THE SECULAR RENAISSANCE

    Secularism. Besides the political revolt against the clerical theocracy, revealed at Anagni and during the Great Schism, an intellectual alienation of affections had long been in formation. This had developed slowly, for it required time for the ideas of the university intelligentsia to win general favor. But from the fourteenth century onward, a secularist viewpoint had become increasingly prominent within theocratic Christendom, and a new atmosphere of thought was already vaguely termed vita moderna. Not only were temporal governments less responsive to supernatural and international ideals, but the papal curia was affected by its preoccupation, legitimate though it may have been, with politics and finance. Supernatural values, if still accorded paramount importance as ideals, were increasingly set aside in practice. The canon lawyer no longer had a monopoly of legal and administrative science; he was opposed by the civil legist who sought his standards in pagan Roman antiquity. The clergy had ceased to be the only educated class, for the universities were now turning out graduates versed in philosophy, civil law, medicine, and the arts. As has been noted in reference to the Councils of Constance and Basle, the spiritual authority of the ecclesiastical hierarchy was in danger of being obscured by a swarm of academic “experts,” whose opinions were often heard against the voice of tradition. In scholastic speculations, moreover, the Nominalist deductions, or rather distortions, of Scotus’s philosophy were placing faith and reason  into a new opposition. And as the supernatural was thus divorced more and more from pure reason, the intellectual field was left open for a Naturalism disguised as Humanism. Humanism, indeed, can be taken in a legitimate and favorable sense, but here stress is being laid upon some of its actual theological implications; in this sense Humanism was to mean in the long run a reorientation of all human science, with man instead of God as the objective: learning would become anthropocentric rather than, as in the Age of Faith, theocentric.

    Nationalism. In the political sphere, nationalism was gaining in importance, though its appeal was still more dynastic than popular. But in the world of literature it is perhaps licit to speak of an inchoate popular nationalism. Symptomatic was the rapid progress of the vernacular languages. These had long since been the customary mode of communication among the common people; now the vernacular began to challenge the position of Latin as the vehicle of learned letters. In Italy, this tendency appears in Dante, who may have been influenced by Provençal troubadours exiled by the Albigensian Crusade. It is true that Dante and his immediate successors often seem half-ashamed of their works in the common idiom, but the trend was to prove irresistible, if slow. It may be significant also that this vogue arose during the absence of the papacy at Avignon. In England, Langland, Chaucer, and Wycliffe made English respectable in literary circles. The first two were Catholics, though critical ones, but the last manifested a tendency to make the vernacular an instrument of national revolt against the Roman Church. France possessed Philippe de Commines and François Villon, the one the biographer of national monarchy, and the other the bard of the populace. John Hus’s use of the Czech tongue in establishing his theological movement has already been noted. Per se, of course, there was no reason why the vernacular should have been antitheocratic, yet undoubtedly it did come often to serve nationalistic and anticlerical aims. Equally influential was a reaction to ancient “classical” Latin, as contrasted to “barbarous” scholastic Latin. Medieval Latin, however, had proved functional and colloquial; the resuscitation of antiquated classic forms by renaissance pedants caused the mummy to disintegrate on exposure to the air, and Latin presently became a dead language for all but a few scholars.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is, properly speaking, a Janus-figure between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. If the Italian poet of the Divine Comedy suggested a change in literary form, he in no way represented a departure from the norms of Christian culture: the content of his masterpiece remained scholastic, though couched in language more ^[6] elegant than that of the average schoolman. It is, however, more akin to the emotional aspect of Humanism than to the Rationalism of Scholasticism.

   Francesco Petrarca (1304-74) , on the other hand, despite some sighs for the past, much more definitely stood on the side of the new. He will be treated presently as well in the evolutionary stream of the pagan Renaissance as marking a deviation from medieval tradition. Yet even he posed as an ideal a Renaissance founded upon Christianity: “Let us study philosophy so as to love wisdom. The real wisdom of God is Christ. In order to attain true philosophy, we must love and reverence Him above all things. We must first be Christians—then we may be what we will.”

   Christian Humanism remained the standard of Ambrogio Traversari (1386-1439), a Camaldolese, who introduced the new science of the age to the old through his unofficial school for Florentine clerics that discussed Greek and Latin literature. Gianozzo Manetti (1396-1459), Traversari’s pupil, was, though a layman, of dedicated learning and piety. He placed his knowledge of Oriental languages at the service of Scripture scholars. Lionardo Bruni (1369-1444), a lay student of the papal and Venetian courts, was equally devoted to classical and monastic lore.

