The Papal States during the Schism and Ladislas of Naples—Martin V. returns to Rome—Succession question in Naples—Troubles of Eugenius IV.—War in Naples between Réné of Anjou and Alfonso of Aragon—Victory of Alfonso V.—Last years of Eugenius IV.—Nicolas V.—Calixtus III.—Death of Alfonso V. of Naples—Pius II.—Congress of Mantua—War in Naples between Ferrante and John of Calabria—Death of Pius II. at Ancona—Paul II.—Sixtus IV. and his nephews—War with Florence—Relations with Ferrara and Venice—Disorders in Rome—Innocent VIII.—Rising against Ferrante in Naples—Election of Alexander VI.—His alliance with Naples.

Boniface IX. was the ablest and most successful of the Roman popes during the Schism. The impotence into which |The Papal States and Ladislas of Naples.| the temporal authority of the papacy had fallen may be judged by the fact that Boniface found it advisable or necessary to sell the vicariate, i.e. the right to exercise authority in the Pope’s name, to the despots who had usurped lordship in the various cities. Yet this very sale, though it seemed to legalise acts of violence and rebellion, brought with it some advantages besides filling the Pope’s coffers. The purchase of rights was in itself an acknowledgment that the Pope possessed them, and this could be employed some day against the purchasers. And in several ways Boniface directly increased his power. He induced the citizens of Rome, always as greedy of papal wealth as they were jealous of papal rule, to invite him to take up his residence in his capital on terms which ruined the foundations of republican liberties. He aided Ladislas of Naples to gain his final victory over Louis II. of Anjou in 1399 (vide p. 155), and Ladislas repaid his obligation by helping the Pope to suppress formidable risings of the Roman barons. On the death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, he succeeded in recovering for the papacy the towns of Bologna, Perugia, and Assisi, which had fallen under the sway of the duke of Milan. But Boniface bequeathed to his successors one very serious difficulty. Ladislas of Naples, who owed his crown to papal support, conceived the plan of extending his kingdom at the expense of the papacy, and even of reducing the papal states under his personal rule. His first attempt to stir up rebellion in Rome, in order that he might intervene for his own profit in the struggle, resulted in the expulsion of Innocent VII. and the sack of the Vatican, but the citizens hastened to come to terms with the Pope when they discovered that the only alternative to his rule was subjection to Naples (1405). Another opportunity offered itself in 1407, when Gregory XII. left Rome in order to simulate willingness to confer with Benedict XIII. for the closing of the schism. Ladislas had no wish that the schism should end, not only because its continuance facilitated his schemes of aggression, but also because it strengthened his position in Naples. The movement for union had its chief strength in France, and any successful intervention of France in Italy would lead to a new attempt to gain Naples for the younger house of Anjou. In 1408 Ladislas seized Rome, and practically made himself master of the papal states. But to some extent his plan miscarried. Gregory XII., it is true, pleaded events in Rome as a reason for avoiding a conference, but his cardinals deserted him and joined with those of Benedict to hold a council at Pisa (vide p. 199). The attempt of Ladislas to disperse the Council by invading Tuscany was foiled by the resistance of Florence, and the Assembly proceeded to depose the two existing popes and to elect Alexander V. Baldassare Cossa, the papal legate in Bologna, who combined the training and habits of a condottiere with the office of cardinal, undertook the task of recovering Rome and of punishing the prince who still adhered to the cause of Gregory XII. Rome was captured at the beginning of 1410, but Alexander V. died in May, and the all-powerful Cossa was elected to succeed him as John XXIII. The new pope entered Rome in triumph in 1411, and his first act was to despatch a powerful army under Braccio, Sforza, and other famous generals, to support the cause of Louis of Anjou in Naples. A great victory was won at Rocca-Secca (May 19, 1411), but the delay of the conquerors enabled Ladislas to rally his forces, and before long to gain the upper hand. Louis II. abandoned the enterprise in despair. Attendolo Sforza deserted to the side of the Neapolitan king, and John XXIII. made peace with his enemy in 1412, the one abandoning the cause of Gregory XII., the other promising to disown the duke of Anjou. But Ladislas had no intention of observing the peace. As soon as his preparations were completed, he again marched upon Rome in 1413, and drove John XXIII. in hasty and undignified flight to Florence. This crushing disaster forced the Pope into those appeals for aid to Sigismund, which ultimately led to the summons of the Council of Constance and to his own ignominious deposition. But in August 1414, before the Council had begun its session, Ladislas died, leaving his crown to his sister, Joanna II., and the scheme of subjecting the papal states to Naples perished with him. The citizens of Rome expelled Sforza and his troops from the city, and welcomed the return of a papal legate.

