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

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HISTORY OF THE POPES.
acter. In so doing Panvinio worked with a skill that v/aS
worthy of a better cause. For example, the genealogical
tree of Pius IV., which had been shown to take its roots in the
soil of Florence, is not suppressed, but is depreciated by the
remark that other families as well boasted of a similar origin
and parentage. When he speaks of the father of the Pope,
he makes the depreciatory remark that he rose to famie bj''
farming the taxes. The story of the wonderful light that
shone round the cradle of Pius IV. is omitted. Moreover,
certain rather severe remarks about Paul IV., who had been
very much esteem.ed by Pius V., are excised. In the same
way the account of the relations between Cardinal Medici
and Paul IV. are remodelled. Nor is the most important
change effected by Panvinio his substantial transformation
of his treatmient of the trial and fall of the Carafa in the third
edition, which is no longer, as it was in the second, favourable
to Pius IV., but has now in conformity to the current popular
view, become much m.ore unfavourable to him ;
much more
radical, however, are the changes which he makes in his
description of the character of Pius IV., whose goodness of
heart Panvinio had brought out very strongly in the second
edition. None of this it is true, is retracted, but by means
of spiteful additions, Pius IV. is made to appear in quite a
different light. For example, before his election he was
looked upon as a good-natured man, but afterwards he proved
himself to be very different, and from being a man of honest
and open character, he suddenly became deceitful and spiteful.
Hitherto in this mixture of praise and blame, people saw an
argument for the impartiality of Panvinio, and a judicious
distribution of light and shade, but since Susta discovered
the genesis of these various biographical efforts of Panvinio
such a view has become quite untenable. An author who,
in the course of six years, on account of his susceptibility
to external influences, changes so completely, and three
separate times, his characterization of the same person cannot
be considered as a reliable witness as to Pius IV. If for
so long a time the last description of Pius IV. given by
Panvinio passed for an impartial estimate, its origin shows
it to have been an unbalanced combination of an officially
inspired panegyric with a depreciation of the person in ques-
tion, which only came into being when public opinion in
Rome had changed.