   Christian education was planned on the Renaissance model at Mantua by Vittorino da Feltre ( 1397-1446) . This exemplary Catholic layman was commissioned by the Marquis of Mantua to open a school for children of the nobility. Da Feltre did so in 1425 but soon added accommodations for poor scholars instructed “for the love of God.” He held

that fixed hours for study ought to be varied by periods for physical education; hence he promoted excursions for nature study and recreation. He strove to punish more by disgrace than by the rod. Yet he maintained the strictest moral discipline since he held that development of character was even more important than that of the intellect. While he did not believe in humoring every adolescent whim, he did strive to adapt his teaching and curriculum to personal differences. “I want to teach them to think,” he declared, “not to split hairs.” The groundwork of his courses were the classics, mathematics, logic, and metaphysics. Although himself a lay professor for secular students, he attended Mass daily, said prayers before and after meals, and frequented the sacraments. Such was his charity that he died penniless, but so long as he lived his academy was known as the Casa Jocosa: “Happy House.”

   Christian art did not leave the field entirely to the sensualists. Giotto (d. 1337) inaugurated a renaissance of Christian architecture by his decoration of Italian churches. In conception and inspiration, his painting was medieval, but his style marked a transition toward modern ^[7]  techniques, for he “knocked a hole in the wall” by pioneering three-dimensional murals. Fra Angelico (1387-1455) carried forward the new art in religious subjects with a vivid and simple technique. Other Italian artists were Ghiberti (1378-1455) , Masaccio (1402-28) , Lippi (140669) , and Donatello (1386-1466) , though they did not rise to the devotional standards of Giotto and Fra Angelico. German leaders were Van Eyck, Pature (1406-64) , Holbein the Elder (1465-1524) , and the truly great Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528 ) . French artists of note were Jean Foucquet (1415-80) and Michel Colombe (d. 1512) .

   Utility as well as elegance was an aim of building during the Christian Renaissance. Martin Luther himself attested this from observations made during his trip to Rome: “In Italy the hospitals are handsomely built and admirably provided with excellent food and drink, careful attendants and learned physicians. The beds and bedding are clean, and the walls are covered with paintings. When a patient is brought in, his clothes are removed in the presence of a notary who makes a faithful inventory of them, and they are kept safely. A white smock is put on him and he is laid on a comfortable bed with clean linen. Presently two doctors come to him and the servants bring him food and drink in clean glasses. ...”¹

¹ Cited by Ludwig Pastor in History of the Popes (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1902), V, 65.

Francesco Petrarca, already cited as voicing a lofty ideal of a Christian Renaissance, unfortunately belied his Christian principles in his own life by a very pagan avidity for pleasure, honor, and preferment: on Easter Sunday, 1341, he accepted the laurel of Rome’s poet in the Capitol, and saluted Rienzi as restorer of ancient Rome. It is true that in many of his writings he served the Church. He defended faith and morality and kept obscenity from his works. It has been noted that he was not blind to the dangers of the pagan classics: “We must first be Christians, then we may be what we will.” Yet this apparently sound principle may contain a fallacious interpretation that anything whatsoever might be reconciled with Christianity. Evidently he believed that a smug contempt for Scholasticism could be so reconciled: “We bid fair to be no longer philosophers, lovers of the truth, but Aristotelians, or rather Pythagoreans, reviving the absurd custom which permits us to ask no question except whether he said it. . . . I am confident that he [Aristotle] was in error all his life; not only as regards small matters, where a mistake counts for little, but in the most weighty questions.... ‘ Petrarca’s career hints at a danger in the eager pursuit of novelty: that pagan maxims, if rejected in theory, might be accepted in practice. ^[8] Paganism, however, was sufficiently alien to Petrarca’s real character to permit him a happy Christian death.

    Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75) marked a literary, if not a personal, clash with Christian tradition. He remained loyal to the Catholic faith, indeed, but he did not scruple to enshrine immorality in his writings, especially his Decameron, which represented clerics and religious as the “quintessence of all immorality and hypocrisy.” Yet for Boccaccio, “the spring was not yet broken”; he might relish and relate immoral tales, but he did not defend immorality as good. In later life he returned to stricter norms of life, repented of his writings which he desired burned, and died piously. It required some time, then, before the corrosive influence of sensuality could become so strong that its devotees dared face eternity by its maxims.

    Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459) was a great discoverer of classical manuscripts which he published and imitated. He became a pedantic defender of the classics. Insult and calumny poured easily from his pen, and he could serve equally the Holy See and the Synod of Basle. On the other hand, another partisan of Basle and author of immoral writings, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (1405-64), became the penitent Pius II. Grace can always work miracles, but as a rule the pagan humanists did not manifest such thorough conversions.

    Lorenzo Valla (1407-57) seems to denote a deeper descent for he ridiculed morality and advertised Epicureanism in his Book of Pleasure. His proof of the forgery of the “Donation of Constantine” started a vogue of true and false “revelations” which conveyed the impression that the papal theocracy had been but an imposture. Yet even Valla conformed to convention externally. He secured a post in the papal curia, and confined his malice to “off-the-record” remarks.