When unity was at last restored to the Church by the election of Martin V., the new Pope had a very cheerless prospect |Martin V., 1417-1431.| before him. His obvious task was to restore to the papacy some measure of the authority and influence which had been forfeited by its experiences during the last hundred years. To do this he must find a residence in which he would be more secure than his recent predecessors from the dictation of secular rulers. Sigismund urged him to reside in some German city, and the French would have welcomed him to Avignon. But Martin, himself a Roman by birth, refused to find a home except in the ancient capital of the world. Rightly or wrongly, he decided that temporal dominion in a state of his own was necessary to secure the independence of the Pope, and that to attain this he must recover and consolidate the papal provinces in Italy. The whole history of the papacy during the fifteenth century was moulded by this decision. The popes became more and more absorbed in the extension of their temporal power, even when their spiritual authority was weakened by it. Nepotism and other evils were the result of this devotion to secular interests, and a revolt of outraged and alienated opinion became inevitable.

But Martin had many difficulties to overcome before he could carry out his intention of taking up his abode in Rome. |Martin returns to Rome.| The departure of John XXIII. to Constance had left the papal states in the condition of anarchy which had become chronic. Neapolitan influence was still strong, but the policy of Naples was no longer directed by the strong will of Ladislas. His sister and successor, Joanna II., was devoid of political capacity, and abandoned herself to sensual indulgence and the guidance of favourites. Through her incompetence the chief influence over the destinies of Naples was allowed to fall into the hands of the two great condottieri, Braccio da Montone and Attendolo Sforza, who had been brought into rivalry by their connection with Neapolitan affairs during the previous reign. Braccio, who had quarrelled with Ladislas, and joined John XXIII., had been left by that Pope as governor of Bologna. After the departure of his employer he seized his native city of Perugia and set himself to carve a private principality out of the states of the Church. In 1417 he actually made himself master of Rome, and was besieging the castle of St. Angelo, when Sforza was despatched from Naples to compel his retirement. These events forced Martin V. on his accession to ally himself with Joanna and Sforza, and a treaty was arranged in 1419 by which Naples was to restore all that had been occupied in the papal states. But a quarrel between Joanna and Sforza deprived this treaty of all importance, and Martin determined to coerce and distract Naples by encouraging internal feuds in that kingdom. As Joanna was childless, the question of the succession to a crown |Succession question in Naples.| which had already been so hotly disputed was certain to give rise to difficulties. Louis II. of Anjou, the rival of Ladislas, had died in 1417; but his eldest son, Louis III., was eager to enforce his father’s claim and to purchase the support of the papacy. Martin V. and Sforza declared their recognition of Louis as heir to the kingdom. But Joanna, indignant at this attempt to force a successor upon her, turned to a family whose rivalry with her own dynasty was older than that of the younger house of Anjou. Alfonso of Aragon had become king of Sicily in 1409, and was not likely to refuse the prospect of a notable increase of his power in the Mediterranean by the acquisition of Naples. He eagerly accepted the offer of Joanna to adopt him as her heir, and he induced Braccio to enter his service in order to oppose Sforza. Thus civil war was kindled in Naples, and its outbreak gave the Pope the opportunity for which he had been waiting. Leaving Florence, where he had resided since his departure from Constance, he made his way to Rome in September 1420. There he set himself to put an |Rule of Martin V.| end to disorders and to strengthen the foundations of papal rule. The exhaustion of the combatants in Naples, and the successive deaths of Braccio and Sforza in 1424, freed him from the danger of any intervention from the south. Alfonso abandoned the contest for a time, and Joanna agreed to recognise the claim of Louis of Anjou to be regarded as her successor. Perugia and the other territories of Braccio returned on his death to their allegiance to the Pope. In Rome itself Martin had one source of strength in the support of his own family of Colonna, though their advancement to places of dignity and importance was certain to create difficulties for his successor. Once secure in his temporal dominions, the Pope was free to turn his attention to the general affairs of the Church. The first council which he was bound to summon by the decrees of Constance met at Siena, and was adroitly managed so as to avoid any further limitation of papal authority. By putting himself at the head of the movement to crush the Hussites, and by appointing a papal legate to lead the armies against the heretics, Martin tried to recover for the papacy the position which it had enjoyed in the time of the great crusades of the Middle Ages. But the crusading spirit was dead in Europe, and the successive victories of the Bohemians not only frustrated his designs, but also compelled him to summon a Council to meet at Basel shortly before his own death on February 20, 1431.

Eugenius IV., who was unanimously elected to succeed Martin V., had a troubled pontificate of sixteen years. He |Troubles of Eugenius IV.| at once set himself to deprive the Colonna family of the predominance which they had acquired in Rome through the favour of his predecessor; but he could only accomplish this by an alliance with the Orsini, and he thus revived the old feuds among the Roman barons which it was the interest and the duty of the popes to check. Very soon after his accession he engaged in a bitter quarrel with the Council of Basel, and he completely failed in his endeavour to detach Sigismund from the cause of the Council as the price of conferring the imperial crown upon that prince. To make matters worse, he allowed his sympathies with his native city of Venice to involve him in a quarrel with Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan. In 1433 the climax of his misfortunes seemed to be reached, when a combination of Milanese hostility with domestic discontent drove him to fly in disguise from Rome, and to seek refuge in Florence. These accumulated disasters compelled him to adopt a humbler tone towards the Council of Basel, which was conducting negotiations with the Bohemians as if its authority completely superseded that of the Pope.

