But things were moving with the momentum gained by his father, Ivan the Great.

It was Vasili's inheritance, not his reign, that was great.

That inheritance he had maintained and increased.

He had humiliated the nobility, had developed the movements initiated by his greater father, and had also shown tastes magnificent enough for the heir of his imperial mother, Sophia Paleologus.

But he is overshadowed in history by standing between the two Ivans--Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible.
[Illustration: The Czar Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan Ivanovitch.
From the painting by I.E.Repin.] Leo X.was soon too much occupied with a new foe to think about designs upon Constantinople.