Much of the history of Europe in the fifteenth century may be expressed in a single word,—coalescence. A movement, as spontaneous and irresistible as those which had in former times lined the Mediterranean coasts of Asia Minor with Greek colonies, and impelled the Northern nations against the decaying Roman Empire, was now agglomerating petty States and feudal lordships into nations; a process involving vast social as well as political changes. Ancient liberties too often disappeared, but ancient lawlessness also; the tall poppies fell before the sword of the Tarquins of the age; and the mercantile class, which had hitherto only asserted itself under the aegis of the free institutions of independent urban communities, became a powerful element in every land. Everywhere the tendency was towards centralisation, clans and districts massing into nations, semi-independent jurisdictions merging themselves into a single dominant Power. The necessity and the salutary effect of this evolution are proved by the happier fortune of the nations which conformed to it. England, France, Spain, the Scandinavian North, and after a while Russia, became great Powers. Where the movement towards coherence was but partial, as in Germany, the nation remained feeble and distracted; where it proved mainly abortive, as in Italy, the country fell under the sway of the foreigner.
In one important portion of Italy, the impulse towards unity was practically effective, and produced results extending far beyond the narrow stage to which it was in appearance confined. The growth of the Temporal Power of the Papacy is as much a phase of the general tendency towards coalescence which we have described as is the beating down of the feudal aristocracy in England, or the consolidation of France under Louis XL The conduct of the Popes in incorporating petty independent or semi-independent principalities with the patrimony of St Peter did not materially differ from the line of action adopted by Louis or Henry towards their over-powerful vassals. In all these cases the sovereign was urged on by the spirit and necessities of his age, and contended with the influences that made for disintegration, as in former times he might have contended with the Saracens. There was indeed nothing of the spirit of the crusader in him; and yet, unconsciously, he was leading a crusade against a state of things salutary in its day, but which, at the stage to which the world had progressed, would have fettered the development of Europe. In the case of the Popes, however, one obvious consideration compels us to consider their policy and its consequences from a point of view elsewhere inapplicable. They were spiritual as well as secular sovereigns. Their actions were never confined to a merely political sphere, and could not fail to produce the most important effects upon the greatest spiritual institution the world has ever seen,—an institution which at one time had seemed to pervade the entire social as well as religious fabric of the Middle Ages, and to concentrate every civilising influence within itself.
One distinction between the consolidating activity of a merely temporal sovereign and that of a Pope, though obvious, must not be left without notice, since it accounts in a measure for the special obloquy which the Popes have incurred for obeying the general instinct of their time. The monarch was exempt from all suspicion of nepotism, the interests of his heir were inseparable from the interests of the State. Granted that the former were in fact the more influential with him, the circumstance was really immaterial: he could neither work for himself without working for his successor, nor work for his successor without working for himself. The Pope, on the other hand, as an elected monarch, could not have a legitimate heir, while he was by no means precluded from having nephews or still nearer relatives whose interests might come into collision with the interests of the Church. After his death these relatives would no longer be anything, except in so far as he had been able to create a permanent position for them, and this, rather than the public good, was too likely to be the goal of his exertions. Hence the papal aggrandisement has brought an odium upon the Popes of this age unshared by the contemporary secular sovereigns, and which, in so far as they were actuated by private motives, cannot be said to be undeserved. Sixtus IV, though the era of papal conquests dates from him, and though no Pope wrought more persistently or unscrupulously to secure for the Papacy a commanding position in Italy, must rank rather as an accidental promoter than as a deliberate creator of the Temporal Power, since the mainspring of his policy was manifestly the advantage of his nephews. This cannot be said of one of the two great architects of the Temporal Power-Julius II; whether it applies to his precursor is one of the problems of history. Before, however, the question could arise concerning Alexander VI, there was to be an interval of quiet under a feeble Pope who did little for his family and nothing for the Church, but who admirably suited the circumstances of his time.
Sixtus IV had succeeded well in promoting the interests of his house. Imola and Forli made an excellent establishment for one nephew, Girolamo Riario; another, Giuliano della Rovere, was one of the most commanding figures in the College of Cardinals. In every other point of view the policy of Sixtus had been a failure; he had lowered the moral authority of the Papacy without any compensating gain in the secular sphere, and had only bequeathed an example destined to remain for a while inoperative. The election of his successor Innocent VIII (August, 1484) was blamed by contemporaries, and pronounced by the Notary Infessura worse even than that of Sixtus, in which bribery had a notorious share. The Notary’s charges, notwithstanding, are wanting in definite-ness; and it seems needless to look beyond the natural inclination of powerful competitors, neither of whom could achieve the Papacy for himself, to agree upon some generally acceptable person. It is also generally observed that, as the human frailties which in some shape must beset every Pope are especially manifest at the time of his decease, the choice naturally tends towards someone apparently exempt from these particular failings, and hence towards a person different in some sort from his 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