BOOK IX. 

FROM THE END OF THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE TO THE END OF THE FIFTH COUNCIL OF THE LATERAN, A.D. 1418-1517.

 

CHAPTER IV.

SIXTUS IV. AND INNOCENT VIII. A.D. 1471-1492.

 

WHILE the popes were endeavouring, with but little success, to rouse the nations of Europe for the recovery of the east from the Mussulmans, important changes were in progress, which tended to strengthen the power of the crown in various western kingdoms. In England, this was the effect of Henry VII’s policy, following on the destruction which had been wrought among the ancient nobility by the long and bloody wars of the Roses. In France, Lewis XI was able to curb the nobles and the princes of the blood, and acquired the direct sovereignty over provinces which, under the forms of feudal tenure, had before been practically independent; and his son, Charles VIII, completed this work by marrying Anne, the heiress of Brittany (1491). In Spain, the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile were united by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella; and the conquest of Granada by the “catholic sovereigns” extirpated the last remnant of the Moorish dominion. By these changes Spain rose for the first time to a place among the chief powers of Europe.

The empire, indeed, was still under the impotent rule of Frederick III., who had even the mortification of seeing that his neighbours, George Podiebrad of Bohemia, and Matthias Corvinus of Hungary—men raised from a lower rank to the sovereignty of countries to which he supposed himself to have a better title—were more powerful than he. Yet during this time the foundation of the greatness of Austria was laid by the marriage of his son Maximilian with Mary, the only daughter and heiress of Charles “the Bold” duke of Burgundy.

After the death of Paul II the cardinals assembled on the 6th of August 1471. Again it seemed as if Bessarion were likely to be elected; but the younger members of the college dreaded the severity of his character, and the election fell on Francis della Rovere, cardinal of St. Peter ad Vincula, who took the name of Sixtus IV. The voters who had contributed to this result were liberally rewarded for their support with offices and ecclesiastical benefices.

The new pope was born near Savona, in 1414. His descent was afterwards traced to a noble Piedmontese family of the same name, and when he had risen to great­ness, these were willing to admit the connexion; but it seems to be certain that his origin was really very humble. He had taught theology and philosophy in several univer­sities, had become minister-general of the Franciscan order, and through the friendly influence of Bessarion had been promoted to the cardinalate in 1467. He had published several works by means of the new art of printing—among them, one treating of a question which had raised violent quarrels between his own order and the Dominicans—whether the Saviour’s blood, which had been shed in his last suffer­ings, remained in union with the Godhead during the interval between his death and resurrection.

Like other popes of the age, Sixtus, at entering on his office, professed a great zeal for the war against the Turks, declaring that he was willing to spend not only his money, but his blood in the cause of Christendom. It was proposed that a general council of Christian powers should be held with a view to a crusade, but, as the pope and the emperor were unable to agree as to the place of meeting, Sixtus sent cardinal-legates into the chief European kingdoms, for the purpose of conferring with the sovereigns on the design, and of establishing peace among them. For the legation to France, Bessarion was chosen, at the desire of Lewis XI himself, who was acquainted with the Greek cardinal’s fame. But Lewis took offence, either at his having visited the court of Burgundy before that of the suzerain, or at his having desired the release of cardinal Balue, who, from having been the king’s most trusted counsellor, had suddenly fallen into disgrace, and for years had been confined in an iron cage within the castle of Loches. The legate had to wait two months for an audience; and when he was at length admitted into the royal presence, Lewis turned the scene into a farce by laying hold of his long beard, and quoting a verse of the Latin Grammar :—

                   “Barbara Graeca genus retinent quod habere solebant.”

It is said that vexation at the failure of this mission was the cause of Bessarion’s death, which took place at Ravenna, as he was on his way back to Rome. The legates who were sent into Germany and other countries met with no considerable success; and although some ships were sent into the east by the pope and the Venetian republic, the results were unimportant.

