But what was reasonable in the man was ridiculous in the pontiff.

There remained an irreconcilable incongruity between his profession of the Primacy of Christianity and his easy epicurean philosophy.
Leo, like all the Medici after the first Cosimo, was a bad financier.
His reckless expenditure contributed in no small measure to the corruption of Rome and to the ruin of the Latin Church, while it won the praises of the literary world.

Julius, who had exercised rigid economy, left 700,000 ducats in the coffers of S.Angelo.The very jewels of Leo's tiara were pledged to pay his debts, when he died suddenly in 1521.

During the heyday of his splendor he spent 8,000 ducats monthly on presents to his favorites and on his play-debts.

His table, which was open to all the poets, singers, scholars, and buffoons of Rome, cost half the revenues of Romagna and the March.