    Antonio Beccadelli (d. 1471), Valla’s disciple, revealed the depths of the moral abyss yawning for the pagan Renaissance. His Gospel of Pleasure was nothing short of a philosophic defense of impurity and blasphemy based on the immoral norms of the Olympian gods. His vile Hermaphraditus, a collection of obscene epigrams, finally evoked the censure of Pope Eugene IV—a comparatively rare event, for the Renaissance papacy usually stretched the limits of toleration to the utmost.

Discredit of Scholasticism. Scholasticism was admittedly in a condition of decline, though this generalization applies chiefly to the dominant or most highly advertised Nominalism, rather than to loyal Thomists such as Joannes Capreolus (1380-1444) , who produced noteworthy ^[9] work. Scholastic debaters had to a degree lost touch with reality; some even refused to admit the existence of attacks upon their principles. Many forgot essentials for dialectic subtleties. Nonetheless, many sound truths were imbedded in the hard shell of even a decadent Scholasticism, and these formed an outer bulwark of the Faith. It is tragic that Humanists in making their sweeping assaults upon scholastic foibles failed to confine themselves to abuses, but called into question truths intimately connected with Catholic doctrine. To be sure, the early Humanists professed to be merely purifying Faith from scholastic barnacles and to be getting back to the “pure Gospel.” But materially at least some were entertaining actual heresies which, when exposed as such, they would be loath to abandon. Nicholas of Autrecourt dismissed Aristotle with the assertion that he had not reached more than two certain conclusions, and Nicholas of Cusa proclaimed all of philosophy but a docta ignorantia. Such verdicts necessarily attained the scholastic theology so closely linked with its philosophy. Gerard de Groote believed that a youth would be certain to lose his faith if he studied theology at the University of Paris, and Groote’s disciple, Thomas à Kempis, often echoed these sentiments of the pious founder of the Brethren of the Common Life. Some of these men might have had the best of intentions, but the humanist war against scholastic abuses often provoked a pietist reaction which called human reason into question, and intimated that blind faith ought to suffice. Unwittingly they prepared the way for Luther’s “fiducial faith” and his rejection of reason as a “thing of the devil.”

    Vogue of Humanism. Humanist Rationalism, however, was a dangerous substitute for even the worst Scholasticism. Blind faith, some Humanists seemed to believe, absolved a scholar from all limitations upon freedom of thought: they declared themselves Christians; after that they might speculate as they willed. Some assumed license to criticize anything in the Church that failed to correspond to their internal faith, and many presumed that what did not explicitly agree with the Bible could not pertain to Catholic faith. For such, scholastic theology was but human opinion, so that some might suggest that papal and conciliar decrees ultimately rested on nothing more than scholastic theses. The conciliar theory, the revelation of the falsity of the Donation of Constantine and of the Isidorian Decretals, and the practical repudiation of papal temporal presidency, all these trends hinted at a papacy of merely human institution, a government susceptible to unrestrained criticism and to drastic correction like any other. Anticlericalism, moreover, was a deceptive bridge to antiecclesiasticism: men could castigate clerics without drawing the line at their conduct. Finally, so very much could be insinuated through tentative, academic, “as if” propositions: ^{[p. 10]} e.g., the Eucharist would be more reasonable if it were mere bread—though that is contrary to tradition; sound reasons could be advanced for divorce—were this not forbidden by the Gospel. But wait, some might interpose, perhaps it is not banned; perchance the “original text” would contradict the “barbarous” and corrupt Vulgate. Erasmus was a notorious exponent of this tendency to lampoon. He flayed the theologians for “fine distinctions, newfangled phrases, ethereal terminology.” He assured them that the apostles would never have recognized their gibberish, would never have branded propositions with their trifling censures. Monks and religious, clerics and prelates found that though the legitimacy of their state was not formally impugned, Erasmus actually seemed to devote himself almost exclusively to ridiculing and relating the weaknesses of their members. Even Thomas More toyed with this criticism of the clerical order in his Utopia. But St. Thomas knew the difference between right use and abuse, between a joke and serious reality; many Humanists did not.

    Nicola Machiavelli (1469-1527) , long secretary to the Republic of Florence, and admirer of Cesare Borgia, sang sweet music to the ears of nationalistic monarchs in his II Principe. Machiavelli had his share of “as if”: he is perhaps not so much immoral as amoral. Pragmatic and scientific, he worshipped force and success as displayed in the ancient Roman Empire. For him, morality and religion ought to have no bearing on politics: they may be sacred, but they are private matters. Brutality, dissimulation, etc., were to be condoned as means to preserve the state, which was to be exalted at all costs. Political motives might be pursued with a certain cynicism, for man was bad, a brute needing curbs. The prince should make the best of this by securing material prosperity. Forms of government were to be judged by their efficiency: either a prince or a commonwealth might be best in different periods. Population ought to be increased, allies gained, property judiciously confiscated, war and diplomacy cultivated—all for the aggrandizement of the state. A sage use of force might be employed, but harsh measures might be blamed on deputies, while favors could be distributed personally. Enlightened despotism, then, should divide and conquer, masking itself when expedient under the cloak of religion, though in the last emergency “reason of state” might justify any expedient.

