The Renaissance by Durant Will

Author:Durant, Will [Durant, Will]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2011-06-03T20:00:00+00:00

VII. INNOCENT VIII: 1484–92

The failure of Sixtus was confirmed by the chaos that ruled Rome after his death. Mobs sacked the papal granaries, broke into the banks of the Genoese, attacked the palace of Girolamo Riario. Vatican attendants stripped the Vatican of its furniture. The noble factions armed themselves; barricades were thrown up in the streets; Girolamo was forced to quit his campaign against the Colonna and lead his troops back to the city; the Colonna recaptured many of their citadels. A conclave was hastily assembled in the Vatican, and an exchange of promises and bribes49 between Cardinal Borgia and Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere secured the election of Giovanni Battista Cibò of Genoa, who took the name of Innocent VIII.

He was fifty-two; tall and handsome, kindly and peaceable to the point of complaisant weakness; of moderate intelligence and experience; a contemporary described him as “not wholly ignorant.”50 He had at least one son and one daughter, probably more;51 he acknowledged them candidly, and after taking priestly orders he led an apparently celibate life. Though the Roman wits wrote epigrams about his children, few Romans held it againt the Pope that he had been so fertile in his youth. But they raised eyebrows when he celebrated the marriages of his children and grandchildren in the Vatican.

In truth Innocent was content to be a grandfather, to enjoy domestic affection and ease. He gave Politian two hundred ducats for dedicating to him a translation of Herodotus, but for the rest he hardly bothered his head about the humanists. He continued leisurely, and quite by proxy, the repair and adornment of Rome. He engaged Antonio Pollaiuolo to build the Villa Belvedere in the Vatican gardens, and Andrea Mantegna to paint frescoes in a chapel adjoining it; but for the most part he left the patronage of letters and art to magnates and cardinals. In a similar mood of genial laissez-faire he entrusted foreign policy first to Cardinal della Rovere, then to Lorenzo de’ Medici. The powerful banker offered his richly dowered daughter Maddalena as a bride for the Pope’s son Franceschetto Cibò; Innocent was agreeable, and signed an alliance with Florence (1487); thereafter he allowed the experienced and pacific Florentine to guide the papal policy. For five years Italy enjoyed peace.

The age of Innocent was amused by one of the strangest comedies in history. After the death of Mohammed II (1481) his sons Bajazet II and Djem fought a civil war for the Ottoman throne. Defeated at Brusa, Djem sought to escape death by surrendering to the Knights of St. John in Rhodes (1482). Their Grand Master, Pierre d’Aubusson, held him as a threat over Bajazet. The Sultan agreed to pay the Knights 45,000 ducats yearly, ostensibly for Djem’s maintenance, actually as an inducement not to set up Djem as a pretender to the Turkish sultanate and a useful ally in a Christian crusade. To better safeguard so lucrative a prisoner, d’Aubusson sent him to Knightly custody in France. The Sultan of Egypt, Ferdinand

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.