But the objects in which Sixtus felt the greatest interest lay nearer home. With his pontificate the papacy enters on a new phase, in which it appears chiefly as a great secular power, to which the spiritual character was merely attached as an accident. The system of providing for the pope’s near kindred by high ecclesiastical dignities, or by the lucrative offices of the court, is no longer found sufficient, but the “nepotism” (as it was called) of the popes now aims at the establishment of their relations as sovereign princes; and even where such schemes of territorial aggrandizement are not carried out, the “nephews” become founders of great and wealthy families, which are decorated with high titles of dignity, and rank as a new power in the Roman system, counterbalancing that of the cardinals. The excessive devotion of Sixtus to the interests of his family was shown as early as the first consistory of his pontificate, when, in defiance of the capitulations which he had subscribed at his election, he bestowed the cardinalate on two of his nephews, Julian della Rovere and Peter Riario—young men of humble birth, who had been educated as Franciscans, but speedily threw off the restraints of their monastic profession. Julian, indeed, although his habits of life were by no means strict, maintained the dignity of his office, and continued to be prominent under the succeed­ing popes, until he himself at length attained the papacy. But Peter Riario, on whom his uncle heaped a prodigious accumulation of dignities and wealth (including the archbishopric of Florence and the titular patriarchate of Constantinople), plunged into excesses of prodigality and debauchery, which absorbed much more than. the vast income of his preferments, and within two years brought his life to an end, at the age of twenty-eight. Sixtus is said to have lamented him with demonstrations of the deepest grief, and commemorated him by an epitaph in which his extravagance is exalted into a virtue.

Other relations of the pope were brought forward, and by means of some of them he endeavoured to connect himself with royal or princely families. One nephew married a daughter of the count of Urbino, and was provided with an endowment by the pope, while the count was rewarded with the title of duke. Another, who is described as “a very little man, and of intellect corresponding to his person,” married an illegitimate daughter of king Ferdinand of Naples; and in consideration of this alliance, Sixtus commuted for a white horse the tribute by which Naples was held under the apostolic see. But the most conspicuous of the lay nephews was Jerome Riario, who, like his brother cardinal Peter, was supposed to be in reality the pope’s son. Jerome, who according to some writers had been a cobbler in early life, but appears rather to have been a clerk in the tax-office at Savona, was summoned to Rome on the death of his brother, and succeeded to the favour which the cardinal had enjoyed. The pope endowed him out of the possessions of the church with Imola, Forli, and other territo­ries, and procured for him the hand of Catharine Sforza, an illegitimate daughter of Galeazzo of Milan, whose consent to the marriage was rewarded by the promotion of his son Ascanius to the cardinalate. With a view to the advancement of his relations, the pope plunged deeply into the intricacies of Italian politics; and for the same purpose he had recourse to all manner of disgraceful arts for raising money. Preferments, even to the highest ranks in the hierarchy, were openly sold, without regard to the qualifications of the purchaser; promises of preferment were often broken, and those who had paid for them were cheated out of their money. New offices of court employment—some of them bearing oriental titles, such as Janissaries, Stradiots, Mamelukes,—were instituted for the purpose of sale. The college of abbreviators was revived, and the appointments to it were sold. The administration of justice was vitiated by the sale of pardons, even for capital offences. The pope’s taxation was oppressive; and the arts which he practised as to the market prices of provisions are said to have produced in some cases a famine among his subjects.

The jubilee, which Paul II had appointed to take place in 1475—twenty-five years from the last celebration—was eagerly caught at by Sixtus as a means of gathering money. But the number of pilgrims and the amount of their offerings fell greatly short of the former jubilees—partly, it is said, because a pestilence was raging at the time, and partly because the pope’s evil repute had made its way even into distant countries. The personal character of Sixtus is painted by Stephen of Infessura in the darkest colours. He is charged with unnatural vices, and with abuse of his patronage in favour of those who ministered to his depravity; he is described as vainglorious, avaricious, pitiless, delighting in cruel spectacles. Under him, merit was discouraged, as it was no longer a help to preferment; he is said to have hated men of letters, and to have checked the cultivation of learning by withdrawing the salaries of professorships. But on the other hand he did much for the increase of the Vatican library, which he placed under the care of the biographer Platina.

In one instance the eagerness of Sixtus to promote the interests of his family led him to become an accomplice in a great and atrocious crime.

