Pope Alexander VI

“ It is necessary, however, to disguise the appearance of craft, and thoroughly to understand the art of feigning and dissembling; for men are generally so simple and so weak that he who wishes to deceive easily finds dupes.
One example, taken from the history of our own times, will be sufficient. Pope Alexander VI played during his whole life a game of deception; and notwithstanding his faithless conduct was extremely well known, his artifices always proved successful. Oaths and protestations cost him nothing; never did a prince so often break his word or pay less regard to his engagements. ”

“ They admit all sorts of men to their conversation, and are not in the least scandalized at the most improper proposals being made to them." To see how ecclesiastics themselves fall a prey to the ethics of militant activities, becoming as heartless and debauched as any other class, take a page from Italian history at the time of Pope Alexander VI. "Crimes grosser than Scythian," says a pious Catholic who visited Rome, "acts of treachery worse than Carthaginian, are committed without disguise in the Vatican itself under the eyes of the Pope. ”

“ In consequence of these and later representations, Pope Alexander VI., a native of Valencia, and a friend of King Ferdinand, [2] issued three bulls, dated May 3 and May 4, which were highly favorable to Spain. By the first, the bull Inter caetera of May 3, the pope assigned to the present and future sovereigns of Castile the lands discovered and to be discovered by their envoys and not previously possessed by any Christian owner. ”

“ The love of Pope Alexander VI. is not to be light- ly scorned ! "
" Your love ! If there were aught in hell more pollut- ing, the fiends themselves would be incapable of enduring it, and it would drive them hence ! " ”

“ Of all the Popes that ever donned the tiara, Alexander VI. is said to have presented the most successful image of the devil. [20] He was the father of the prince of poisoners, Caesar Borgia; he was greedy, immoral, fond of ease and pleasure; he was even said to be a poisoner himself. If a well-known man died suddenly in Rome, the common people took it for granted that the Pope had poisoned his supper. For all that he was pious enough in a way of his own; and now, in his zeal for the Catholic cause, he took stern measures against the Church of the Brethren. ”

“ Mansi, the scholarly Archbishop of Lucca editor and annotator of Raynaldus, says (XI, 415) that it is easier to keep silence than to write write moderation about this Pope. The severe judgment of the late Cardinal Hergenröther, in his "Kirchengeschichte", or Manual of Church History (4th. ed., Freiburg, 1904, II, 982–983) is too well known to need more than mention.
So little have Catholic historians defended him that in the middle of the nineteenth century Cesare Cantù could write that Alexander VI was the only Pope who had never found an apologist. ”

“ Soon after the death of Lorenzo de' Medici, died Innocent VIII.; and Roderigo Borgia, a native of Valentia in Spain, and one of the most ancient of the cardinals, was chosen pope in his room. His election was carried by force of bribery and intrigue, to the horror and amazement of the whole Christian world; since not only the methods by which he rose were known, but also the character and actions of the man thus exalted. [113] The new pontiff assumed the name of Alexander VI. "He was a man," to use the words of Guicciardini, "of singular prudence and sagacity ”

“ This was ominously expressed, in 1501, in a letter to Alexander VI from a knight and two men-at-arms who had despoiled the convent of Weissenburg and had disregarded the consequent excommunication. Under the canon law this rendered them suspect of heresy, for which they were summoned to Rome to answer for their faith. They replied in a tone of unconcealed irony; the journey, they say, is too long, so they send a profession of faith, including a promise of obedience to a Pope honestly elected who has not sullied the Holy See with immoralities and scandals. ”

“ The barons of the Pope deserted him one after the other. Colonna and Savelli were traitors from the beginning, but he felt most keenly the defection of Virginio Orsini, the commander of his army. Many a saintlier pope than Alexander VI would have made the fatal mistake of yielding to brute force and surrendering unconditionally to the conqueror of Italy; the most heroic of the popes could not have sustained the stability of the Holy See at this crucial moment with greater firmness. ”