About this time the succession dispute in Naples gave rise to a prolonged war. Louis III. of Anjou died in 1434, but |War of Angevins and Aragonese in Naples.| Joanna made a new will in favour of his younger brother Réné of Provence. Soon afterwards the queen herself died, on February 2, 1435. Alfonso V. at once came forward to assert his own claims against those of Réné, and the Neapolitan baronage was divided into the factions of Anjou and Aragon. It was impossible for the papacy to remain neutral in a struggle which so intimately concerned its own interests. Eugenius began by claiming the kingdom as a fief which had lapsed to its suzerain on the extinction of the line of papal vassals. But he soon dropped this claim and reverted to the normal policy of supporting the Angevin candidate. At first, events seemed to turn decisively in favour of Réné. A Genoese fleet, fighting on his side, won a great naval victory off the island of Ponza, in which Alfonso himself was taken prisoner. But in a personal interview with Filippo Maria Visconti, who claimed the captive by virtue of his suzerainty over Genoa, Alfonso convinced him that it would be impolitic either to strengthen the papacy which was allied with Venice, or to establish French influence in Southern Italy. By these arguments he not only secured his own release, but also laid the foundations of a durable alliance between his own dynasty and the dukes of Milan. From this time the fortunes of war turned steadily in favour of the Aragonese party, though it was not till 1442 that Réné finally abandoned the contest, and Alfonso V. was formally recognised as king of Naples. His accession reunited for a time the crowns of Naples and Sicily, which had been separated since the Sicilian Vespers in 1282 (see p. 25).

So far Eugenius had met with little but failure and disappointment. He gained an apparent victory over the Council of Basel when he induced the Greeks to conduct the negotiations for a union of eastern and western churches at a rival council which met first at Ferrara, |Later years of Eugenius IV.| and later in Florence. But the treaty which was settled at the Council was repudiated by public opinion in Greece, and the Pope gained little real advantage from the parade of negotiations which proved abortive. Yet the later years of his pontificate were more successful than seemed likely from the beginning. Rome did not long enjoy the republican liberty which the citizens claimed to have recovered on the Pope’s departure. The warlike Cardinal Vitelleschi succeeded by 1435 in reducing the capital to submission. So successful were the rigorous and cruel measures of the legate that Eugenius suspected him of a design to establish his own power in the papal states. In 1440 Vitelleschi was imprisoned and died, either from poison or from the wounds he received in the struggle with his captors. Scarampo, who took his place, maintained his authority by the same means as his predecessor had employed. In 1443 Eugenius was able to quit Florence and to return to Rome in perfect security. He gained the alliance of Naples by recognising the title of Alfonso V. But his greatest triumph was the inauguration of the negotiations with Germany, through the medium of Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, which led to the failure and humiliation of the Council of Basel. The final treaty was practically concluded, though still unsigned, when Eugenius died, on February 23, 1447.

Thomas of Sarzana, who succeeded to the papacy as Nicolas V., had already won a considerable reputation as a |Nicolas V., 1447-1455.| student of ancient literature. Though he was rather a diligent collector of manuscripts and works of art than an original scholar, his patronage made Rome for a time the centre of humanist culture. His greatest work was the foundation of the Vatican library. As a politician Nicolas showed less ability and interest than as a student, but he was a sincere lover of peace, and he was able to maintain the position which Eugenius had won in his later years. He concluded the concordat with Germany, which put an end to the revolt originating with the Council of Basel, and the Council itself came to an ignominious end in 1449. In 1450 Nicolas celebrated the restoration of unity, and conciliated the Roman people, by a grand jubilee which brought the wealth of Europe to the eternal city. In spite of this general rejoicing, the next year witnessed a famous conspiracy against the secular authority of the Pope. Stefano Porcaro was a Roman noble who had won the favour of Nicolas by his devotion to ancient literature. But these studies led Porcaro, as they had previously led Rienzi, to an enthusiastic admiration of republican liberty. When he endeavoured to inspire the people with his opinions he was banished by the Pope to Bologna. Thence he returned secretly to Rome and organised a plot to imprison the Pope and cardinals, and to restore the republic, with Porcaro as tribune. More than four hundred persons were engaged in the scheme, and the number proved fatal to secrecy. Porcaro and nine of his followers were imprisoned in the castle of St. Angelo and executed without trial. After an interval of a few days harsh measures were resumed, and a number of suspected persons shared the same fate. This severity extinguished the last active desire to restore Roman liberty. Papal rule was strengthened by the failure of the plot; but Porcaro’s name, like that of Rienzi, lived long in the affections of the people. No sooner was this crisis passed than the news came that Constantinople had been taken by Mohammed II. in 1453. The empire had long ceased to possess any general authority in Europe, but the papacy still claimed to represent that unity of Christendom, whose disappearance had rendered such a catastrophe possible. It was upon the papacy, therefore, that the chief discredit fell of so notable a triumph for the infidel. But Nicolas V. had no ability to cope with such a vast problem as was involved in the union of the jarring interests of European states for the purpose of joint resistance to the Turks. Unable to devise any practical scheme, he gave himself up to despair, lamented that fate had raised him from a private station, and died in 1455.