The government of Florence, although its constitution was still republican, had passed chiefly into the hands of Cosmo de’ Medici, whose munificent employment of his wealth on public objects, and in the encouragement of literature and the arts, procured for him great influence in his own time, both at home and abroad, and a high reputation with posterity. At his death, in 1464, Cosmo was succeeded in the headship of the family by his son Peter, who died in December 1469, leaving two sons—Lorenzo and Julian. Cosmo, while he possessed the reality of power, had always studiously preserved the character of a citizen; but his descendants had come to regard themselves as princes, and to disregard the repub­lican constitution. As they still kept up the mercantile establishment by which the greatness of their family had been founded, their agents in various countries assumed the pretensions of ministers; their commercial affairs suffered from negligence and wasteful mismanage­ment; and Lorenzo unscrupulously used the public funds to cover the deficiencies which naturally followed. At the same time he was careful to remove from his path, by procuring their banishment or otherwise, all who could have stood in the way of the ascendency of his family. Among these the most prominent were the Pazzi, a family of nobles who, like the Medici, were engaged in trade, and whom Cosmo had endeavoured to conciliate by means of matrimonial connexions. Francis Pazzi, in disgust at the exclusion of his kindred from the magis­tracy, and at other public and private wrongs which he traced to the influence of the Medici, removed from Florence to Rome, where he undertook the management of a bank established by the family; and to him Sixtus transferred the care of the papal accounts, which from the time of Nicolas V had been in the hands of the Medici. The pope’s nephew, count Jerome Riario, who had found the Medici an obstacle in the way of his ambition, was allied with the Pazzi by a common hatred; and a plot was concerted for the assassination of Lorenzo and Julian, with the design of effecting a revolution in favour of their enemies. The pope was privy to the conspiracy, and, although he professed to desire no bloodshed, he plainly signified that, if murder should be perpetrated in the execution of it, the crime would meet with his indulgence.

John Baptist of Montesecco, a condottiere in the papal service, was sent by Jerome to Florence, ostensibly on a mission to Lorenzo, but really in order that he might take part in the intended assassination. The assistance of all the pope’s forces was promised; and Raphael Riario, the pope’s great-nephew, who had just been made cardinal at the age of eighteen, was transferred from the university of Pisa to Florence, with the character of legate, chiefly in order that his palace might serve to harbour such of the conspirators as were strangers to the city. The young cardinal was charged to be guided by the directions of Bartholomew Salviati, who had been consecrated by the pope as archbishop of Pisa, but had been excluded from his see through the influence of his hereditary enemies, the Medici. When, however, after some other plans had been disconcerted by various accidents, it was resolved that the assassination should be perpetrated in the cathedral, the conscience of the condottiere Montesecco took alarm; he declared that he would not add sacrilege to treachery; and it became necessary to transfer the task of despatching Lorenzo to two priests, whose reverence for sacred things had been blunted by familiarity.

On Sunday the 26th of April, at the moment of the elevation of the host at high mass in the cathedral of Florence, the assassins fell on the brothers. Julian was slain on the spot; but Lorenzo, although slightly wounded, was able to escape into the sacristy, and was saved from his pursuers. The conspirators rushed into the streets, and raised shouts of ‘‘Liberty! the people!”, but instead of responding to these cries, the citizens, whom the Medici had gained by their profuse liberality and their magnificent displays, rose in their defence. Some of the Pazzi and their accomplices were torn to pieces by the multitude; the archbishop of Pisa and Francis de’ Pazzi, who had endeavoured to seize the public palace and to overpower the magistrates, were hung from the palace windows by order of the gonfaloniere; the members of the Pazzi family were sought out everywhere, and many of them and of their adherents were executed. Montesecco, on being put to the torture, made disclosures which showed how deeply the pope had been concerned in the plot. Sixtus did not hesitate to show his partisanship by declaring Lorenzo de’ Medici and the magistrates of Florence to be guilty of treason and sacrilege, to be excommunicate, anathematized, infamous, outlawed, and incapable of making a testament. He ordered their houses to be demolished, their property to be confiscated; and Florence was to be placed under interdict, unless they were forthwith made over to the ecclesiastical tribunals, for having laid hands on the archbishop of Pisa and other ecclesiastics. In execution of the pope’s threat, the money of Florentine bankers was seized both at Rome and at Naples; and Sixtus, in concert with king Ferdinand, threw troops into the Florentine territory. The Florentines attempted to appease his wrath, and were willing to acknowledge their fault; but finding him implacable, they resolved to stand on their defence. They wrote to the pope, strongly denouncing his conduct, and plainly charging him with having employed assassins. They put forth a vindication, in which Montesecco’s confession was embodied; and by the circulation of this document, with other letters, they endeavoured to bespeak the sympathy of foreign potentates and prelates. After having consulted eminent canonists, they compelled the priests within their territories to say mass, in defiance of the papal sentence; and a synod of ecclesiastics, under the presidency of Gentile, bishop of Arezzo, repelled the excommunication, declared the pope himself to be excommunicate for having unjustly uttered it, and appealed against him to a general council.

