Sixtus IV

“ Sixtus was none the less a warlike prince, struggling in perpetual conflict with the princes of the other states, perhaps with even a fiercer strain of ambition, fighting for wealth and position with which to endow the young men who were as his sons—as worldly in his aims as any Malatesta or Sforza, as little scrupulous about his means of carrying them out, shedding blood or at least permitting it to be shed in his name, extorting money, selling offices, trampling upon the rights of other men. ”

“ The only one of the four “nephews” of Sixtus—and to this one was imputed no nearer kinship—who was destined to make any lasting mark in history was Giuliano della Rovere. He was raised by his uncle to the purple with the title of San Pietro in Vincoli, and thirty-two years later he was to become Pope (as Julius II) . Of him we shall hear much in the course of this story.
Under the pontificate of Sixtus IV the position and influence of Cardinal Roderigo were greatly increased, for once again the Spanish Cardinal had made the most of his opportunities. ”

“ In his larger political relations Sixtus, strangely enough, showed himself visionary and vacillating. He entertained fantastic ambitions, such as the annihilation of the Turks, the conquest of Egypt, the transporting of the Holy Sepulchre to Italy, the accession of his nephew to the throne of France. ”

“ Had his Holiness, Sixtus IV, not been infamous as a monster of depravity, sensuality and unscrupulousness, who appointed boys that he had himself abused to bishoprics and the cardinal dignity, and who bestowed no clerical office without payment—as his contemporary, Infessura, the chancellor of Rome, has recorded—his conduct with regard to the Holy Inquisition would have been sufficient to brand him with immortal infamy. Within a short period he published the most contradictory decisions, and did not take the trouble to veil his inconsistency with the most flimsy pretense. ”

“ Christendom beheld in Sixtus the spectacle of a Pope who trafficked in the bodies of his subjects, and the holy things of God, to squander basely-gotten gold upon abandoned minions. The peace of Italy was destroyed by desolating wars in the advancement of the same worthless favourites. Sixtus destroyed to annex Ferrara to the dominions of Girolamo Riario. ”

“ Sixtus IV. (Francesco della Rovere) , pope from the 9th of August 1471 to the 12th of August 1484, was born of a poor family near Savona in 1414. He entered the Franciscan order at an early age and studied philosophy and theology at the universities of Padua and Bologna. He speedily acquired a great reputation as an eloquent preacher, and, after filling the offices of procurator at Rome and provincial of Liguria, he was chosen general of his order in 1464. Three years later he was, to his own surprise, made cardinal-priest of St Pietro in Vincoli by Paul II., whom he succeeded as pope. ”

“ In the biography of common men, who are swayed by changing currents of passion and circumstance, it would be vain to attempt to explain actions and reconcile inconsistencies, as we have done here, by viewing all their doings, and all the phases of their character, with reference to a leading principle. But Sixtus was governed from his birth by one great thought, though fully developed only by the force of events—a thought as obvious in the hog-boy of Ancona, or the drudge of the Cordeliers, as in the monk Montalto, the inquisitor, the cardinal, and the pope. ”

“ Angelo; the traitor-priest who gave Queen Elizabeth information of what was occurring at Rome was executed in such a manner as to strike terror into every treacherous breast. No wonder Sixtus became a terror to evil doers, and his very name sufficed to put an end to the brawls in the streets. The time arrived when he could say with grim humor: “Fugit impius nemine persequente”—“The wicked flee when no man pursueth.”
Sixtus V. left proofs of his genius and energy all over Rome. He kept thousands of men constantly employed. ”

“ These were his tactics for securing the Papal throne; nor were his expectations frustrated; for in 1585 he was chosen Pope, the parties of the Medici and the Farnesi agreeing to accept him as a compromise. When Sixtus V. was once firmly seated on S. Peter's chair, he showed himself in his true colours. An implacable administrator of severest justice, a rigorous economist, an iconoclastic foe to paganism, the first act of his reign was to declare a war of extirpation against the bandits who had reduced Rome in his predecessor's rule to anarchy. ”

