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

362 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
of the great number of subjects, the sitting had to last for
two days, and was held on December 3rd and 4th. It was
also expressly resolved that the legates should afterwards
seek the confirmation of the Pope in the name of the whole
Council.^ During the night better news arrived as to the
Pope's condition,- but the legates and deputies adhered to
the resolution they had taken, and worked until midnight
to clear away and settle the last difficulties which had been
raised against some of the decrees, partly by the envoys and
partly by the fathers.^
On the morning of December 3rd, the XXVth and last
Session of the Council, the ninth under Pius IV., was opened.*
High Mass was celebrated by Zambeccaro, Bishop of Sulmona,
and the sermon was preached by Girolamo Ragazzoni, Bishop
of Nazianzen and coadjutor of Famagosta. The decrees
^ See Paleotto in Theiner, II., 678 seq. ; Mendo^a, 717;
Pallavicini, 24, 4 ; Susta, IV., 434 seq., 437 seq.
2 The opinion that the illness of Pius IV. was an invention,
or purposely exaggerated, is untenable (see Sagmuller, Papst-
wahlbullen, 177). To the evidence already printed (c/. Sickel,
Konzil, 643 seq. Corpo dipl. Portug., X., 154) may be added the
statements of the Mantuan ambassador, Giacomo Tarreghetti,
who wrote on December i : *Dopo che io scrissi 1' altra mia a
V. Ecc*, N.S. e stato grandemente oppresso dal male, non senza
grandissimo pericolo di vita, per quello si diceva publicamente,
imperoche ad un tratto era tormento dalla podagra et similmente
dal catarro et anco dalla febre. His *report of December 4, 1563
(c/. Susta, IV., 449 seq, 454) announces an improvement. Accord-
ing to a *letter of December 8, the Pope on that day was free
from fever, and again granted audiences (Gonzaga Archives,
Mantua). Serristori, too, in his *letter of December 3, 1563,
notes that at first Pius IV. had been considered to be in a hopeless
condition by the physicians and everybody else (State Archives,
Florence).
^ See Pallavicini, 24, 5.
* See Theiner, II., 502-14; Raynaldus, 1563, n. 209-17;
Psalmaeus, 876 seq. ; Pallavicini, 24, 5-8 ; Baguenault de
Puchesse, 391 seq. ; Knopfler, in the Freiburger Kirchenlex.,
XI^., 2111 seq. : SusTA, IV., 441 seqq.