After the death of Nicolas V. the choice of the cardinals fell upon Alfonso Borgia, who took the name of Calixtus III. |Calixtus III., 1455-1458.| He was a native of the Aragonese province of Valencia, and had been rewarded with the cardinalate for services rendered to the papacy in negotiations with Alfonso V. Although over seventy years of age, Calixtus showed creditable energy in urging the princes of Europe to war against the Turks, and he had the consolation of hearing of the signal victory of John Hunyadi, when Mohammed II. was repulsed from the walls of Belgrad in 1456. But the pontificate of Calixtus is mainly noteworthy for the elevation of a relative who was destined to involve the papacy in the gravest scandals. Nepotism was a natural result of the secular aims of the fifteenth century popes. As long as the popes had been the active heads of Christendom their energies were fully employed in carrying out a great task. But they were now little more than temporal princes, and their position differed from that of other princes in the impossibility of transmitting their power to a dynasty, and in the brief period of rule which was possible for men elected in advanced years. Hence there was a serious temptation to the popes to aggrandise their relatives at the expense of the Church or of neighbouring princes, and thus to confer those advantages upon their family which a secular prince could bring about by the normal action of hereditary succession. Calixtus had three nephews, the sons of a sister and a man called Lenzuoli. These young men were allowed to take the maternal name of Borgia, and their interests were vigorously forwarded by their uncle. Two were appointed cardinals, to the great scandal of the College and of Roman opinion; and one of these, Rodrigo Borgia, became the notorious Pope Alexander VI. The third nephew received the title of duke of Spoleto, and the offices of Gonfalonier of the Church and prefect of Rome.

Before the death of Calixtus important events had taken place in Naples. Alfonso V., after the prolonged war which secured him the throne, had enjoyed a singularly peaceful reign. The personal charm which had enabled him to gain over Filippo Maria Visconti also served to win the affection of his subjects; and his court was rendered famous not only by its magnificence, but also by the eminence of the scholars who were attracted to Naples by royal patronage. But Alfonso’s death, in June 1458, threatened a revival of dynastic struggles in southern Italy. As he had no lawful issue, his hereditary kingdoms of Aragon and Sicily passed to his brother, John II. But Alfonso claimed the right to dispose of Naples as a private acquisition of his own, and bequeathed the kingdom to his illegitimate son, Ferrante. The Neapolitans themselves were not at first inclined to resent an arrangement which freed them from a connection with Aragon and Sicily which might be regarded as subjection. But it was obvious that the accession of a bastard would encourage the house of Anjou to revive its claim, while the legitimate line in Aragon could always assert the same right to Naples which had been vindicated by Alfonso himself. It was therefore of great importance to Ferrante to obtain recognition from the Pope, who claimed to be suzerain of Naples, and he had some right to demand it with confidence from Calixtus, who was born a subject of Aragon. But the Pope, whether he remembered the traditional Angevin alliance of the papacy, or whether he sought in the spoils of Naples for new means of advancing his nephews, refused to recognise Ferrante, and claimed to dispose of the kingdom as a vacant papal fief. Before, however, he could make any efficient opposition to the new king, he was removed by death on August 6, 1458.

The choice of the cardinals now fell upon the most remarkable Pope of the century, Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who adopted the Virgilian epithet of Pius as his papal |Pius II., 1458-64.| name. In his youth Æneas Sylvius had lived a gay and not too decorous life. The author of the novel of Euryalus and Lucretia, and the confidant of the amours of princes, he had first achieved political distinction at the Council of Basel. There his literary and oratorical ability had given him a position of recognised eminence; but when the cause of the Council began to decline, he had entered the service of Frederick III., and had played by far the most prominent part in effecting a reconciliation between Germany and the papacy. For these services he had been rewarded by Nicolas V. with the bishopric of Siena, his native city, and by Calixtus III. with the cardinal’s hat. Raised to the papacy, he set himself to destroy the last traces of conciliar opposition to Roman supremacy, and with this object in view he strained every nerve to put himself at the head of a great crusading movement against the Turks. His career is full of strange contradictions, and the contrast has often been drawn between his unscrupulous youth and early manhood and the austere enthusiasm which he displayed as Pope. He himself was fully sensible of the incongruity, and in his famous recantation he urged his hearers to cast away Æneas and take Pius in his place: Æneam rejicite, Pium accipite.