“ In a short time he had paid his debts, and could put aside annually a million gold crowns: a reserve destined to pay for great events such as a crusade, a famine, or an invasion of St. Peter’s domain. The ordinary excess of receipts was employed by him in embellishing Rome. Since Sixtus IV had joined the two shores of the Tiber by the bridge which bears his name, the lower part of the town had been entirely rebuilt; beyond the river rose the marvels of the Vatican, the Belvedere, the Loggia, and the palace of the Chigi ”

“ When it was found that Henry of Navarre would not be cajoled into abandoning any portion of his rightful claim to the whole realm, the League and Philip induced Sixtus V. to fulminate his famous bull (September 1585) excommunicating him, his cousin Condé, “and the whole of this bastard and detestable race of Bourbon.” They and theirs were to be deprived of all their principalities for ever, and the excommunication extended to all their adherents. Henry’s reply was as{227} violent as the provocation. “The man who calls himself Pope Sixtus is himself a liar and a heretic.” ”

“ Sixtus IV invested him with the title of defender and director of papal causes in England (Caxton at the end of ‘The Cordyale,’ 1478) . On his way north he visited (7–8 June) the camp at Morat of the luckless Duke Charles (cf. Kirk's Charles the Bold, iii. 370–1) . A greater honour than any that had yet befallen Rivers was presently in contemplation. His first wife had died during his visit to Compostella. In 1478 a marriage was arranged for him with Margaret, sister of James III of Scotland (Fœdera, xii. 171; Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, ii. 117) . ”

“ To all intents and purposes he was a private citizen of the Florentine republic. Yet such was the dynamic power of the man's marvellous personality, and the reputation he had earned, even in his early years, for supreme prescience and far-reaching diplomatic subtlety, that far and wide he was regarded as the greatest force in Italian politics. Sixtus sallied forth to crush; he returned to the Vatican a crushed and a discredited man, to die of sheer chagrin over his defeat by Lorenzo in his designs upon Ferrara. ”

“ These were among the projects which he had not the time to carry out, for Sixtus V's pontificate lasted but five years. Seeing what he actually accomplished during that short period and reading what he still intended to do, it seems as if this Pope were not a link in the long chain of St. Peter's successors but one of those " explosions of energy" which occur from time to time in the history of men.
Sixtus V was not a Roman nor even by descent an Italian. His origin was from the humblest condition in life. ”

“ Sixtus V saw this accomplished in his lifetime, for his devotion to the Pope, who, like himself, had begun life as a friar, and who had made him cardinal and stood his friend in trouble, never wavered nor grew cold. Historians have dwelt much upon Sixtus V's parsimony. Economy was said to be his favorite virtue. ”

“ Another order of man now succeeded these remarkable personages, the first of the line of purely secular princes, men of the world, splendid, unprincipled, and more or less vicious, although in this case it is once more a peasant, without so much as a surname, Sixtus IV., who takes his place in the scene, and who has left his name more conspicuously than any of his predecessors upon the later records of Rome. So far as the reader is concerned, the inscription at the end of the life of Pope Paul is a more melancholy one than anything that concerns that Pope. ”

“ It is true that in 1480 the capture of Otranto caused a panic throughout Italy which forced the Italian States to unite for its recovery; but scarce was this accomplished, in 1481, when Sixtus IV, in alliance with Venice, plunged into a war with Naples, and, after he had been forced to make peace, turned his arms against his ally and gave 50,000 ducats to equip a fleet against the Republic—ducats probably supplied by the crusading indulgence which he had just published. ”

“ That his "family" might be great among the great ones of the earth!—the family of a mendicant friar and sworn Romish priest!
This was the one passion for which Sixtus IV. lived, and sinned, and died. Yes! died for it. For the misery of failure in his hope was the malady that crushed him into the grave. The game was going all against him. For as all Italy was united in the determination that Venice should not possess Ferrara, and the Republic saw clearly that she could never succeed in taking it in defiance of them all, there was [Pg 165] little obstacle to the peace Italy so much needed. ”

