Pius IV. refused to allow the poet to complete his book, and
ordered that which he had already written to be burned. This was too much
for the equanimity of the poet, whose eye was with fine frenzy rolling,
and he began to assail the Pope with all manner of abuse. For some time
the punishment for his rash writing was postponed, on account of the
protection of a powerful Cardinal; but on the death of Pius IV. Francus
sharpened his pen afresh, and sorely wounded the memory of his deceased
foe. In one of his satires the words of St. John's Gospel, _verbum caro
factum est_, were inserted; and the charge of profanity was brought
against him. At length Pius V. condemned him to death. Some historians
narrate that the poor poet was hung on a beam attached to the famous
statue of the Gladiator in front of the Palace of the Orsini, called the
Pasquin, to which the deriders and enemies of the Pope were accustomed to
affix their epigrams and pamphlets. These were called _Pasquinades_, from
the curious method adopted for their publication. Others declare that he
suffered punishment in a funereal chamber draped with black; while another
authority declares that the poet, the victim of his own satires, was hung
on a fork-shaped gibbet, not on account of his abuse of Pius IV., but
through the hatred of Pius V., which some personal quarrel had excited.
This conjecture is, however, probably false.
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