Julius was elected as a compromise pope - a mutually unexciting choice among the rival parties of cardinals. Julius threw himself into ecclesiastic reform and working out a more peaceful political footing with Europe. But, finding it rather hard, he more or less gave up. He retired to his palaces, hosted lavish dinners, arranged for frescoes of questionable decency to be painted wherever possible. His real scandal rests on Innocenzo del Monte, a close 'friend' of his whom he picked up from the streets of Parma as a seventeen-year-old. He and Innocenzo were constant companions, despite their age differences, and Julius made him a Cardinal.