Why did Pope Leo X need more money?

Answer 1

A:

It is well known that Pope Leo X sold indulgences to help pay for the completion of the new St Peter's Basilica, but the Vatican's income from all over Western Europe was so vast, that this could have been funded without simony if Leo had been satisfied with a life of modest wealth. Instead, he 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. His coronation as pope saw one seventh of the Vatican's entire reserves spent in just a few days. 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.

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Russell Chamberlin (The Bad Popes) says that nearly half the revenue from the papal states went just to finance his endless banquets. Leo made over to his brother Guiliano the entire income of the duchies of Parma, Piacenza and Modena, which had recently been incorporated into the Papal States. In 1517 he led a war that succeeded in securing his nephew, Lorenzo, as duke of Urbino, at considerable cost to the papal finances.

When Pope Leo X 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.