The common feeling throughout Europe was adverse to Sixtus. The emperor and other princes threatened to withdraw from his obedience if he persisted in an unjust war. Lewis of France, who had special connexions with the Medici, spoke of assembling a general council by the authority of princes, if the pope’s consent were not to be obtained; he threatened to revive the pragmatic sanction in all its force, and to stop the payment of annates from his dominions, on the ground that the funds which were levied for war against the infidels were employed against Christians, or went to enrich the pope’s nephew Jerome.

Meanwhile the Florentines were hard pressed by the combined forces of the pope and of king Ferdinand, under the command of the king’s son Alfonso, duke of Calabria. They requested Ferdinand to state his terms of peace, but found them too humiliating; whereupon Lorenzo, in his distress, ventured on the bold expedient of going in person to Naples, where, by the power of his discourse, and by his repre­sentations as to the true interest of the kingdom, he was able to convert Ferdinand from an enemy into an ally. On the 6th of March 1480, an alliance was concluded between Naples and the Florentine republic, to the great indignation of the Venetians and of the pope.

While Italy was thus distracted, the Turks advanced in their career of conquest. They took Otranto, where 12,000 out of 22,000 inhabitants were put to the sword, and revolting acts of cruelty, outrage and profanity were committed; and they laid siege to Rhodes, which was defended by the knights of St. John. It was evident that they aimed at Rome, and terrible stories were told of vows which Mahomet had made for the ruin of Christendom. Sixtus was so greatly alarmed that he spoke of retiring to Avignon; he issued urgent bulls for the crusade; he declared that he would even give his golden crown and the ornaments of his palace towards the expenses of the holy war, and the fear of the infidels prevailed with him to grant peace and ab­solution to the Florentines. This was not, however, to be done without formalities suitable to the greatness of his pretensions; and the Florentines were not in a condition to dispute about such matters. Twelve of the most eminent citizens, with the bishop of Volterra at their head, appeared at Rome as representatives of the republic. They were admitted within the gates in the dark, and without any of the marks of honour which were usually bestowed on ambassadors; and, having expressed their penitence and their desire of reconciliation, they were on Advent Sunday brought into the presence of the pope, who was seated on a lofty throne in the portico of St. Peter’s. He addressed to them a rebuke “full of pride and anger” for the disobedience of which their countrymen had been guilty; and as they knelt before him, he lightly applied a rod to the shoulders of each, and chanted the verses of the Miserere alternately with the cardinals. The envoys were then admitted to kiss his feet and receive his blessing; the doors of the church were thrown open, and the pope was carried into it in state, and seated on the high altar.

The Florentines bound themselves to contribute a certain number of galleys for the Turkish war; and a force of papal and Neapolitan troops was sent to attempt the recovery of Otranto. The death of Mahomet “the Conqueror” (as his people styled him), and the contest which followed between his sons, prevented the reinforcement of the garrison; and the Turks, after having held the place for somewhat less than a year, were forced to capitulate to the duke of Calabria.

By this success the pope was extravagantly elated, and he plunged afresh into war, chiefly for the purpose of gaining Ferrara for his nephew Jerome. In conjunction with the Venetians, his troops contended with those of Naples, which, under the duke of Calabria, advanced to the very gates of Rome, until king Ferdinand contrived by large offers to gain Jerome to his side, and Sixtus, under his nephew’s influence, was led to enter into a Neapolitan alliance in exchange for that of Venice. He now invited the Venetians to join the league with a view to the pacification of Italy; and on refusal he sent forth bulls denouncing the heaviest punishments against them. Venice was placed under interdict; the chiefs of the republic were excommunicated; all monks were charged to quit its territory; the offices of religion were to cease, without even the exception of communion on the bed of death; and there were the usual disabilities as to intercourse with faithful Christians, and other secular penalties by which the popes attempted to increase the spiritual terrors of their sentences. But the Venetians, whose subjection to the papacy was never very absolute, after having con­sulted learned jurists of Padua, took vigorous measures in opposition to the pope. The council of Ten ordered that a strict watch should be kept to prevent the introduction of missives from Rome. They required the patriarch to deliver to them any such document if it should reach him; and, through his compliance, they got possession of the bulls, and were able to prevent the publication of them within the territory of the republics They ordered the clergy to perform their functions as usual, and banished some Franciscans who resisted the command. They assembled all the bishops within their boundaries, and in their presence appealed to a future general council; whereupon the assembly accepted the appeal, and suspended the interdict. The titular patriarch of Constantinople, who presided, ventured to cite the pope before the future council, and means were found to post up the summons on the bridge of St Angelo, and even on the doors of the Vatican. And in addition to the ecclesiastical appeal, the Venetians entreated the princes of Christendom to give them an opportunity of stating their grievances before a general congress.