“ The Pope’s Power.—Indulgences stood instead of armies, in the times of ignorance and bigotry; but now that mankind is better informed, the spiritual authority of the Pope is not only less regarded, but even despised, by the Catholic princes themselves; and his holiness is actually little more than Bishop of Rome. [May 31, 1748.]
Papal Virtues.—Alexander VI., together with his natural son, Cæsar Borgia, was famous for his wickedness, in which he, and his son too, surpassed all imagination. Their lives are well worth your reading. ”

“ During the Western Schism, different popes and anti-popes were seen to curse and excommunicate one another from the top of the ruined walls of Rome. The schism seemed on the point of extinction, when Pedro de Luna [31] revived it, in 1394, through an intrigue of the conclave at Avignon. Alexander VI. [32] , in 1492, bought the votes of twenty-two cardinals, who prostituted the tiara to him, leaving memories of Lucrezia [33] behind him. Sixtus V. had no intrigue in the conclave except with his crutches, and when he was Pope his genius no longer had need of those supports. ”

“ Alexander VI., A.D. 1492-1503.―The Spanish cardinal Roderick Borgia, sister’s son of Calixtus III., purchased the tiara by bribing his colleagues. In him as Alexander VI. we have a pope whose government presents a scene of unparalleled infamy, riotous immorality, and unmentionable crimes, of cruel despotism, fraud, faithlessness, and murder, and a barefaced nepotism, such as even the city of the popes had never witnessed before. He had already before his election five children by a concubine, Rosa Vanossa, four sons and one daughter, Lucretia, and his one care was for their advancement. ”

“ Alexander VI. (Rodrigo Borgia) (1431–1503) , pope from 1492 to his death, is the most memorable of the corrupt and secular popes of the Renaissance. He was born (January 1, 1431) at Xativa, near Valencia in Spain, and his father’s surname was Lanzol or Llançol; that of his mother’s family, Borgia or Borja, was assumed by him on the elevation of his maternal uncle to the papacy as Calixtus III. (April 8, 1455) . He studied law at Bologna, and after his uncle’s election he was created successively bishop, cardinal and vice-chancellor of the church, an act of nepotism characteristic of the age. ”

“ On the other hand, he safeguarded the concessions already made to Portugal with the proviso that by this gift "no right conferred on any Christian prince is hereby to be understood as with­ drawn or to be withdrawn". The pope also commanded Ferdinand and Isabella to send men to instruct the inhabitants of these newly discovered lands in the Catholic faith and in good morals, and, following the precedent of the bull Romanus pontifex, [3] forbade anyone to go to them for trade or other purposes without special permit from the rulers of Castile. ”

“ Under the leadership of an Italian historian, an orthodox Romanist, a movement has recently been started to set aside the election of Alexander VI as a nullity and to blot his name and record from the Book of the Pontiffs. ”

“ Pius VII protested that he had never had any intention of doing so, but that it was impossible for him to enter into any written engagement on the subject, the declaration having been condemned by Pope Alexander VIII. He discussed, without bitterness, the question of canonical institution, whilst altogether repelling the propositions put forth by the bishops. "All alone by himself, a poor man could not take upon himself such a great change in the Church," said he, smiling. ”

“ By these measures in the spiritual order Alexander exercised vast influence over the future of the Catholic Church, whilst by his nepotism he caused the Papacy to become a political power in Italy. His nepotism is commonly explained by his desire to enrich his kindred. But there was more than this. There was the desire to put in the place of almost independent feudatories a prince who represented the person, and could be trusted to do the will, of the Pope, and to strengthen and sustain the Papacy by the introduction of an hereditary element. ”

“ To most, however, the experienced statesman and diligent man of business, genial and easy-tempered when not crossed, who knew how to combine magnificence with frugality, and whose deep dissimulation was the more dangerous from the perfect genuineness of the sanguine, jovial temperament beneath which it lay concealed, seemed precisely the Pope needed for restoring the Church's tarnished* dignity. Nor was it long before Alexander justified a portion of the hopes reposed in him by his energy in reestablishing public order and in reinvigorating the administration of justice. ”

