The Cambridge Modern History. R. Nisbet Bain
predecessor. As Calixtus had been unlike Nicholas, and Pius unlike Calixtus, and Paul unlike Pius, and Sixtus unlike Paul, it was but in accordance with precedent that the passionate imperious unscrupulous Franciscan should give place to a successor who might have sat for the portrait of an abbe in Gil Bias. On August 29, 1484, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Cibo became Pope under the name of Innocent VIII. There was probably no more colourless figure in the Sacred College. He had owed the Cardinalate, which he had enjoyed for eleven years, to his Genoese origin and his episcopate over the city of Savona, Sixtus’s birthplace. The same circumstances recommended him to the nephew of Sixtus, the able and powerful Cardinal della Rovere, who naturally wished to see one of his uncle’s creatures seated on the papal throne; and when two such potent Cardinals as he and the Vice-Chancellor Borgia had agreed, there was but little need for illegitimate modes of action beyond the bestowal of legations and palaces,—almost indispensable concomitants of a papal election in that age. The arrangements thus made, which are enumerated in the despatches of the Florentine envoy Vespucci, were mostly regulated directly or indirectly by Cardinal della Rovere, who found his account in becoming Papa et plusquam Papa. The new Pope, indeed, as described by Vespucci, hardly appeared the man to stand by himself. “He has little experience in affairs of State, and little learning, but is not wholly ignorant.” As Cardinal he had been distinguished by his affability, and was thought to have let down the dignity of the office. His morals had not been irreproachable, but the attacks of the epigrammatists are gross exaggerations, and, save for a too public manifestation of his affection for his daughter, more criticised by posterity than by contemporaries, his conduct as Pope appears to have been perfectly decorous.
Innocent’s part in the evolution which made the Bishop of Rome a powerful temporal sovereign was not conspicuous or glorious, but it was important. It consisted in the demonstration of the absolute necessity of a great extension and fortification of the papal authority, if the Pope was to enjoy the respect of Christendom, or was even to continue at Rome. Never was anarchy more prevalent, or contempt for justice more universal; and the cause was the number of independent jurisdictions, from principalities like Forli or Faenza down to petty barons established at the gates of Rome,—none of them too petty not to be able to set the Pope at defiance. The general confusion reacted upon the finances, and chronic insolvency accredited the accusations, in all probability calumnious, brought against the Pope “of conniving at the flight of malefactors who paid him money, and granting licenses for sins before their commission.” The Pope himself was conscious of his discreditable position, and in a remarkable speech to the Florentine ambassador pronounced by anticipation the apology of his vigorous and unscrupulous successors. “If,” he said, “none would aid him against the violence of the King of Naples, he would betake himself abroad, where he would be received with open arms, and where he would be assisted to recover his own, to the shame and scathe of the disloyal princes and peoples of Italy. He could not remain in Italy, if deprived of the dignity befitting a Pope; but neither was he able, if abandoned by the otfier Italian States, to resist the King, by reason both of the slender military resources of the Church and on account of the unruly Roman barons, who would rejoice to see him in distress. He should therefore deem himself entirely justified in seeking refuge abroad, should nothing less avail to preserve the dignity of the Holy See. Other Popes had done the like, and had returned with fame and honour.”
If such was the situation,—and Innocent certainly did not exaggerate it,—the Popes of his day are clearly not to be censured for endeavouring to put it upon a different footing. It might indeed be said that they ought to have renounced the Temporal Power altogether, and gone forth scripless into the world in the fashion of the Apostles; but in their age such a proceeding would have been impracticable, nor could the thought of it have hardly so much as entered their minds. The incurable vice of their position was, that the mutation in things temporal absolutely necessary for the safety and well-being of the Church could not be brought about by means befitting a Christian pastor. The best of men could, upon the papal throne, have effected nothing without violence and treachery. Innocent’s successors were not good men, and recourse to means which would have shocked a good man cost them nothing. But they were indisputably the men for the time.
