SOME SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DOCUMENTS
The Sodomite Popes,
1609
14. Sodomits.
Iulius the third. Being Legat of Bononia, he used one Innocent, his ancient Minion over familiarly. Being Bishop, against the mind of the Colledge, he admitteth him his houshold servant, and createth him one of the Cardinals. The report went at Rome, and dispersed by libells, that Iove kept Ganimed, but an ill favoured one. At what time his Holinesse presented this his darling to the Colledge, and every man denied his consent: for that his presented had neither vertue nor good manners to advance him: It is reported that he should say: What more saw you in me, I beseech you, when you preferred me to this Papacie? Wherefore sithence we are all but fortunes tennis-balls, and by her good favour you have assisted me: so in like maner be you favourable to this my boy, and I will create him a Cardinall. But after that some writers had brandished this Catife for his blasphemies and villanies, he procured a fellow as wicked as himselfe, viz. Ierome Mutius, to defend his actions, and thereto he put his approbation. Virgerius writeth, that he abstained not from the Cardinalls themselves. In the time of this incarnate divill lived, and issued from his private closet, that Apostaticall Legat Iohannes à Casa, Archbishop of Benevent, who in Italian rithmes writ a Poeme in commendation of the sinne [p.224] of Sodomy; and Intitled it, Opus divinum: affirming that he tooke great delight therein, and never knew any other venery.
Leo the tenth made alwaies very much of his carkasse, and gavue his mind to all variety of pleasure, but especially to the love of boies.
Sixtus the fourth built a famous brothell house at Rome, and dedicated it to both Sexes. Wessell of groning reporteth in his treatise of Popish Indulgences, that at the requestes of Peter Ruerius (his Fatherhoods Catamit) as also at the instance of S. Sixtus Cardinall and Patriarch of Constantinople, and Ierome his brother; his Holinesse graunted his faculty to all the houshold servants of the Cardinall of S, Luce, chiefe hunts-man unto Paul the eleventh (a fearefull thing to be spoken) in the hot months of Iune, Iulie, and August, to use the masculine sinne; signing the Bull with this clause: Fiat quod petitur.
Petrus Mendoza called Cardinall Valentinian, not contented with a troope of evill women, nor satisfied with the Queene her selfe; desired and oft obtained of Alexander the sixt to use in holy single-life, as his best beloved spouse, his bastard Sonne the Marquesse of Zaneth.
Iohn the four and twentith was accused in the Counsell of Constance, to have been a Sodomit, an adulterer, and a whoremonger.
Clement the seventh. Of him it is recorded in a certaine Commentary uppon the Articles of the Masters of Paris, that hee was, a bastard, a poysoner, a Man-slayer, a Pandar, a Symonianist, a Sodomit, a Periurer, a deflowrer, a Ravisher, a Geomancer, a [p.225] Church-robber, and a plotter of all villanies. Such like were Benedict the third, Iohn the thirteenth, fourteenth and Paul the third.
Hence complaineth Luit prandus, that the Lateran pallace became by time and sufferance to be a receptacle of uncleane persons. [p.226]
NOTE: I have changed "u" to "v" and "v" to "u" in accordance with modern spelling practice.
SOURCE: The Romane Conclave. Wherein, by way of HISTORY, exemplified upon the Lives of the Romane Emperours, from CHARLES the Great, to RODULPH now Reigning; The forcible Entries, and Usurpations of the Iesuited Statists, successively practised against the sacred Maiestie of the said EMPIRE: And so by Application, against the Residue of the CHRISTIAN KINGS, and FREE-STATES are lively Acted, and truely Reported. By IO. URSINUS Ante-Iesuite. LONDON Printed for Iohn Iagger, and are to be sold at his Shop in Fleetestreete within Temple Barre. 1609.
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Rictor Norton (Ed.), "The Sodomite Popes, 1609", Homosexuality in Seventeenth-Century England: A Sourcebook. uploaded 17 January 2023 <http://www.rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1609pope.htm>.
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