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Secret alliances were formed against him by the della Rovere, the Baglioni, and the Petrucci; and though he took care to attend public services and to fast more than etiquette required, nobody believed in him. Vettori's comment reads like an echo of Machiavelli and Guicciardini.
Vettori's ultimate criterion is the personal quality of the ambitious ruler. Giovanni and Giulio were afterwards Leo X. and Clement VII. Passing to what he says about Leo X., it is worth while to note that he attributes his election chiefly to the impression produced upon the Cardinals by Alexander and Julius.
The whole defense is a good piece of specious pleading, and might be used to illustrate the chapter on the Faith of Princes in the Principe. By far the most striking passage in Vettori's Sommario is the description of the march of Frundsberg's and De Bourbon's army upon Rome. He makes it clear to what extent the calamity of the sack was due to the selfishness and cowardice of the Italian princes.
A letter to Luigi del Riccio of 1545, is signed "Michelagnolo Buonarroti non pittore, nè scultore, nè architettore, ma quel che voi volete, ma none briaco, come vi dissi, in casa." See the letters of Cosimo de' Medici, Gotti, pp. 301-313, the letter of Count Alessandro da Canossa, ibid. p. 4, and Pier Vettori's letter to Borghini, about the visit of some German gentlemen, ibid. p. 315.
The impression produced by Vettori's panegyric is further confirmed by what he says about Lorenzo's disinclination to undertake the Duchy of Urbino. Ibid. See too p. 307. But to return to the early days of Leo's pontificate. Vettori marks his interference in the affairs of Lucca as the first great mistake he made.
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