He had not the audacious originality of Luther.

He never went to the length of braving Alexander by burning his bulls and by denying the authority of popes in general.

Not daring to break all connection with the Holy See, he was driven to quibble about the distinction between the office and the man, assuming a hazardous attitude of obedience to the Church whose head and chief he daily outraged.

At the same time he took no pains to enlist the sympathies of the Italian princes, many of whom might presumably have been hostile to the Pope, on his side of the quarrel.

All the tyrants came in for a share of his prophetic indignation.