As peace was absolutely necessary for any action against the Turks, the first act of Pius was to reverse the policy of his predecessor, and to recognise Ferrante as de facto king of Naples, though he was careful to avoid any formal decision on the question of legal right. In 1459 he summoned a congress of Western princes to meet at |Congress of Mantua.| Mantua, in the confident hope that his eloquence would prove as effective as that of Peter the Hermit in the eleventh century. On the appointed date the Pope and his personal followers found themselves alone in Mantua. After a month’s anxious delay, some ambassadors and a few German and Italian princes appeared, and the Congress was declared open. But the Pope soon discovered that his hopes had been far too sanguine; and after much eloquence had been expended in invectives against the Turks, the Congress broke up without achieving anything. There is no need to seek far for the causes of the failure of the Mantuan Congress. The growth of nations, with separate and often conflicting interests of their own, had destroyed all the conditions which had rendered possible the crusades of the Middle Ages. There were also special causes at the time which rendered it difficult for Pius II. to gain any real support for his schemes. The French were angry with the Pope for having prejudiced the Angevin claims to Naples by his recognition of Ferrante. Pius replied to the remonstrances of the French envoys by attacking the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges; and though he might claim a dialectical victory, such discussions were not conducive to a good understanding with France. Even Frederick III., the old patron of Æneas Sylvius, was at this time dissatisfied with the Pope for refusing to support his claims to the Hungarian crown, which had gone to the son of John Hunyadi, Mathias Corvinus. In Germany there were still traces of that spirit of opposition to the papacy which had been both a cause and a result of the conciliar movement; and Pius II. chose this moment to exasperate the German princes who shared these opinions by issuing from Mantua the bull Execrabilis, by which he condemned as detestable heresy any future appeal from the bishop of Rome to a general council.

Just at this very time there broke out the war in Naples, which the Pope had endeavoured to avert. The Neapolitan |War in Naples.| barons revolted against the harsh rule of Ferrante, and appealed for aid to the house of Anjou. Réné le Bon was unwilling to quit his luxurious life in Provence; but his son John, titular duke of Calabria, was at once more capable and more ambitious. From Genoa, which was at this time under French suzerainty, John sailed to the Neapolitan coast, and was speedily joined by a large number of partisans. Hostilities in Naples were fatal to the crusading schemes of Pius II. In spite of his desire to avoid a quarrel with France, he could not withdraw his support from Ferrante, and he was further attached to the Aragonese cause by the influence of Francesco Sforza, who feared that an Angevin triumph in the south might encourage the duke of Orleans to advance a claim to Milan. But in spite of the aid of the Pope and of Sforza, the cause of Ferrante did not at first prosper. John gained an important victory at Sarno on July 7, 1460; and his general, Jacopo Piccinino, also succeeded in defeating the Aragonese forces. But in the next year there was a very decided turn of fortune. The death of Charles VII. gave the French throne to Louis XI., who was ill disposed towards his Angevin relatives, while he was a warm admirer of Francesco Sforza. Genoa had already repudiated the French control, and before long Louis agreed to transfer his claims over Genoa to the duke of Milan. Thus John of Calabria, who had brought with him few men and little money, was deprived of the prospect of aid from France. His Neapolitan supporters began to desert him after his first reverse in 1462, and in 1464 John was compelled to abandon the enterprise as hopeless and return to France. His brief but adventurous career is full of incident. He sought to punish Louis XI. for his desertion by joining the League of the Public Weal. When that war was over, he carried on his quarrel with the house of Aragon by joining the Catalans in their revolt against John II. In that quarrel he met his death in 1469. Four years later his only son, Nicolas, also died, and the male descendants of Réné of Provence came to an end. The house of Anjou was now represented only by Réné himself; by his daughters, Yolande and Margaret, who had married respectively Frederick of Vaudemont and Henry VI. of England; and by his brother’s son, Charles of Maine. Of the two daughters, Margaret had lost her only son, Edward, at Tewkesbury in 1471; but Yolande had a son, called Réné after his grandfather, who was engaged in defending the duchy of Lorraine against the attacks of Charles the Bold of Burgundy. When the old Réné died in 1480, he disinherited this grandson, who was then his only descendant, in favour of his nephew Charles of Maine, with the further provision that on the extinction of the latter’s line the inheritance should pass to the French crown. In the next year Charles of Maine died without children, and by virtue of this will Provence and Bar were seized by Louis XI. At a later date Charles VIII. was induced to found upon his succession to the house of Anjou a claim to the crown of Naples, which inaugurated a new epoch, not only in the relations between France and Italy, but also in the international politics of Europe.

