"The charitably-disposed told themselves that 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. The pope's lack of interest in political or ecclesiastical affairs caused dismay among his contemporaries. He spent the bulk of his time, and a great deal of papal money, on entertainments at the Villa Giulia, created for him by Vignola, but more significant and lasting was his patronage of the great Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whom he brought to Rome as his "maestro di cappella", Giorgio Vasari, who supervised the design of the Villa Giulia, and Michelangelo, who worked there. In the novel "Q" by Luther Blissett, Julius appears toward the end of the book as a moderate cardinal favouring religious tolerance, in the upheavals caused by the Reformation and the Roman Church's response during the 16th century. His election as pope and the subsequent unleashing of the Inquisition form the last chapters of the novel.