The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

PIUS IV. AND THE AMBASSADORS. QI
marked degree, for it was now as easy to penetrate into the
presence of Pius IV., as it had been in recent times difhcult to
obtain an audience with the head of the Church.^ None of
the strict Spanish haughtiness of the Carafa Pope was now to
be seen ;
Pius IV. was simple, kind, and affable to everyone,
and especially with the ambassadors he laid all ceremony
aside. ^ It was especially the representatives of Cosimo I.
and the Venetian Republic who were able to approach him
at all times, and to whom he showed the greatest favour, and
they repeatedly relate how the Pope, when about to take his
walk in the Belvedere, would summon them quite unceremoniously
to join him, while after their return they would
accompany him to his private apartments.^ The kindness and
condescension of His Holiness was so great, that he excused
himself if, in consequence of pressing business, the ambassadors
had to wait for a time.^ He liked to express his opinion
in the most detailed way to the Venetian ambassadors, Marcantonio
da Mula^ and Girolamo Soranzo, of whom he was
particularly fond. Soranzo writes that his audiences seldom
lasted less than an hour, and that the confidence which the
Pope then showed him could not have been greater, while
Pius IV. himself repeatedly remarked that he told the ambas-
sadors what he had been thinking over during the night,*
iC/. Vol. XIV. of this work, p. 210.
2 See MocENiGO, 51 ; Girol. Soranzo, 75 ; *report of the
Bolognese ambassador of T. Cospi, of July 24, 1 560 (State Archives,
Bologna).
^ Cf. the *report of Ricasoli of June i, 1560, and those of
Saraceni of April 23 and June 20, 1561 (State Aichives, Florence)
and the *reports of Mula of November 9 and 16, 1560 (State
Library, Vienna).
* So *reports Mula on June 15, 1560 :
Andai a S.S*^*^ hieri mattina .
" Serenissimo Principe.
. . et ella si scus6 d'havermi fatto
aspettare." (State Library, Vienna). Cf. Appendix No. 3.
5 Cf. especially the *reports of Mula for the years 1 560-1 quoted
(State Library, Vienna), infra cap. IV. See specially *report of
6 September, 1560.
" GiAc. Soranzo, 131.