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struggles over the Duchy of Urbino. This was to be taken from the hands of a member of Julius IFs family and given to a member of Leo's family. Enormous sums of Church money were required to effect this conquest. Angered and irritated cardinals conspired to bring about the murder of the Pope. The plot was discovered and its instigator, Cardinal Petrucci, was executed. The rest paid heavily for life and mercy. The rescued Pontiff enjoyed for a few years more the life of a grand seigneur. He did not permit the new "monkish quarrels" to dampen his ardour for hunting and music, theatrical enter- tainment and generous hospitality.
Martin Luther, the Augustinian, had been sent to Rome during the close of 1510 on business for his Order, When he saw the Eternal City he fell on his knees and cried out: "Hail, O Sacred Rome!** But Rome still suffered from the effects of the reign of Alexander VI. Luther had heard and seen, had stored up in his heart, many a scandal by the time he was ready to return to his monastery cell. He was a learned doctor of theology, a zealous vicar of the Order, a preacher to city congregations, and a professor who delved so deeply into the things of God and the eternal puzzles of existence that he hardly found time in the midst of all his work for his religious duties. "I need two secretaries, since almost always I can scarce do anything else except write letters. . . Rarely do I have enough time to say the breviary and to celebrate Mass. In addition I must wrestle with my own temptations against the world, the flesh and the Devil," he writes. Even letters dated in 1516 indicated that Brother Martin was loyal to his Order, despite the fact that the spiritual world roundabout him was so disorderly. Nevertheless between the lines of what he writes there is betrayed a never-ending struggle with sexual passion, which is finally frankly confessed. Concupiscence is insurmountable. By way of excuse he clings to Pauline dicta anent the wrestling between the spirit and the flesh, anent failing to do the good one seeks to do, and doing the evil one wishes to avoid. He doubts the freedom and the re- sponsibility of man, quoting a few dark passages in St. Augustine to support his opinion while doing violence to and so falsifying other less comforting passages. In all he follows the requirements of his own heart. His nature is like a storm which drives melancholic
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