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.
|