. Leo's constitution of 5 November 1513 reformed the Roman university, which had been neglected by Julius II. He restored all its faculties, gave larger salaries to the professors, and summoned distinguished teachers from afar;<ref>{{cite web |title=La storia {{!}} Sapienza Università di Roma |url=https://www.uniroma1.it/it/pagina/la-storia |website=www.uniroma1.it |access-date=29 December 2021}}</ref> and, although it never attained to the importance of [[Padua]] or [[Bologna]], it nevertheless possessed in 1514 a faculty (with a good reputation) of eighty-eight professors.

[[File:Leo X Rubens.jpg|thumb|302x302px|1610s portrait of Leo X by [[Peter Paul Rubens]]]]

Leo called [[Janus Lascaris]] to Rome to give instruction in Greek, and established a Greek printing press from which the first Greek book printed in Rome appeared in 1515. He made Raphael custodian of the classical antiquities of Rome and the vicinity, the ancient monuments of which formed the subject of a famous letter from Raphael to the pope in 1519.<ref> [[Hart, Vaughan]], Hicks, Peter, ''Palladio’s Rome''. Translation of Andrea Palladio’s ''L’Antichita di Roma'' and ''Descritione de le chiese…in la città de Roma,'' (1554) including as an appendix Raphael’s famous Letter to Leo X concerning Rome's ancient monuments, Yale University Press, London and New Haven, 2006.</ref> The distinguished Latinists [[Pietro Bembo]] and [[Jacopo Sadoleto]] were papal secretaries,<ref>{{cite book|author=Paolo Giovio|title=Vita Leonis Decimi, pontifici maximi: libri IV|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VrVQAAAAcAAJ|year=1551|publisher=officina Laurentii Torrentini|location=Florentiae|language=la|page=67}}</ref> as well as the famous poet [[Bernardo Accolti]]. Other poets, such as [[Marco Girolamo Vida]],<ref>Lancetti, Vencenzo (1831). ''Della vita e degli scritti di Marco Girolamo Vida'' (in Italian). Milano: Giuseppe Crespi. pp. 30–31</ref> [[Gian Giorgio Trissino]]<ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15061a.htm Ford, Jeremiah. "Giangiorgio Trissino." The Catholic Encyclopedia] Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 2 January 2020{{PD-notice}}</ref> and Bibbiena, writers of ''novelle'' like [[Matteo Bandello]], and a hundred other ''literati'' of the time were bishops, or papal scriptors or [[abbreviators]], or in other papal employs.

{{quote|Under his pontificate, Latin Christianity assumed a pagan, Greco-Roman character, which, passing from art into manners, gives to this epoch a strange complexion. Crimes for the moment disappeared, to give place to vices; but to charming vices, vices in good taste, such as those indulged in by [[Alcibiades]] and sung by [[Catullus]]. —[[Alexandre Dumas|Alexandre Dumas ''père'']]<ref>Celebrated Crimes, Vol. I. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1910, pp. 361–414 [https://www.angelfire.com/mn3/mixed_lit/dumas_cenci.htm]</ref>}}