CHAPTER VII
THE POPES OF THE RENAISSANCE
The Papacy between 1447 and 1527—The Contradictions of the Renaissance Period exemplified by the Popes—Relaxation of their hold over the States of the Church and Rome during the Exile in Avignon—Nicholas V.—His Conception of a Papal Monarchy—Pius II.—The Crusade—Renaissance Pontiffs—Paul II.—Persecution of the Platonists—Sixtus IV.—Nepotism—The Families of Riario and Delia Rovere—Avarice—Love of Warfare—Pazzi Conspiracy—Inquisition in Spain—Innocent VIII.—Franceschetto Cibo—The Election of Alexander VI.—His Consolidation of the Temporal Power—Policy toward Colonna and Orsini Families—Venality of everything in Rome—Policy toward the Sultan—The Index—The Borgia Family—Lucrezia—Murder of Duke of Gandia—Cesare and his Advancement—The Death of Alexander—Julius II.—His violent Temper—Great Projects and commanding Character—Leo X.—His Inferiority to Julius—S. Peter's and the Reformation—Adrian VI.—His Hatred of Pagan Culture—Disgust of the Roman Court at his Election—Clement VII.—Sack of Rome—Enslavement of Florence.
In the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth centuries the authority of the Popes, both as Heads of the Church and as temporal rulers, had been impaired by exile in France and by ruinous schisms. A new era began with the election of Nicholas V. in 1447, and ended during the pontificate of Clement VII. with the sack of Rome in 1527. Through the whole of this period the Popes acted more as monarchs than as pontiffs, and the secularization of the See of Rome was earned to its utmost limits. The contrast between the sacerdotal pretensions and the personal immorality of the Popes was glaring; nor had the chiefs of the Church yet learned to regard the liberalism of the Renaissance with suspicion. About the middle of the sixteenth century the Papal States had become a recognized kingdom; while the Popes of this later epoch were endeavoring by means of the inquisition and the educational orders to check the free spirit of Italy.
The history of Italy has at all times been closely bound up with that of the Papacy; but at no period has this been more the case than during these eighty years of Papal worldliness, ambition, depotism, and profligacy, which are also marked by the irruption of the European nations into Italy and by the secession of the Teutonic races from the Latin Church. In this short space of time a succession of Popes filled the Holy Chair with such dramatic propriety—displaying a pride so regal, a cynicism so unblushing, so selfish a cupidity, and a policy so suicidal as to favor the belief that they had been placed there in the providence of God to warn the world against Babylon. At the same time the history of the Papal Court reveals with peculiar vividness the contradictions of Renaissance morality and manners. We find in the Popes of this period what has been already noticed in the despots—learning, the patronage of of the arts, the passion for magnificence, and the refinements of polite culture, alternating and not unfrequently combined with barbarous ferocity of temper and with savage and coarse tastes. On the one side we observe a Pagan dissoluteness which would have scandalized the parasites of Commodus and Nero; on the other, a seeming zeal for dogma worthy of S. Dominic. The Vicar of Christ is at one time worshiped as a god by princes seeking absolution for sins or liberation from burdensome engagements; at another he is trampled under foot, in his capacity of sovereign, by the same potentates. Undisguised sensuality; fraud cynical and unabashed; policy marching to its end by murders, treasons, interdicts, and imprisonments; the open sale of spiritual privileges; commercial traffic in ecclesiastical emoluments; hypocrisy and cruelty studied as fine arts; theft and perjury reduced to system—these are the ordinary scandals which beset the Papacy. Yet the Pope is still a holy being. His foot is kissed by thousands. His curse and blessing carry death and life. He rises from the bed of harlots to unlock or bolt the gates of heaven and purgatory. In the midst of crime he believes himself to be the representative of Christ on earth. These anomalies, glaring as they seem to us, and obvious as they might be to deeper thinkers like Machiavelli or Savonarola, did not shock the mass of men who witnessed them. The Renaissance was so dazzling by its brilliancy, so confusing by its rapid changes, that moral distinctions were obliterated in a blaze of splendor, an outburst of new life, a carnival of liberated energies. The corruption of Italy was only equaled by its culture. Its immorality was matched by its enthusiasm. It was not the decay of an old age dying, so much as the fermentation of a new age coming into life, that bred the monstrous paradoxes of the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. The contrast between mediæval Christianity and renascent Paganism—the sharp conflict of two adverse principles, destined to fuse their forces and to recompose the modern world—made the Renaissance what it was in Italy. Nowhere is the first effervescence of these elements so well displayed as in the history of those Pontiffs who, after striving in the Middle Ages to suppress humanity beneath a cowl, are now the chief actors in the comedy of Aphrodite and Priapus raising their foreheads once more to the light of day.
