Rome through this period in the retinue of his relative, Cardinal Jean du Bellay, expressed his scandalized opinion of Julius in two sonnets in his series Les regrets (1558), hating to see, he wrote, "a Ganymede with the red hat on his head". The courtier and poet Girolamo Muzio in a letter of 1550 to Ferrante Gonzaga, governor of Milan, wrote: "They write many bad things about this new pope; that he is vicious, proud, and odd in the head." The Pope's enemies made capital of the scandal. Puritan clergyman Thomas Beard, in the Theatre of God's judgement (1597) saying it was Julius' "custome ... to promote none to ecclesiastical livings, save only his buggerers". Beard also published a 1625 work on the Pope as Antichrist. In Italy, it was said that Julius showed the impatience of a "lover awaiting a mistress" while awaiting Innocenzo's arrival in Rome and boasted of the boy's prowess in bed, while the Venetian ambassador reported that Innocenzo Del Monte shared the pope's bed "as if he [Innocenzo] were his [Julius'] own son or grandson." "The charitably-disposed told themselves the boy might after all be simply his bastard son." Despite the damage which the scandal was inflicting on the church, it was not until after Julius' death in 1555 that anything could be done to curb Innocenzo's visibility. He underwent temporary banishment following the murder of two men who had insulted him, and then again following the rape of two women. He tried to use his connections in the College of Cardinals to plead his cause, but his influence waned, and he died in obscurity. He was buried in Rome in the Del Monte family chapel. One outcome of the cardinal-nephew scandal, however, was the upgrading of the position of Papal Secretary of State, as the incumbent had to take over the duties Innocenzo Del Monte was unfit to perform: the Secretary of State eventually replaced the cardinal-nephew as the most important official of the Holy See. Other activities Consistories Throughout his pontificate, Julius III named twenty new cardinals in four consistories, including one cardinal whom he nominated "in pectore" in 1551 and revealed in the following year. Beatifications While he did not canonize any saints during his papacy, Julius III only beatified Silvester of Troina. Death Julius III died at 7:00pm on 23 March 1555. Having suffered from gout in his later years (which