The war was continued, and in addition to it the old feuds between the anti-papal Colonna and Savelli families on the one side, and the Orsini, who were favoured by the pope, on the other side, raged with a fury which desolated the country around Rome.

A peace was at length concluded between Naples and Venice at Bagnolo. In this agreement there was no reservation for the benefit of Jerome Riario; and the pope, who was already ill when the tidings of it reached him, was so deeply mortified by its terms that his vexation is supposed to have caused his death, which took place on the fifth day after the date of the treaty.

In the city of Rome the pontificate of Sixtus was marked by much building and rebuilding, in the course of which, however, it is to be lamented that there was great destruction, not only of classical remains, but of venerable churches which had come down from the early centuries of Christianity. His name is still preserved by the Janiculan bridge, which he rebuilt, and by the chapel in the Vatican, which derives its chief fame from the grandeur of the decorations afterwards added by Michael Angelo. But perhaps more important than any individual buildings were his labours to render the city more habitable by paving and widening the streets, and by removing the porticoes and other projections which Ferdinand of Naples, at the Jubilee of 1475, pointed out to him as hindrances which prevented the popes from being fully masters of Rome. The hostile Stephen of Infessura tells us that Sixtus was followed to the tomb by the undisguised hatred and execrations of his people.

The death of Lewis XI of France preceded that of Sixtus by about a year (1483). At the instance of cardinal Julian della Rovere, he had con­sented to release cardinal Balue, after an imprisonment of fourteen years. In his last illness, when acute bodily sufferings awoke within him remorse for his long life of sin and crime, and rendered more intense the super­stition which had always been a part of his character, he gathered around him all the most famous relics which could be obtained,—among them the holy phial, which had never before been removed from Reims since the time (as was believed) of Clovis. He entreated the pope to send him any relics which might relieve his agonies; and Sixtus complied with the request so liberally that the Romans in alarm remonstrated lest their city should suffer by being stripped of such treasures. He sent for hermits and other devotees of noted sanctity, in the hope that their intercessions might prolong his life Of these the most renowned was one Francis, a native of Paola, in Calabria. Francis, it is said, was born with only one eye; but his mother vowed that, if the other eye might be granted to him, he should wear the habit of St. Francis for a year, at least, and her wish was fulfilled. He became a minorite friar, but, like Peter of Murrone in an earlier time, he withdrew to live in a cave, and, although utterly illiterate, was held in veneration for the austerity of his life and for his reputation of miracu­lous power. Lewis, having heard his fame, entreated the king of Naples and the pope that this holy man might be sent to him. The hermit, after having refused a request from his sovereign, was compelled by the pope’s authority to set out; and as he passed through Rome his appearance produced a vast excitement. Sixtus granted him leave to found a society of “Hermits of St. Francis,” and, with a view to the influence which he might be able through such an agent to exercise on the mind of Lewis, admitted him to long conferences. On reaching the French court, Francis was received with as much honour ‘‘as if he had been the pope himself.” While others were disposed to ridicule him, Lewis could not endure to be long without his company; he knelt before him in abject superstition, hung on his words, and entreated him to spare him yet a little, as if his life were at the hermit’s disposal; he bestowed rich rewards on him, and, in order to propitiate him, founded convents at Plessis and at Amboise for the new religious society, the members of which, not content with the name of minorites, desired to signify their profession of utter insignificance by styling themselves Minims.

Although Charles VIII, the son and successor of Lewis, had attained his legal majority, the administration was for some years in the hands of his sister Anne, a young princess of clear and firm mind, and of her husband the lord of Beaujeu. The beginning of the reign was marked by a manifestation of national spirit in opposition to the papacy. At the first meeting of the estates there was much complaint as to Roman exactions, and when memoirs for the redress of grievances were presented, the first subject in that which related to ecclesiastical affairs was the restoration of the pragmatic sanction. Some of the bishops, who were indebted to Rome for their promotion, protested against the interference of the lay estates in such a matter; but, although the pragmatic sanction was not mentioned in the royal answer to the memorials, the parliaments of France continued to proceed as if it

The fury of the Roman factions burst forth with increased violence on the death of Sixtus, and the feelings of the populace towards the late pope were displayed in outrages against his favourites, his connexions, and his countrymen in general. The palace of Jerome Riario was sacked; its gardens and ornaments laid waste; and the stores of the Genoese merchants were plundered.