The struggle carried on between the Popes of the thirteenth century and the House of Hohenstauffen ended in the elevation of the Princes of Anjou to the throne of Naples—the most pernicious of all the evils inflicted by the Papal power on Italy. Then followed the French tyranny, under which Boniface VIII. expired at Anagni. Benedict XI. was poisoned at the instigation of Philip le Bel, and the Papal see was transferred to Avignon. The Popes lost their hold upon the city of Rome and upon those territories of Romagna, the March, and S. Peter's Patrimony which had been confirmed to them by the grant of Rodolph of Hapsburg (1273). They had to govern their Italian dependencies by means of Legates, while, one by one, the cities which had recognized their sway passed beneath the yoke of independent princes. The Malatesti established themselves in Rimini, Pesaro, and Fano; the house of Montefeltro confirmed its occupation of Urbino; Camerino, Faenza, Ravenna, Forli, and Imola became the appanages of the Varani, the Manfredi, the Polentani, the Ordelaffi, and the Alidosi.[1] The traditional supremacy of the Popes was acknowledged in these tyrannies; but the nobles I have named acquired a real authority, against which Egidio Albornoz and Robert of Geneva struggled to a great extent in vain, and to break which at a future period taxed the whole energies of Sixtus and of Alexander.
[1] See Mach. Ist. Fior. lib. i.
While the influence of the Popes was thus weakened in their states beyond the Apennines, three great families, the Orsini, the Savelli, and the Colonnesi, grew to princely eminence in Rome and its immediate neighborhood. They had been severally raised to power during the second half of the thirteenth century by the nepotism of Nicholas III., Honorius IV., and Nicholas IV. This nepotism bore baneful fruits in the future; for during the exile at Avignon the houses of Colonna and Orsini became so overbearing as to threaten the freedom and safety of the Popes. It was again reserved for Sixtus and Alexander to undo the work of their predecessors and to secure the independence of the Holy See by the coercion of these towering nobles.
In the States of the Church the temporal power of the Popes, founded upon false donations, confirmed by tradition, and contested by rival despots, was an anomaly. In Rome itself their situation, though different, was no less peculiar. While the factions of Orsini and Colonna divided the Campagna and wrangled in the streets of the city, Rome continued to preserve, in form at least, the old constitution of Caporioni and Senator. The Senator, elected by the people, swore, not to obey the Pope, but to defend his person. The government was ostensibly republican. The Pope had no sovereign rights, but only the ascendency inseparable from his wealth and from his position as Primate of Christendom. At the same time the spirit of Arnold of Brescia, of Brancaleone, and of Rienzi revived from time to time in patriots like Porcari and Baroncelli, who resented the encroachments of the Church upon the privileges of the city. Rome afforded no real security to the members of the Holy College. They commanded no fortress like the Castello of Milan, and had no army at their disposition. When the people or the nobles rose against them, the best they could do was to retire to Orvieto or Viterbo, and to wait the passing of the storm.
Such was the position of the Pope, considered as one of the ruling princes of Italy, before the election of Nicholas V. His authority was wide but undefined,