“ In the time of Decius, the cruel emperor, the holy bishop Sixtus was dwelling in Rome. Then he suddenly commanded his counts to bring the bishop together with his priests before him. Sixtus then with fearless mind called to his priests, "My brothers, be ye not afraid, come, and let none of you dread short torments. The holy martyrs suffered many tortures, that they might fearless come to the glory-crown of everlasting life." ”

“ The "brief" only tended to knit the bonds of association closer between Lorenzo and the "City of the Flower," while the humanists to a man rallied round their patron. Even the choleric Filelfo, now a very old man, who had been on anything but friendly terms with the Medici, addressed two bitter satires to Sixtus, in which the Pope was styled the real aggressor, while the great humanist offered to write a history of the whole transaction, that posterity might know the true facts. The only power which gave its adhesion to Sixtus was Naples, while Venice, Ferrara, and Milan declared for Florence. ”

“ Probably a great many picturesque dwellings perished in the destruction of those centres of rebellion, which recall to us so vividly the scenes in which Rienzi the tribune fluttered through his little day, and which were continually filled with the rustle and tumult of an abounding populace. We cannot be so grateful to King Ferdinand, or so full of praise for this portion of the work of Pope Sixtus, as were his contemporaries, though no doubt it gave to us almost all the leading thoroughfares we know. ”

“ Only a man of extraordinary energy and decision of character could have surmounted it. Sixtus V. has been called pitiless from the terrible punishments he inflicted for apparently trivial offences, but he was personally humane, for at the murder of his nephew he was the first to entreat the pope (Sixtus being at that time Cardinal Montalto) to drop his investigations, and when he had cleared the Roman States of brigandage, he endeavored to conciliate the nobles. ”

“ Some writers have maintained that this sudden elevation of the most recent member of the Sacred College was due to bribery in the conclave, whilst the apologists of Sixtus affirm it was due to the friendship of the powerful and upright Cardinal Bessarion, and explain that the pope, having been brought up in a mendicant order, was inexperienced and did not appreciate the liberality of his donations after his election. There is no doubt that the expenditures of his pontificate were prodigal. Sixtus sent Cardinal Caraffa with a fleet against the Turks, but the expedition was unsuccessful. ”

“ Pope Sixtus himself was by no means eager for the success of the League. After the battle of Ivry, he had most seriously inclined his ear to the representations of Henry's envoy, and showed much willingness to admit the victorious heretic once more into the bosom of the Church. Sixtus was not desirous of contributing to the advancement of Philip's power. He feared his designs on Italy, being himself most anxious at that time to annex Naples to the holy see. ”

“ The mathematical distribution of these dreadful groups gives an effect of frozen passion; while the vigorous workmanship displays not only an enthusiasm for muscular anatomy, but a real sympathy with blood-fury in the artist.
There was, therefore, a certain propriety in the choice of Pollajuolo to cast the sepulchre of Sixtus IV. in bronze at Rome. The best judges complain, not without reason, that the allegories surrounding this tomb are exaggerated and affected in style; yet the dead Pope, stretched in pomp upon his bier, commands more than merely historical interest ”

“ He relied on two principal methods for replenishing his coffers. One was the public sale of places about the Court at Rome, each of which had its well-known price. [1] Benefices were disposed of with rather more reserve and privacy, for simony had not yet come to be considered venial. Yet it was notorious that Sixtus held no privilege within his pontifical control on which he was not willing to raise money: 'Our churches, priests, altars, sacred rites, our prayers, our heaven, our very God, are purchasable!' exclaims a scholar of the time ”

“ Yet the first act of the reformer betrays a defect and compels us to deal at once with the chief irregularity of his conduct. After the unhappy nepotism of Paul IV., that ancient and disreputable practice had been severely condemned, yet we find it flagrantly and immediately revived by Sixtus himself. It was, as we shall see, an essential part of his scheme to reform the College of Cardinals, and he would presently enact that no one should be raised to the cardinalate under the age of twenty-one, and no man with a son or grandson should attain the dignity. ”