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 contests of Cardinals Borgia and della Rovere, quarrelling in his presence over the steps to be taken after his decease. Strange stories, probably groundless, were told of boys perishing under the surgeon’s hands in the endeavour to save the dying Pope’s life by transfusion of blood, while he lay in a lethargy. The scene closed on July 25, and on the following day the Pope was interred, in the sarcastic words of a contemporary diarist, lasso singultu, modicij lacrimis et ejulatu nullo. Little, indeed, had his life left posterity to applaud or to condemn. His pontificate is only redeemed from absolute insignificance by his docility to the wise counsels of Lorenzo de’ Medici,—almost the last occasion in history when it has been possible for a Pope to lean upon a native Italian prince. Lorenzo had preceded him to the tomb by a month; and from Milan to Naples no ruler remained in Italy who was capable of following any other policy than one of selfish aggrandisement.
The election of a Pope (as was remarked above) has frequently resulted in the choice of a successor strongly contrasted in every respect with the previous occupant of the chair of St Peter. It might have been expected that the vacant seat of Innocent would not be filled by another feeble Pope: yet little attention seems to have been paid at first to the prospects of the two ablest and strongest men in the College of Cardinals. Cardinal della Rovere, indeed, might seem excluded by the unwritten law which almost forbade a Cardinal intimately connected with the late Pope to aspire to the Papacy on the first vacancy. The Cardinal was not indeed a relative of Innocent’s, but he had been his minister, and was his countryman. Had he been chosen, three Genoese Popes would have worn the tiara in succession,—a scandal to the rest of the peninsula. Moreover, Innocent’s promotions of Cardinals had been few and unimportant; he had left no posthumous party in the College. Rodrigo Borgia, Vice-Chancellor and Senior Cardinal, seemed, on the other hand, the man especially pointed out for the emergency.