    National monarchs and petty tyrants might all repudiate any blatant Machiavellianism, yet many put its teachings to what use they dared. For the prince, though he had emerged victorious over the feudality and had enlisted the bourgeoisie as allies, could not yet be said to have subjugated the clergy. A courageous bishop could yet unmask him, and  ^{[p. 11]} failing such a prelate, there was always the pope. There was no room for theocracy in the new state system, and long before Luther, princes must have been speculating on a realm over which the popes could exercise a minimum of control, if, indeed, any at all. A military revolution was providing kings with the tools of absolutism. Feudal armies were becoming obsolete and mercenaries taking their place. Gunpowder and artillery now penetrated knightly armor and castles—the papacy would learn this lesson in 1527 when Rome itself was sacked.

If the intellectual Renaissance can be designated in its pagan excesses a rebirth of sensuality, the economic Renaissance was simply a revival of greed. Canonical bans on usury became dead letters as capitalists came into their own. If some moral theologians were slow in adapting themselves to the new situation, it cannot be said that conscientious merchants were left without moral guidance. Thus St. Antonine of Florence (d. 1459) pointed out the scope of legitimate interest in “lawful trade”; urged upon public authority a concern for social justice, e.g., in providing an adequate store of supplies, in supporting physicians, if need be, for the care of the poor; and suggested that “drug stores” might remain open in rotation on Sundays to meet essential needs. But profit, not need, was becoming a prevailing canon of distribution.

2. THE ECCLESIASTICAL RENAISSANCE

    Benevolence toward Humanism. Even before the election of Pope Nicholas V in 1447, the papacy had fostered the Renaissance, though the resources of the pontiffs of the period of the schisms were meager. Eugene IV had little desire or opportunity to promote Humanism, but with Nicholas V and his successors it came into its own. Most of these popes subsidized Humanists, even some of their least worthy representatives. This tolerance and favor are to be explained by reasons of expediency, sometimes a little too human. The humanistic style of writing had become so important politically that every court required classical scholars as secretaries, librarians, and diplomats. The Humanists were the leaders of public opinion and had to be conciliated if the Church were to maintain its hold upon the intelligentsia. Their skill in invective, moreover, was such that they were quite capable of lampooning their adversaries to opprobrium or oblivion. Most popes considered it better to conciliate them—though this often saved them merely from public, not from private vituperation from men whom they subsidized. Finally, the popes were temporal princes surrounded by foes who used  ^{[p. 12]} Humanists as propaganda agents; politically minded pontiffs were inclined to retaliate with the same weapons.

Patronage of culture. The civilizing role of the Church had been one of its secondary functions from ancient times. Just as she had preserved those very manuscripts which the Humanists were now resurrecting, so it was fitting that she should lead in the new movement to utilize them. The task of inspiring and guiding renaissance culture fell chiefly to the papacy in view of its newly centralized organization and greater resources. Nor did the Holy See neglect this opportunity. The restoration of Rome and its edifices under papal auspices employed what was best in renaissance art and architecture. This attitude of the popes in trying to sponsor the Renaissance and turn it to good was in no way at fault in itself. It was the neglect of proper discrimination that brought papal leadership into disrepute and gave rise to scandal. Even this carelessness is explicable, if not excusable. The papacy in its human aspect was nothing else than what its possessors made it. During the period the popes were beset by so many cares of a temporal nature that they sometimes lost sight of the less tangible spiritual perils which threatened Christendom. Some of the popes had themselves been Humanists, and not always exemplary ones, so that complete objectivity was not always to be expected.

The College of Cardinals, from which these popes were selected, had not greatly improved since Avignon days. Though its composition in pursuance of a recommendation of the Council of Constance was now somewhat more cosmopolitan, its membership remained select. The cardinalate too often became the reward of younger sons of sovereign families, just as bishoprics were often given to younger sons of noble houses. Such cardinals carried their nationalistic prejudices and dynastic rivalries into conclaves, exacted capitulation oaths of prospective nominees, and constituted an inert, reactionary phalanx against any thorough reform of the Church “in head and members.” To combat cardinalatial intrigue, popes often had recourse to nepotism.

