Petrarch welcomes a Pope

"Here reign the successors of the poor fishermen of Galilee; they have strangely forgotten their origin. I am astounded, as I recall their predecessors, to see these men loaded with gold and clad in purple, boasting of the spoils of princes and nations; to see luxurious palaces and heights crowned with fortifications, instead of a boat turned downward for shelter.

"We no longer find the simple nets which were once used to gain a frugal sustenance from the lake of Galilee, and ... to see worthless parchments turned by a leaden seal into nets which are used ... to catch hordes of unwary Christians. ...

"Instead of holy solitude we find a criminal host and crowds of the most infamous satellites; instead of soberness, licentious banquets; instead of pious pilgrimages, preternatural and foul sloth; instead of the bare feet of the apostles, the snowy coursers of brigands fly past us, the horses decked in gold and fed on gold, soon to be shod with gold, if the Lord does not check this slavish luxury. In short, we seem to be among the kings ... before whom we must fall down and worship, and who cannot be approached except presents be offered. O ye unkempt and emaciated old men, is it for this you laboured?Is it for this that you have sown the field of the Lord and watered it with your holy blood?"

~ Petrarch from his Letter to a Friend, 1340-1353