The mission which we have attributed to Innocent of practically demonstrating the need for a strong man in the chair of St Peter, was worked out through a troubled and inglorious pontificate, whose incidents are too remotely connected with the history of the Temporal Power to justify any fulness of treatment in this place. They turn principally upon his relations with Naples and Florence. Having in 1485 entered upon an unnecessary war with Naples, Innocent soon became intimidated, and made peace in 1486. This led to the temporary disgrace of Cardinal della Rovere; and the marriage of the Pope’s illegitimate son to the daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici brought him under the influence of the Florentine ruler. It was the best thing that could have happened for the tranquillity of Italy. Lorenzo was a miniature Augustus, intent, indeed, on personal ends in the first instance, but with a genuine fibre of patriotism, and not insatiable or even rapacious. Alone among the rulers of Italy he had the wisdom to discern when acquisition had reached its safe limits, and thenceforth to dedicate his energies to preservation. Hence he was the friend of peace, and the influence he had obtained with the Pope and the King of Naples was devoted to keeping them on amicable terms. In pursuance of this policy he prevented the Pope from allying himself with Venice, and successfully laboured to induce the King to pay to Rome the tribute which he had endeavoured to withhold. No wonder that a course so conducive to the material prosperity of Italy earned Lorenzo her thanks and blessings: yet the unity of Italy, in the last resort her only safety, could only have sprung from national strife. During the generally uneventful decade of 1480-90 the power of France and Spain was growing fast, and a land partitioned between petty principalities and petty republics was lost so soon as two great ambitious Powers agreed to make her their battlefield.
For a time, however, the alliance of Lorenzo and Innocent seemed to have brought about a period of halcyon repose. The Pope’s financial straits frequently rendered his position embarrassing and undignified, and his attempts to mitigate these by the multiplication of venal offices aggravated the corruption of his Court. Important events, nevertheless, were as a rule favourable to him. Chance gave the Papacy a certain prestige from its relations with the chief ruler of the Mohammadan world. Upon the death of the conqueror of Constantinople, the incurable vice of all Oriental monarchies revealed itself in a fratricidal contest for the succession between his sons. Bayazid, the elder, gained the throne; his defeated competitor Jem sought refuge with the Knights of St John of Jerusalem at Rhodes, who naturally detained him as a hostage. The value of the acquisition was proved by the apprehensions of Bayazid, who offered to pay an annual pension so long as his brother should be detained in safe custody. The envy of other Christian States was excited, and every ruler found some reason why the guardianship of Jem should be committed to himself. At length the prize was by common consent entrusted to the Pope, whose claim was really the best, and who actually rendered a service to Christendom by keeping Bayazid in restraint, at least so far as regarded the Mediterranean countries; nor does he appear to have been wanting in any duty towards his captive. So long as Jem remained in the Pope’s keeping, Bayazid observed peace at sea, and paid a pension hardly distinguishable from a tribute; and it is hard to understand why Innocent’s action in the matter should have been condemned by historians. It was further justified in the eyes of his contemporaries by what was then considered a great religious victory, comparable to Augustus’s recovery of the standards of Crassus,—the cession by the Sultan of the lance said to have pierced the Saviour’s side as He hung upon the cross. Some Cardinals betrayed a sceptical spirit, remarking that this was not the only relic of the kind; and though received with jubilation at the time, it does not seem to have afterwards figured very conspicuously among the treasures of the Roman See.
A more important success which reflected lustre upon Innocent’s pontificate, although he had in no way promoted it, was the fall of Granada on January 2, 1492. The news reached Rome on February 1, and was welcomed with festivals and rejoicings which would have been moderated, if the influence of the event on European politics could then have been comprehended, and the transactions of the next half century foreseen.
When the tidings of the victory arrived, Innocest was already beginning to suffer from the progress of a mortal disease. During the early summer his health grew desperate; he with difficulty repressed the unseemly