(2) THE HIERARCHY

    The bishops and abbots in many lands had become by this time “lords spiritual,” palatine in Germany and aristocrats everywhere. The abuses of the Dark Ages were creeping back, though a more refined and cultured era hid these disorders more carefully from public view. Such prelates had already been denounced at the opening of the fifteenth century by St. Vincent Ferrer: “They are vain and arrogant courtiers, lovers of fine living and pompous display, and much given to usury; they make their faith subservient to schemes of worldly wealth and ^{[p. 13]} ambition, and entirely neglect the care of their churches; they visit the great ones of the world and the wealthy, but seldom the poor and the lowly.” ² Even after due account has been taken of the rhetorical generalizations of this austere preacher, it is difficult to resist the impression that one or more of these strictures falls on many prelates of this period. It is true that the good bishop received less publicity, but that in itself was a symptom. When only one bishop in the entire native English hierarchy remained faithful in the ultimate test, when the list of defections among German prince-bishops to Lutheranism is read, there seems to have been but slight overstatement. Prelatial abuses rest of course on fragmentary and inadequate documentation; but with this reservation the statistics presented by Father Philip Hughes may be examined.³

2. Cited by John Alzog in History of the Church (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1876) , II, 929.

3. Philip Hughes, History of the Catholic Church (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1947), III, 441 ff., 535 ff.

    Nepotism. Sixtus IV conferred the cardinalate on six nephews, only one of whom was able, and even he was immoral. Innocent VIII provided openly for his son, daughter, and grandchildren; Pope Alexander VI had four children, one of whom he made a cardinal, while promoting other relations to the same dignity. Valencia was ruled by five absentee Borgia prelates during eighty years; Naples was in the hands of the Carafa from 1458 to 1576; three Campeggios governed Felletre from 1512 to 1580; the Ferreri possessed Ivria from 1497 to 1612, and Vercelli from 1503 to 1572; Siena was ruled by Piccolomini from 1450 to 1597; Mendi was a Della Rovere province and Metz a Lorraine-Guise sphere of influence for more than a century. In Saragossa, illegitimate scions of the Aragonese dynasty ruled between 1458 and 1577, and Juan, natural son of Ferdinand II, left his see to his own son Juan in 1520.

    Commendation. Giovanni de’ Medici, the future Leo X, was cardinal archbishop of Florence at thirteen. Between 1484 and 1503 Innocent VIII or Alexander VI gave fifty sees to youths under the canonical age; Leo X bestowed Lisbon and two other sees on Alfonso Braganza at the age of eight, but made him wait a year longer for the cardinal’s hat. Ippolito d’Este was archbishop of Milan at eleven, and Jean de Lorraine resigned one of his sees to a nephew of nine and another to one of five. Lesser benefices were bestowed on infants in the cradle.

    Pluralities. Of twenty-five cardinals named by Pope Leo X, but two had merely two sees; most had five; Giuliano de’ Medici had nine, and Jean de Lorraine was high scorer with ten. Rodrigo Borgia once had seventeen sees, the Roman vice-chancellorship, and innumerable lesser dignities. Absenteeism was a natural consequence of this multiplication ^{[p. 14]} of sees: not only were most of the cardinals nonresident, but many bishops as well: Milan had not had a resident archbishop for a century before the arrival of St. Charles Borromeo in 1565.

(3) THE CLERICS

    Secular and regular clergy were alike held up to ridicule by the humanist writers of the time. Much allowance has to be made for these denunciations of the Humanists and their sweeping generalizations often based only on fertile imaginations. Surely the majority of the lesser clerics could not have aped the prelates; for one thing, they were too poor. To what extent immorality was prevalent among them, is impossible to determine. It would seem that at least a large minority were violating the law of celibacy, and that in some districts this abuse was no longer considered remarkable. The secular clergy, indeed, seem to have been the worst offenders in this respect. The regulars were generally freer from glaring vices, but their monasteries were too often in a state of relaxation. Worst of all, seculars and regulars had become rivals for the patronage of the laity, either in devotion or in remuneration. Local councils denounced mendicant friars to the Holy See for usurpation of parochial jurisdiction, while the friars retorted by flaying the secular clergy from the pulpit. Sometimes competing services led to “battles of the bells.”

    Penitential preachers, nevertheless, were one of the hopeful signs of the times. These zealous, if not always prudent, men castigated clerics and laity alike in blunt and scathing language. Their strictures were almost invariably heard with respect, and they usually produced at least temporary amendment, for few were the consciences hardened in sin. On the other hand, “bonfires of vanities,” such as those lighted by Savonarola, seem to have burned out within a few months or perhaps weeks. Yet given a reformed and spiritually alert hierarchy, it would not. have been too much to expect that existing disorders could have been cured by the same means as once had availed during the Reforming Theocracy. The greatest of the Renaissance reform preachers were St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Antonine of Florence, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, legate to Germany, St. John Capistrano, and St. James della Marca. Reform was also carried out to some degree among the Benedictines, the Dominicans, and some of the branches of the Franciscans, but unfortunately was not long sustained. The chief new religious community of the Renaissance period was the Brethren of the Common Life, founded by Gerard de Groote and confirmed by Pope Boniface IX. During the fifteenth century the members of this congregation performed excellent work in the Netherlands and Germany in the cause of Christian education and Humanism. Janssen also gives many instances of monasteries ^{[p. 15]} and other religious institutes continuing to promote social welfare in Germany,⁴ and Gasquet has done the same for England.⁵ But if the rank and file of the clergy were doing their duty in many instances, without the backing of the hierarchy they could effect little widespread and lasting reformation.