On the 26th of August—a fortnight after the death of Sixtus—the cardinals proceeded to the election of a successor. Intrigue was busy among them; and, according to the custom which had grown up, and which Innocent VI had in vain attempted to suppress, they endeavoured to secure advantages for themselves, and to prevent a recurrence of some late abuses, by entering into capitulations. The future pope was pledged to give one hundred gold florins monthly to every cardinal whose yearly income was under four thousand, to refrain from making more than one cardinal of his own family, and from entrusting to any of his kinsmen the fortresses of St. Angelo, Civita Vecchia, and Tivoli; and in all weighty matters he was pledged to take the advice of the sacred college. Borgia was so confident of success in the elec­tion, that he barricaded his palace in order to protect it from the spoliation which was usually committed on the dwelling of a new pope. But Julian della Rovere and Ascanius Sforza exerted themselves in opposition to him, and by special promises gained many votes for John Baptist Cibò, cardinal of St. Cecilia and bishop of Melfi, who was chosen on the fourth day of the conclave and took the name of Innocent VIII.

The family of Cibò was of Greek origin, but had been long settled at Genoa and Naples. The pope’s father had been viceroy of Naples under king Rene, and senator of Rome in the pontificate of Calixtus III. Innocent was a man of handsome person and of popular manners. His earlier life had been lax, and under him Rome saw the novel scandal of seven illegitimate children, the offspring of different mothers, openly produced as the pope’s family, and the objects of his paternal favour. But, although Innocent may have wished to endow his son Francis with principalities, after the manner of Sixtus IV, the only course which he found practicable was that of enriching his children out of the revenues of the church; and for this purpose, and to defray the costs of his war with Naples, he continued without abatement the corrupt and simoniacal exactions of his predecessors. Offices were created for the sake of the price which might be got by the sale of them; and the purchasers sought to repay themselves by using their opportunities of exaction. Two papal secretaries were detected in forging bulls; and as they were unable to pay the sum which was demanded for a pardon, they were put to death. With these abuses in the administration was combined an increased licence of manners in the papal court, which did not fail to affect the habits of the Romans in general.

Although Innocent, after his election, had sworn a second time to the capitulations imposed by the cardinals, and had become pledged neither to absolve himself nor to accept a release, he held himself at liberty, when firmly established in his seat, to repudiate these obligations as being contrary to the interests of the holy see. And having promised to the Romans, with the other cardinals, and again after his election, that he would bestow the more valuable Roman preferments on none but citizens, he evaded the oath by admitting strangers to the freedom of the city, and afterwards promoting them as if they were qualified according to his promise. “But,” says the chronicler Stephen of Infessura, “it is no wonder if he deceived the Roman people, since he had deceived Him to whom he had vowed and promised chastity.” Throughout this pontificate Rome was distracted by the feuds of the Colonna and Orsini factions. And in 1485 the pope increased the disorders of his city by allowing all who had been banished, for whatever cause, to return. In consequence of this, Rome became a haunt of villains of every sort, who eagerly flocked to avail themselves of the papal clemency. Robbery and murder were frequent; churches were plundered of their plate and ornaments; every morning’s light discovered in the streets the bodies of men who had been assassinated during the night; and the perpetrators of these crimes found an asylum in the houses of cardinals. After a time, Innocent found it necessary to proclaim that murderers and other criminals should leave the city. But the spirit of his administration was expressed by the sarcastic saying of a high officer, that “God willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should pay and live”. Immunity from all punishment was to be bought, if only a sufficient price were offered.

Although Innocent had himself in earlier life been in the service of the Neapolitan crown, he speedily found an opportunity of quarrelling with Ferdinand, by requiring that tribute should be paid for Naples as in former times, and by refusing to accept the white horse for which Sixtus had commuted the payment. In order to maintain this claim (which is supposed to have been connected with a project for the advancement of his son Franceschetto) he allied himself with the disaffected Neapolitan nobles, and put forward a grandson and namesake of king René as claimant of the throne. In the war which followed, Ferdinand’s son, Alfonso, duke of Calabria, occupied the Roman Campagna with his troops, and for months distressed the city by cutting off all communications from outside; but at length a treaty was concluded which was greatly in favour of the pope. The king was to pay tribute to Rome; the barons were free to acknowledge the pope and the church as their immediate lords; and the pope was to have in his own hands the disposal of bishoprics and other dignities in the Neapolitan kingdom. But hardly had this treaty been concluded when Ferdinand set its conditions at nought. He allowed the tribute to fall into arrear; he assumed the entire patronage of sees within his dominions; and, in defiance alike of honour and of humanity, he and his son put to death many of the nobles whose safety had been solemnly pro­mised. The pope complained loudly as to the tribute; but, after some feeble remonstrances, he did not venture to intercede for the allies who were exposed to the perfidy and cruelty of Ferdinand and Alfonso. Hostilities again began, and were prolonged for some years.