During the war in Naples Pius II. had despaired of a crusade, and with characteristic ingenuity and self-confidence he devised a new scheme for securing the victory of the cross over the crescent. The eloquence which had failed to arouse the princes of Europe might prove more successful with their heathen opponent. He drew up and despatched a lengthy epistle to Mohammed II., urging him to become a Christian, and promising on that condition to confirm him in possession of the eastern empire, as his predecessors had given the empire of the west to Charles the Great. As far as we know the Sultan returned no answer to this unique proposal. But the pacification of Naples by the victory of Ferrante, and the growing uneasiness of Venice at the continuance of Turkish aggression in Greece and the Archipelago, encouraged the Pope to resume his more warlike plans. In 1463 he concluded an alliance with the Venetians and Mathias Corvinus of Hungary. He renewed his exhortations to a general crusade, and declared his intention of leading it in person. In 1464 he went to Ancona, which had been fixed for the meeting of the crusading forces. Again the aged Pope met with a bitter disappointment. The only crusaders at Ancona were a few adventurers who had nothing to lose, and hoped to make their profit out of the papal treasures. At last, on August 12, the Venetian fleet approached the harbour, and Pius was carried to the window to witness its entry. This effort was |Death of Pius II. at Ancona.| his last, and two days later he died, straining his eyes eastward, and with his last breath urging the prosecution of the crusade. The poignant contrasts of his career were conspicuous to the last. Æneas Sylvius, careless, light-hearted, and untroubled by moral scruples, had faithfully represented the new epoch in which he lived. Pius II., enthusiastic, gloomy, and passionate, seems to be the ghost risen from the Middle Ages, which were dead.

The pontificate of Paul II. was short and comparatively uneventful. He belonged to the Venetian family of the |Paul II., 1464-71.| Barbi, and his election seemed likely to cement that alliance between the papacy and the maritime republic on which Pius II. had ultimately relied for resistance to the Turkish advance. But Paul acquiesced without much protest in the failure of his predecessor’s plans; and by urging Hungary into war with the heretical George Podiebrad of Bohemia, he rendered impossible even a league of eastern princes against the infidel. Paul’s name is also associated with a so-called persecution of the humanists, because he imprisoned some members of the Roman academy who had talked vaguely and irresponsibly of a restoration of the republic. But it is absurd to treat a simple measure of internal police as evidence of a definite and far-reaching policy, or as marking a reaction from the patronage of letters by Nicolas V. The whole episode has attracted more attention than it deserves through the interested emphasis of the chronicler, Platina, who has exaggerated both his own sufferings and his own importance. Paul II. was a true Pope of the Renaissance, looking at affairs from an intellectual rather than from a spiritual point of view, and exulting both in his own handsome figure, which led him to desire the name of Formosus, and in the beauty of the jewels and carvings of which he was an industrious and intelligent collector. But he was free from the grosser vices and crimes which have given notoriety to his successors.

The name of Sixtus IV. might well have been handed down to posterity as typifying the extreme degradation in which the |Nepotism of Sixtus IV.| papacy was involved in this century by its absorption in temporal interests, but that the bolder and more picturesque crimes of Cæsar Borgia have secured that pre-eminence for the pontificate of Alexander VI. The aims and actions of Sixtus were those of a secular prince, and display that cynical disregard of moral considerations which has been portrayed as the characteristic of the age in the pages of Machiavelli. No previous Pope had ventured to show so reckless a determination to use his office for the advancement of his relatives, and to employ his relatives as a means of strengthening the temporal power of the papacy. Three of his nephews were the sons of his brother, Raffaelle della Rovere. The eldest, Lionardo, was made prefect of Rome, and was married to a natural daughter of Ferrante of Naples. Giuliano della Rovere, the most capable and vigorous of the family, was raised by his uncle to be cardinal of San Pietro ad Vincula. After playing a prominent part as the opponent of the two succeeding popes, he gained the tiara himself as Julius II. The third son, Giovanni, succeeded Lionardo as prefect of Rome, and Sixtus obtained for him the hand of Joanna, daughter of Federigo da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, a marriage which in the next generation gave the duchy to a della Rovere dynasty. But the Pope’s most lavish favours were conferred upon the two sons of a sister, Piero and Girolamo Riario. Piero was made a cardinal at the age of twenty-five, and received so many preferments, including the archbishopric of Florence, that he drew a princely revenue from the Church. He only lived three years after his uncle’s accession, but during that time he succeeded in startling Europe by the stories of the extraordinary pomp and debauchery on which he squandered his wealth. The promotion of Girolamo Riario, a layman, was effected within the papal states, and had more lasting results. The papal treasure was employed to purchase for him the lordship of Imola; he was married to Caterina, a natural daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, and on the extinction of the Ordelaffi in 1480 his uncle’s support gained for him the city of Forli with the title of duke. The whole policy of the Pope was directed for years to the aggrandisement of a youth who proved no more worthy of his elevation than his brother had been. In 1488 the people of Forli rose and murdered him, and only the heroism of his widow secured for a time the continuance of his dynasty.

