This testament of Nicholas remains a memorable document.

Nothing illustrates more forcibly the transition from the Middle Ages to the worldliness of the Renaissance than the conviction of the Pontiff that the destinies of Christianity depended on the state and glory of the town of Rome.

What he began was carried on amid crime, anarchy, and bloodshed by successive Popes of the Renaissance, until at last the troops of Frundsberg paved the way, in 1527, for the Jesuits of Loyola, and Rome, still the Eternal City, cloaked her splendor and her scandals beneath the black pall of Spanish inquisitors.

The political changes in the Papacy initiated by Nicholas had been, however, by that date fully accomplished, and for more than three centuries the Popes have since held rank among the kings of the earth.
[1] The bank of the Medici alone held 100,000 florins for the Pope.

Vespasiano, _Vit, Nic.