4. Johannes Janssen, History of the German People at the Close of the Middle Ages (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1896), I, II.

5. Francis Gasquet, Henry VIII and the Monasteries (London: John Hodges, 1893), I, II.

    Catechisms and prayer books, together with vernacular translations of the whole or parts of the Bible, revealed that the teaching clergy were not entirely unmindful of the needs of the laity. To take but one example, a manual of confession prepared for the laity by St. Antonine of Florence reveals a keen appreciation of contemporary spiritual problems. Lawyers are asked to examine themselves on whether they have made their services available to all; merchants, if they have sold goods of poor quality or used faulty measures, and so on. If much of the blame for Protestant apostasy attaches to bad clerics, the credit for heroic Catholic constancy in the time of trial should also be given to the faithful clergy of the Renaissance.

 (1) THE RULING CLASSES

    Courtly immorality. Worse in the absolute sense than the disorders of the prelates, were those of the ruling classes during the Renaissance. Though external magnificence characterized the courts of Naples, Florence, Milan, and Venice, the Italian pacemakers, these palaces hid the worst imaginable moral corruption. The precautions taken by the youth, St. Aloysius Gonzaga of Castiglione, which might seem unreasonably prudish to the modern reader, were posited on a corrupt environment. With but few exceptions, the princes and nobles of the Renaissance came under sweeping indictment for sexual immorality, and even unnatural vices. The distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children was almost effaced for such aristocrats.

    Despotism. Leaving this subject with much unsaid, there was cruelty as well. Giovanni Maria Visconti thought nothing of feeding his dogs on human flesh. Pandolfo Petrucci of Siena spent idle moments in rolling down boulders on the road without regard for passers-by. Poison and assassination were so commonplace that rumor pronounced any demise of a prominent individual murder until proved otherwise. Ferrante of Naples was known to invite suspects to dinner, seize them, confine them in dungeons. There he would gloat over them, and after robbing and torturing them, put them to death. These were moral monsters, of

^{[p. 16]} course, but the typical renaissance despot was a calloused ruler. Slavery had returned to Italy, and courts prided themselves on the number of their slaves, black and white, male and female. Even at the better courts, not always excluding the papal, quite indecent plays and dances were held. As for lesser vices, such as vainglory, idleness, extravagance, the nobility were simply ridiculous. Yet over all was spread the mantle of rare artistry, song, and poetry, under the aegis of some patron like Lorenzo the Magnificent. The utter divorce between political and Christian morality led to constant intrigue so that Italy was ever disturbed, and communicated her troubles to France, Spain, and Germany which were seeking to appropriate her territories. Professional soldiers craved occupation, and war was almost a normal condition of the state. Military pay was usually insufficient, and it was understood that the military might reimburse themselves by plunder, ransom, rape, and in case they were resisted, by slaughter.

    Anticlerical avarice. If Italian princes were more refined and munificent, northern rulers were more brutal and avaricious. It is of these that Cardinal Cesarini warned Eugene IV a half-century before Luther “When the heresy of Bohemia is quenched, another still more dangerous will arise. ... Who can fail to see that there is danger of a total subversion? Woe to the ecclesiastics wherever they may be found. . . . They will be declared incorrigible, decided as they are to live in shameful deformity, cost what it may.... Minds of men are full of what they are preparing against us.” ⁶

6.Cited by Don Luigi Sturzo in Church and State, trans. Barbara Carter (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1939), p. 192.

 (2) THE COMMON PEOPLE

    Bourgeoisie. As a whole, the common people shared less in the advantages and disadvantages of the Renaissance and were less tainted by its vices. But the wealthier bourgeoisie patterned their lives on those of their masters in Church and State. In their case also, gambling and luxurious extravagance followed in the wake of stupendous commercial prosperity. In this Venice and Genoa led, but other cities shared through trade and plunder. On the other hand, pestilence followed on ceaseless wars and flagrant immorality. The Church worked to provide hospitals, and Luther has been cited as paying tribute to her success in Italy. But superstition and astrology were also prevalent.

    Peasantry. In the country the peasants in many instances preserved their primitive simplicity and devotion to the Church. Before the Protestant Revolt they were often quite well off. Agriculture was producing good results so that even rural areas afforded temptation for

^{[p. 17]} plunder. Peasants of course counted for little in the society of the Renaissance, though the day would come when those allowed to do so would declare emphatically for the Church of their fathers. But the peasantry were woefully uninstructed and prone to superstitions. They would be equally susceptible to plausible proposals of innovators, and could be imposed upon by deliberate falsifications of the Mass and the sacraments. But all in all, the traditions of medieval Christendom were still honored among rural folk.