The obvious intention of the Pope to extend his temporal power and to abuse it for the aggrandisement of his nephew excited the misgivings of the neighbouring states, and especially of Florence, which was at this time under the guidance of Lorenzo de’ Medici. In order to remove this obstacle from their way, Sixtus and Riario organised the famous conspiracy of the Pazzi for the overthrow of the Medici rule. The Pope asserted his ignorance of any scheme of assassination, but he must have known that success could hardly be achieved without bloodshed, and his denial of complicity was a merely formal attempt to save the credit of the holy see. The plot very narrowly missed its aim: Giuliano de’ Medici was killed in the cathedral of Florence, but Lorenzo escaped with a severe wound, and the chief conspirators, including the archbishop of Pisa, fell victims to the popular fury. Enraged at the failure of his scheme, Sixtus excommunicated the Florentines for laying violent hands upon a dignitary of the Church, and formed a league with Ferrante of Naples for the overthrow of the republic. The disorder in Milan following the death of |War with Florence.| Galeazzo Maria Sforza, and the fact that Venice was still engaged in the Turkish war, deprived Florence of her natural allies, and in 1479 the city was exposed to serious peril. Lorenzo de’ Medici, however, not only averted the danger, but dexterously employed it to strengthen his authority. At considerable personal risk, he undertook a journey to Naples, and succeeded in negotiating a peace with Ferrante. Sixtus was at first inclined to continue the war; but the occupation of Otranto by a Turkish force in 1480 constituted such a serious menace to Italy, that the obstinate Pope was forced to come to terms with his opponents and to withdraw the bull of excommunication against Florence.

The Turkish invasion compelled Ferrante of Naples and his son Alfonso to withdraw their troops from Tuscany, and |Relations with Ferrara and Venice, 1482-84.| to concentrate their attention on the recovery of Otranto. Fortunately for Italy, the death of Mohammed II. on May 3, 1481, and a dispute as to the Turkish succession, led to the withdrawal of the invaders, and enabled the Neapolitan rulers to claim a military triumph which they had done little or nothing to bring about. But the alliance between Naples and the papacy had been completely annulled, and Sixtus, as restless as ever, did not scruple to form a new coalition, which was destined to have momentous results to Italy. Venice had concluded the treaty of Constantinople with the Turks in 1479, and was eager to obtain upon Italian soil compensation for its losses in the east. Hence arose in 1482 an unscrupulous and unprecedented alliance between the papacy and Venice for the spoliation of Ercole d’Este of Ferrara. The danger to the balance of power in Italy led to the formation of a hostile coalition between Naples, Florence, and Milan. Sixtus IV. soon discovered that he had gained nothing by his change of allies. Venice had seized the district of Rovigo from Ferrara, but had obviously no intention of handing over any share of the spoils to Girolamo Riario. At the same time, Neapolitan troops entered the papal states and threatened Rome, and there was a risk that the misdeeds of the papacy might result in the meeting of another general council. The Pope, whose policy was entirely selfish, did not hesitate to avert the danger by a sudden and complete change of front. In 1483 he made peace with Naples and Ferrara, excommunicated the Venetians for disturbing the peace of Italy, and prepared to seize the cities which Venice had acquired within the papal dominions. But his restless greed was again doomed to disappointment. Venice adroitly ended the war by the treaty of Bagnolo, in which the only loser was the unfortunate duke of Ferrara, and Sixtus was chagrined to find that he had gained absolutely nothing by his ill-faith. Soon afterwards he died on August 12, 1484, and contemporary lampoons declared that he died of peace.

In Rome itself the pontificate of Sixtus IV. had been as turbulent as his foreign relations. The great families, and especially the Colonnas, had opposed the advancement of the Pope’s nephews, and had thus drawn on themselves the wrath of Sixtus. A long civil war ensued, |Disorders in Rome.| in which the barons allied themselves with the foreign enemies of the Pope, at one time with Florence, at another with Naples or with Venice. In this war Sixtus displayed all his cold-blooded cruelty and treachery. The stronghold of his enemies was the castle of Marino, which was surrendered by Lorenzo Colonna on condition that he should be restored to his family. Sixtus fulfilled his promise by sending them his corpse. The mother appeared at the papal court, and producing her son’s head, exclaimed, ‘See how a Pope keeps faith!’ It was a graphic picture of the terrible degradation of Rome by the Pope’s abandonment of spiritual aims for temporal ambition. Directly the Pope’s death was known, the Colonnas headed a rising which sacked the palaces of the Riarios and drove their adherents from Rome.

