Note 7 — Book the First

The Lord Clement P.P. VII (Giulio de Medici), 1523–34, appears on Cellini’s lovely medals in a full beard. Probably, in His case, there was no choice; for, during the Sack of Rome in 1527 by the Lutheran Goths and Catholic Catalans of the Elect-Emperor, Carlos V., His Holiness was holding the Mola of Hadrian, or Castle of Santangelo, and enduring the hard privations of a siege. Afterwards He did not shave; and full beards became the fashion for the clergy. Later, the Lord Alexander P.P. VII (Flavio Chigi), made the Vandyke beard and upturned mustachio the clerical mode; and, later still, the whole face was shaved according to the present rule. But, at the time when the Cardinal of Avignon reflected upon the Cardinal of Trebizond’s beard, there appears to have been a distinct prejudice in favour of a shaven, indeed of a shorn, pope. This may be seen in the medals of popes and cardinals of the fifteenth century (when cleanliness was a mark of gentility), where the large tonsure and shaven faces are very noticeable.