Yet Paul, as a man of the elder generation filling the Papal throne for fifteen years during a period of transition, adhered in the main to the policy of his predecessors.

It was fortunate for him and for the Holy See that the basis of his character was caution combined with tough tenacity of purpose, capacity for dilatory action, diplomatic shiftiness and a political versatility that can best be described by the word trimming.
These qualities enabled him to pass with safety through perils that might have ruined a bolder, a hastier, or a franker Pope, and to achieve the object of his heart's desire, where stronger men had failed, in the foundation of a solid duchy for his heirs.
Paul's jealousy of the Spanish ascendancy in Italian affairs caused him to waver between the Papal and Imperial, Guelf and Ghibelline, parties.
These names had lost much of their significance; but the habit of distinction into two camps was so rooted in Italian manners, that each city counted its antagonistic factions, maintained by various forms of local organization and headed by the leading families.[15] Burigozzo, under the year 1517, tells how the whole population of Milan was divided between Guelfs and Ghibellines, wearing different costumes; and it is not uncommon to read of petty nobles in the country at this period, who were styled Captains of one or the other party.
[Footnote 15: See Bruno's _Cena delle Ceneri_, ed.

Wagner, vol.i.

p.
133, for a humorous story illustrative of the state of things ensuing among the lower Italian classes.] The wars between France and Spain revived the almost obsolete dispute, which the despots of the fifteenth century and the diplomatic confederation of the five great powers had tended in large measure to erase.

The Guelfs and Ghibellines were now partisans of France and Spain respectively.