The character of Innocent VIII. has been painted by some historians in blacker colours than it deserves. It is true that |Innocent VIII., 1484-92.| he was the first Pope who recognised his own children, but they seem to have been born before he took orders, and his devotion to them did not involve him in such scandals as disgrace his predecessor and his successor. The principality of Anguillara was purchased for his son, Franceschetto Cibo, but the latter was more interested in gaining money than power, and his first act after his father’s death was to sell his territories to Virginio Orsino. Innocent himself had little capacity and little interest in politics. He spent great part of his time in a state of lethargy, which not infrequently gave the appearance of death. Among those who exercised a dominant influence over the feeble Pope was Lorenzo de’ Medici, who married his daughter Maddalena to Franceschetto Cibo, and as a part of the bargain, obtained the cardinal’s hat for his second son, Giovanni, at the age of fourteen. It was under Innocent VIII. that the Medici obtained that position at the papal court which enabled them to produce two almost successive popes, Leo X. and Clement VII., and enabled these popes to use the power of the Church to suppress the liberties of their native city.

By far the greatest difficulty of Innocent VIII.’s pontificate was connected with Naples. Ever since the withdrawal of |Rising of Neapolitan barons.| John of Calabria in 1464, the bastard house of Aragon had enjoyed undisputed possession of the Neapolitan throne. Jacopo Piccinino, the condottiere, who had been formidable in the previous struggle, was enticed to Naples by Ferrante with the aid of Francesco Sforza, and was treacherously put to death in 1465. At the time of his alliance with Sixtus IV. against Lorenzo de’ Medici, Ferrante had succeeded in reducing his tribute to his papal suzerain to the annual gift of a white horse. The freedom from external danger enabled the king to make the royal authority despotic, and to annul the independence of the feudal nobles. His son, Alfonso of Calabria, gained an undeserved military reputation by the withdrawal of the Turks from Otranto, and from that time was associated with his father in the government. Under his influence the royal rule became even more tyrannical and oppressive, and in 1485 the barons determined to rebel. Innocent VIII., who desired to extort the old tribute from Naples which his predecessor had commuted, espoused their cause, and Venice, always hostile to the house of Aragon, gave secret assistance. It was decided to revive the Angevin pretensions, and Réné of Lorraine, the grandson of Réné le Bon, was invited to come to Italy as a claimant of the crown for which his ancestors had so long contended. But the rebellion ended in complete failure. Neither Florence nor Milan would consent to such a disturbance of the normal relations of Italy as would be involved in French intervention. The military force of the Neapolitan rulers was overwhelming, and Alfonso, for the second time, led an army against Rome. To complete the disasters of the Pope and his allies, Réné of Lorraine, who was engaged in prosecuting a hopeless claim upon Provence at the French court, allowed the opportunity of gaining Naples to slip from his hands. But the mere threat of a French invasion was enough to induce Ferrante and Alfonso to come to terms. The Pope was bought off by the restoration of the former tribute, and the Neapolitan barons, deprived of all hope of assistance, submitted on the understanding that a full amnesty should be granted to them. The promise was broken with that cynical disregard of good faith which marked the politics of Italy in the fifteenth century. The nobles who returned to Naples were imprisoned, and were never again seen alive. The sole survivors were those who preferred to remain in exile rather than trust the rulers whom they had endeavoured to depose. These men eagerly watched for an opportunity which might enable them at once to avenge the death of their associates and to regain their own confiscated territories. In 1493 they were at last enabled to act. The death of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and the growing alienation of Ludovico Sforza from Naples, removed some of the chief securities for peace in Italy. By the advice of Venice the Neapolitan exiles petitioned for the intervention, not of the duke of Lorraine, but of the French king, Charles VIII. Before any final decision had been come to at the French court, Ferrante had died on January 25, 1494, and Alfonso II. was left to face the danger of which his own violence and misrule had been the principal cause.

Innocent VIII. had not lived to witness this new crisis in the history of Naples. His death in 1492 had been followed by a very important election. The most prominent candidates for the suffrages of the conclave were Ascanio Sforza, the brother of Ludovico, and Giuliano della Rovere, the nephew of Sixtus IV. But neither could obtain the requisite majority, and in the end Ascanio Sforza was bribed to support the candidature of the wealthiest of the Roman cardinals, Rodrigo Borgia, a nephew of Calixtus III. The well-known fact that he had several natural children, born to him not only since he was a priest, but since he had been a cardinal, seems to have been completely disregarded. |Election of Alexander VI.| A lavish expenditure of money and promises secured his election, and he assumed the title of Alexander VI. The first great problem which the new Pope had to solve concerned the approaching struggle in Naples. In spite of his obligations to Ascanio Sforza, and his antagonism to the Orsini, who were closely connected at this time with the house of Aragon, Alexander allowed himself to be drawn in 1493 into an alliance with Ferrante, and on his death he recognised the title of Alfonso II. The French invasion, which the Pope was thus pledged to resist, threatened the papacy for some time with serious dangers; but in the end it proved one of the chief circumstances which enabled Alexander himself, and afterwards Julius II., to erect the temporal power upon firmer foundations than any of their predecessors had been able to construct.