Note 26 — Book the Second

There is a tale about this personage, that, having allowed himself to be frightened by one of the calumnies of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, to the effect that the Pope expected to be paid for the red hat (in addition to the six hundred ducats which every cardinal offers in return for the cardinalitial sapphire ring), he became so nervous on Ash Wednesday, when it was his office to scatter ashes on the head of the Sovereign Pontiff, as to substitute for the formula of administration, “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris,” the words “Memento, homo, quia Papa es, et ego pecunias non habeo.”