    Popular education. There is evidence that Christian piety was still strong. Pastor ⁷ cites extant Italian diaries which show the solicitude of parents for their duties, especially those of attending church, training children, and caring for the household. Landucci manifests a Christian resignation in losses of fortune and a high sense of his responsibility before God. Significant are Dominici’s counsels for rearing children: when a parent corrects a child, it should be received with thanks; children ought to be silent in their parents’ presence, but when spoken to, ought to respond modestly; children should not go out without the knowledge and blessing of their parents; they ought, then, to be brought up first of all for God, next for their parents, third for themselves, fourth for their country, and fifth with a view to the trials of life. If this regime is highly paternalistic, it will be recalled that Da Feltre worked out a progressive program on Christian bases. The illiterate continued to derive some benefit from mystery and morality plays. As late as 1644, the Anglican minister Mr. Shaw encountered a rustic whose sole recollection of Christ was derived from a Corpus Christi play witnessed by the old man in Catholic days.⁸ The ancient Church, then, was not entirely neglectful.

7.Pastor, op. cit., Introduction, 27.

8.. A. Halliwell-Philips, “Life of Shakespeare,” Modern Readers’ Shakespeare (New York: Shakespeare Editors, 1909), I, 23.

3. THE RENAISSANCE PAPACY

Tommaso Parentucelli da Sarzano, cardinal bishop of Bologna, was elected to succeed Pope Eugene IV in a tranquil conclave, March 6, 1447. The new pontiff was a sincere and ardent scholar of exemplary life, who devoted himself to the cause of the Christian Renaissance both before and especially after his election. He was a delicate, slight man of fifty, voluble and impatient, but cheerful and straightforward. With him, the papacy set about in earnest to patronize the Renaissance for the welfare of the Church. As cardinal, Nicholas had collected a goodly ^{[p. 18]} number of patristic writings. As pope, he continued to gather manuscripts, not only those preserved in Western monasteries, but also those saved from the wreck of the Byzantine monarchy in 1453. From these efforts came the nucleus of the Vatican Library, which may be regarded in a sense as Pope Nicholas’s creation. Though personally engaged in the manifold cares of administration, the pope employed manuscript scouts, translators, and transcribers to work under his direction. Even during his own pontificate the Vatican collection became the largest in Italy, and contained several thousand manuscripts. Special care was taken to promote the study of Greek literature, both in the original and in translations. Nicholas was unsparing of funds to finance these undertakings; once when some scholars expressed surprise at the size of the sums placed at their disposal, he urged: “Don’t refuse; you may not find another Nicholas.”

    Art and architecture were also promoted by Pope Nicholas V and modern ecclesiastical Rome owes much to an over-all plan conceived by him. He made remote preparations for the erection of the present St. Peter’s Basilica, although work could not be commenced during his pontificate. He likewise began a series of alterations which brought the Vatican palace to its present condition. The restoration of churches, bridges, monuments, and fortifications was prosecuted vigorously, though in so doing this pope consented to the ruthless destruction of ancient buildings in order to secure materials for his own edifices. In his court, he patronized Fra Angelico, Poggio, Fidelfo, Valla, and other artists. His patronage, however, was somewhat lacking in discrimination, for he pensioned some of the worst of the humanist critics of the clerical state.

    Theocratic afterglow. Under Pope Nicholas V, indeed, the discredited medieval theocracy seemed for a moment to take on new vigor. The Greek Reunion achieved at the Council of Florence was still formally in existence until 1453, and in 1449 he received the submission of the rebel Council of Basle in the West. Thus, for the Jubilee of 1450 all of Christendom was officially one, though it must be noted that masses of the Oriental dissidents did not adhere to the Florentine Union. In 1452 Frederick III became the last emperor to receive the imperial coronation at Rome—though Charles V would be crowned by the pope at Bologna in 1530. But Frederick III was too powerless to assist the pope, and in 1453 the communal revolt of Stefano Porcaro revealed the weakness of papal temporal rule in Rome itself. Though this plot to seize and possibly kill the pope was foiled, Nicholas V had received a severe jolt. He fell ill, and was confined to bed for much of the last year of his pontificate, dying on March 24, 1455. ^{[p. 19]}

 (2) MODERATION OF PAPAL PATRONAGE (1455-64)

     Calixtus III (1455-58) . Alonso Borgia, a Spaniard, was elected to succeed Nicholas V on April 8, 1455. The new pontiff was seventy-seven years old and in feeble health. Though personally blameless, he left the Church a mournful legacy in naming three nephews to the cardinalate. Two of these were of little worth, and the last, Rodrigo, although possessing great administrative talent, was grossly immoral. Calixtus III gave his chief attention to promoting the anti-Turkish campaign, but his nepotism gave Christian princes a pretext for refusing his requests for money, and in vain did Cardinal Piccolomini prepare an apology for the Holy See. Calixtus himself was a competent scholar and continued to patronize the Christian Renaissance, but military expenditures reduced available funds. The pope died on August 6, 1458.

