How did Pope Leo X live?

Answer 1

A:As a cardinal, the young Giovanni de Medici took his father's advice and avoided many of the excesses indulged in by his fellow-cardinals. At some risk to his own safety, he even refused to sell his vote to Rodrigo Borgia in the conclave that elected Borgia Pope Alexander VI.

As pope from 1513, Leo X lived in absolute splendour, engaging in an orgy of spending, in addition to his costly military campaigns largely intended to enhance the fortunes of the Medici family. The period of his papacy has been termed the Golden Age because of the generosity with which he showered gifts, pensions and lucrative posts on his friends. A patron of the arts, he oversaw the completion of the magnificent St Peter's Basilica, whose rebuilding was commenced by his predecessor.

Dogged throughout his life by ill-health, he may have owed his election at the age of only thirty seven to the expectation that he would not survive long, an expectation that his physicians seem to have played up during the conclave.

Pope Leo X survived an attempt by the cardinals to poison him in May 1517 and died on 21st December 1521, possibly by poisoning or as a result of chronic ill-health. He left the Vatican's treasury completely empty and various banks and lenders with enormous unpaid debts.