Innocent anathematized Ferdinand for withholding the payment of tribute, and declared him to be deposed and the kingdom to be forfeited to the Roman church; but in 1492 a fresh treaty was concluded, on the same terms which had before been so little regarded.

In order to strengthen himself for this contest, Innocent found it expedient to seek the alliance of Lorenzo de’ Medici, to whom he had formerly been opposed. He married his son Franceschetto to a daughter of Lorenzo by his wife, Clarice Orsini; and bestowed the dignity of cardinal on the Magnifico’s son John, who was then only thirteen years old. The promotion was to be kept secret until the boy should be old enough to take possession of his dignity; and when, at the age of sixteen, he repaired to Rome for this purpose, he was received with the pomp which was usually reserved for the visits of royal personages. Through his connexion with the Medici, Innocent was brought into friendly relations with the Orsini, who had formerly been so violently opposed to him that Virginius Orsini, a brother of Clarice, had threatened to throw him into the Tiber.

Innocent, like his predecessors since the fall of the eastern empire, projected a crusade against the Turks. In the beginning of his pontificate he invited all Christian princes to take part in such an expedition, and he afterwards entered into negotiations and agreements for carrying it into effect; but without any considerable result. The death of Mahomet II had been followed by a contest for the throne between his sons Bajazet and Djem; the younger brother resting his claim on the fact that he had been born after his father’s accession. On being defeated by his brother, Djem took refuge in Rhodes with the knights of St. John, who transferred him for safety to the care of their brethren in France. Great offers were made by Bajazet to the order, in the hope of inducing them to put Diem into his hands; while the kings of France and Hungary, of Aragon and Naples, and the sultan of Egypt, contended for him, with the view of setting him at the head of an expedition against his brother. But the pope was successful, and Djem, after a residence of more than six years in France, was escorted by cardinal Balue to Rome, where he was received as a sovereign prince, and was lodged in the Vatican palace. The master of the Hospitallers, D’Aubusson, was rewarded for the surrender of his guest by being promoted to the college of cardinals. At his first interview with the pope, Djem refused to perform the usual homage, and could only be persuaded to kiss him on the shoulder; and throughout his residence at Rome, he was careful to maintain his pretensions to dignity. Bajazet renewed his offers for the possession of his brother’s person, or for his death. It is said that at one time he employed an Italian to destroy both Djem and the pope by poisoning the water of which they drank; at another time he sent an ambassador to offer a yearly payment of 40,000 ducats for the maintenance and safe keeping of the prince; and this sum was duly paid. In order further to propitiate the pope, Bajazet presented him with a relic of extraordinary sanctity—the head of the lance which had pierced the Saviour’s side. This gift was not the less valued because the sacred lance was supposed to exist also at Paris, Nuremberg, and other places of the west; and to this day it is revered as one of the four chief relics of St. Peter’s church.

While the project of a crusade against the Mussulmans of the east remained unexecuted, the last remnant of the Mahometan power in Spain was destroyed by the conquest of Granada, after a war of twelve years. The exultation produced at Rome by the report of this success was unbounded. The Spanish ambassador and the Spanish cardinal Borgia exhibited bull-fights and other spectacles, and for several days distributed food and wine to all who chose to apply.

Innocent VIII died, after a short illness, on the 25th of July in the same year. It is said that an attempt was made by a Jewish physician, although without the pope’s consent, to prolong his life, by injecting into his veins the blood of three boys, whom their parents sold with a view to the experiment; but, although it proved fatal to the children, it was unavailing for the intended purpose.

Three months before the death of Innocent, while Rome was engrossed by the reception of the young son of Lorenzo de’ Medici into the college of cardinals, the festivities were interrupted by the arrival of tidings that Lorenzo himself had died at his villa of Careggi, near Florence; and the circumstances of his deathbed lead us to trace the earlier history of a remarkable man, who, by the power of eloquence and by his earnest zeal for religion and morality, had acquired an extraordinary influence in that city.

