Creighton writes : "Riario denied all knowledge of the matter till the confessions of the others were read to him ; then he said, 'Since they have said so, it must be true.' He added that he had spoken about it to Soderini and Hadrian, who laughed and said they would make him pope." Marco Minio says : "Per le depositione del Sauli et etiam de qualche uno de li altri si vede come etiam haveano communicato questa cum li Rmi Cardinali Voltera et Adriano, et quel Adriano, intesa la cosa, si messe a rider stringendosi nelle spalle, che è uno atto solito per lui farsi molte volte, et il Rmo Volterra disse, 'Faciate pur presto.' Si che tutti loro dimostrar haver grandissimo odio al Pontefice. Ma San Zorzi dimostra haver havuto piu presto grande desiderio al papato che altro ; et loro promettevano di farlo papa." It does not appear that Riario admitted having sounded Soderini and Hadrian, nor that it was proved by the evidence of others, nor that the two cardinals implicated made any promise to elect him. All this is taken from Sanuto's summary: "Ouando fo letto al Cardinal San Zorzi quello havia detto Siena e Sauli, qual primo negava, disse, za che lhoro hanno dito cussi el dia esser el vero, et chel comunichoe con Voltera et Hadriano Cardinali quali se la riseno come solito è a far Hadriano, et Voltera disse, 'Faziate pur presto,' e che li prometteva far esso San Zorzi Papa."
Mr. Creighton judges his half-century as an epoch of religious decline, during which the Papacy came down from the elevation at which it was left by Pius to the degeneracy in which it was found by Luther. With Paul II. it starts well. Then the temptations of politics, the victorious creation of the temporal state, bring his successors into degrading and contaminating rivalry with wicked statesmen, and they learn to expend spiritual authority in exchange for worldly gains, until at last, when they have to face new antagonists, their dignity is tarnished and their credit gone. At each pontificate the judgment becomes more severe. Sixtus is worse than Paul, and Alexander than Sixtus. But worst of all are those prosperous pontiffs who, in their ambition to become