“ Whether or not Alexander was a true pope is a question which canonists and historians of the Schism still discuss. The Church has not pronounced a definite opinion nor is it at all likely that she will. The Roman "Gerarchia Cattolica", not an authoritative work, which prior to 1906 contained a chronological list of the popes, designated Alexander V as the 211th pope, succeeding Gregory XII, resigned. ”

“ Walsh. "I think the last the best, but might not even that be mended?"
[7] Garth's Dispensary, Canto iv.:
As tuneful Congreve tries his rural strains,
Pan quits the woods, the list'ning fauns the plains.
Dryden's Virgil, Ecl. vi. 100:
And called the mountain ashes to the plain.
Among the poems of Congreve is one entitled "The Mourning Muse of Alexis, a Pastoral lamenting the death of Queen Mary." This was the "sweet Alexis strain" to which Pope referred, and which the Thames "bade his willows learn."
[8] Virg. Ecl. vi. 83:
Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros.—Pope. ”

“ At last the Council of Pisa deposed both Popes, and the cardinals then elected Alexander V. in 1409. Both the deposed Popes claimed to be still Popes. And Alexander V., instead of carrying out the reforms that were expected, made lavish appointments to vacant offices, saying to all who complained that he was rich as a bishop, poor as a cardinal, but a beggar as Pope. ”

“ One of the two treaties between Spain and Portugal, concluded at Tordesillas on June 7, 1494, relates to the fisheries from Cape Bojador to the Rio do Ouro. This treaty is printed in J. Ramos-Coelhos, Algs. Docs. (1892) , pp. 80 ff. ↑ This refers to the Portuguese military Order of Christ, to which Pope Calixtus had granted the spiritualities of Guinea, and beyond, as far as to the Indians. See Doc. 2. ↑ Cf. Doc. 6, note 14. ↑ In the second copy of the bull the name of L. Alvarus is substituted. ”

“ The Conclave assembled at Naples and elected a nephew of Gregory IX., who took the name of Alexander IV. The new Pope was described by Matthew Paris as ‘kindly and pious, assiduous in prayer and strenuously ascetic, but easily moved by flatterers and inclined to avarice.’ He had not the inflexible will of his predecessor and (though he continued Innocent’s policy) he was not very successful in his efforts, despite the fact that it was easier to carry on the war against the Hohenstaufen now that the legitimate stock was almost extinct and Germany entirely isolated from Sicily. ”

“ Nothing could really compensate for the degradation of the Spiritual Power by its complicity in so infamous a transaction; but this was a consideration which did not strongly appeal to Alexander. It is only just to observe, however, that at bottom this humiliating action sprang from the great cause of humiliation which he was endeavouring to abolish,—the Pope's weakness as a temporal sovereign. This could not be remedied without foreign alliances, and they could not be had unless he was prepared to meet his allies half-way. ”

“ The aspiration of the Councils of Constance and Basel, the hope of honest reforms, had remained unsatisfied, and was kept up by the condition of the Roman Court during several pontificates. It was scarcely worse under Alexander than under his predecessors, and the zeal of the French Government was not attributable exclusively to disinterested motives of conscience. The flaw in his election was too tempting an instrument to be neglected. There was more to gain by practising on his fears than by deposing him. Neither Germany nor Spain was willing to accept a Pope created by the King of France. ”

“ His appointment by the cardinals without the least reference to King Henry IV. gave the greatest offence in Germany, and brought to a head the growing tension between Empire and Papacy. A synod at Basel declared Pope Alexander’s election invalid, and set up an Antipope, Cadalus, Bishop of Parma, who had been the real soul of the opposition to the Patarini in Lombardy. ”

“ The mass of the people throughout Europe had hardly a conception of what was passing in Central Italy. The only moment which was really fraught with danger—when Charles VIII was in Italy—went by with unexpected fortune, and even then it was not the Papacy as such that was in peril, but Alexander, who risked being supplanted by a more respectable Pope. The great, permanent, and increasing danger for the Papacy lay in Alexander himself, and, above all, in his son Cesare Borgia. ”