Jerome Savonarola was born in 1452 at Ferrara, where his grandfather, a native of Padua, had settled as physician to the court. It was the wish of the family that Jerome should follow the same profession; but he pre­ferred the study of theology, philosophy, and poetry. At the age of twenty-two, he was induced by the preaching of a friar, by some visions with which he supposed himself to be favoured, and by disgust at the wickedness and disorder of the world, to enter into the Dominican Order—to which he was especially inclined by his reverence for its great teacher, Thomas of Aquino. To the study of Aquinas he now added that of Cassian and other ascetic writers; but, above all, he devoted himself to the Holy Scriptures, of which his knowledge became very great, although he appears to have carried to an excess the caprices of the allegorical system of interpretation. After having spent seven years in the convent of Bologna, he was removed by his superiors to St. Mark’s, at Florence—a monastery which but a few years before had been governed by the saintly archbishop Antoninus, while its walls were adorned by the pencil of the “angelical” painter of Fiesole. But already its disci­pline had grievously decayed; and Savona­rola, when after some years he was elected prior, found it necessary to correct by strict and searching reforms a state of luxury and worldliness altogether inconsistent with the institutions of St. Dominic.

After some unpromising efforts, and notwithstanding serious natural disqualifications, Savonarola had burst forth into unequalled power as a preacher; and the vast cathedral of Florence was crowded by multitudes who eagerly hung on his words. His fervid and fluent language, his passionate gestures, his eyes glowing with enthusiasm, seemed to indicate a man possessed by the convictions which he expressed, and authorized to speak in the name of God. The chief aim of his preaching was to rouse men from the chill indifference to spiritual things which marked the character of the age, and was especially conspicuous amidst the material prosperity and the literary and artistic culture of the Florentines. He denounced the sins of all classes, including the prelates and clergy—as to whom he declared that the church had once had golden priests and wooden chalices, but that now the chalices were of gold and the priests were wooden—that the outward splendour of religion had been hurtful to spirituality. He was fond of expounding the Apocalypse, and confidently foretold chastisements as being near at hand. According to words revealed to him in a vision, the sword of the Lord was to come on the earth speedily and swiftly. A new Cyrus was to descend on Italy from beyond the Alps; the church was to be scourged and was to be renewed. In part, these prophecies did not pretend to be more than the result of a firm belief in a Divine government of the world, carried on according to the principles declared in the Holy Scriptures—a conviction that, as offences had been committed, the threatened punishments would surely ensue; and as to this, Savonarola’s error consisted in assuming too certainly the time when the punishment was to come. But in part his utterances claimed a higher source; for from an early stage of his monastic life he had supposed himself to be favoured with visions and revelations, communicated to his mind by angels, and commissioned to announce the designs of God to men. As some of his predictions were fulfilled, the general belief in him increased;1his followers spoke of him as “the prophet”; and by means of the press his writings and his fame were carried not only throughout Italy, but far beyond its borders. There were stories as to his being rapt from his senses while praying; that his face had been seen to shine with a celestial light; that he had contests with evil spirits.

To the family of Medici, Savonarola was inflexibly hostile. Himself a zealous republican, he regarded them as usurpers of the liberty of Florence; and he viewed with disgust and indignation the gross licentiousness and the pagan tendencies which were combined in Lorenzo with refinement of manners and high culture of tastes for literature and art. He refused to pay some marks of respect by which the priors of St. Mark’s had been accustomed to acknowledge the favours bestowed on their house by the Medicean family. The attempts of Lorenzo to alarm or to conciliate him were vain;  but when at length the Magnifico felt the approach of death, and when, amidst the terrors of his aroused conscience, he found himself unable to trust the spiritual counsels of his chaplains, he eagerly requested a visit from the friar who, alone of all the clergy, had spoken to him with unflattering frankness. He professed especial remorse for three things—the cruelties committed in the sack of Volterra; his interference with the funds of a bank instituted for the benefit of young women, of whom many had in consequence of his acts been driven to a life of vice; and the bloodshed which had taken place on account of the Pazzian conspiracy. To his request for absolution Savonarola replied by assurances of the Divine mercy and goodness; but it is said that he in his turn required of the penitent three things—that he should have a living faith in God’s will and power to forgive; that he should restore all he had unjustly taken; and that he should re-establish the republican liberties of Florence. As to the first of these conditions, Lorenzo made the required profession; and to the second he consented, although with some reluctance. But when Savonarola, rising from his seat, enounced the last demand with the sternness of a prophet, the dying man, gathering up his remaining strength, turned his back on the friar; and Savonarola left him unabsolved.

 

 

CHAPTER V.

ALEXANDER THE SIXTH. A.D. 1492-1503.