    Pius II (1458-64) . Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, by now the cardinal bishop of Siena, was chosen to succeed Calixtus on August 20, 1458. He was a prematurely aged man at fifty-three, although he retained great energy of will. His early life and writings had been all too typical of the pagan Renaissance. He had been one of the leading spirits at the rebel synod of Basle, and had participated in the selection of the antipope “Felix V.” In 1442, however, he had withdrawn from Basle, first to the imperial policy of neutrality, and finally to complete submission to the Holy See. As proof of his conversion—and an overt bid for a new clerical career—he won over Emperor Frederick III and a majority of the German prelates and lords to acknowledge Pope Eugene IV. Aeneas was subsequently ordained to the priesthood and entirely forsook his immoral life, though not the praiseworthy part of his humanistic activities. Upon his election to the papacy, Pius II made public apology to the Church in a Bulla Retractationum-: “In my youth I was led astray, and in ignorance and like St. Paul of old, I persecuted the Church of God and the Apostolic See. Some indeed may now say, ‘Aeneas, who afterwards became pope, wrote thus and thus,’ and may fancy that Pürs Ti and the Holy See now approves what Aeneas then wrote. Let them, therefore, regard those early writings as of no consequence, and believe what Aeneas now teaches, that the pope, receiving the plenitude of authority over the whole Church immediately from Jesus Christ, confers all power possessed by the other members of the body ecclesiastic.... Hence, reject Aeneas; accept Pius.” In 1460, moreover, this former conciliarist rejected the conciliar theory in Execrabilis: “It is worthy of malediction that some presume to appeal to a future council . : from the Roman pontiff, the Vicar of Jesus Christ.... Such appeals we condemn and reprobate as erroneous and detestable” (Denzinger 717) . Pope Pius, as ^{[p. 20]} might be expected, was in sympathy with the Renaissance, but his own experience taught him to be more discriminating in his patronage of Humanists than his predecessors. He carefully excluded immoral Humanists from favor, and despite their recriminations, frowned on the poetic vogue of invoking the Muses and other pagan deities. As will be related elsewhere in detail, Pius II did his best to sponsor a crusade. But his conciliar past hampered his relations with Germany, where all his diplomatic talents were required to escape a serious threat of a national antipapal council.

(3) PAPAL MAGNIFICENCE (1464-71)

    Paul II (1464-71), the former Pietro Barbo, was elected in a one-day conclave, August 30, 1464. The new pope had been born at Venice in 1417 and had at first looked toward a business career. But at the accession of his uncle, Pope Eugene IV, he entered the clerical state and was rewarded in 1440 with the cardinalate. He distinguished himself by his generosity to Humanists and by his affability to all. To this he may in part have owed his election, for he did not scruple to reverse Pius II’s rigorous policies while still in the conclave. Though he annulled his capitulation oath after election—as such popes invariably did—his pontificate does mark a considerable departure from the high standard of papal conduct set by his predecessors. With Paul II less admirable traits of the Renaissance began to distinguish even the personal lives of the popes. It is true that the adage, nemo repente fit summus, was verified: Paul’s foibles were not gross. But this handsome man of forty-eight is reported to have been inordinately vain; it is said that only with difficulty could he be restrained from calling attention to his appearance by taking the title of “Formosus II.” Throughout his pontificate he was fond of display. He built the magnificent Palazzo di Venezia—later Mussolini’s residence—and introduced carnival festivities. Nor was his collection of coins, shells, pearls, and dainty curios of all sorts exactly the most pressing papal business of the moment. To his credit, however, it should be said that he was not guilty of serious immorality, and was discriminating in his patronage of Humanists. He ordered the dissolution of the College of Abbreviators, whose membership was composed in large part of reprehensible Humanists. Their leader, Bartolommeo Sacchi alias Platina (1421-81), thereupon threatened conciliarism. He was imprisoned, but allowed to survive to vilify Paul II in his Vitae Pontificum.

    Politics. It would seem that insofar as his love of pomp and magnificence represented a deliberate policy, Paul II intended to enhance the dignity of the Holy See and bolster its control of the Papal State. Renaissance standards now demanded magnificence and munificence of ^{[p. 21]} rulers, and Paul II seems to have been all too willing to conform. But his attitude necessarily obscured the spiritual character of the papacy, and revealed a preoccupation by Paul and his immediate successors with their role as Italian princes, to the prejudice of their position as common fathers of Christendom. The latter concept was never entirely neglected, but seemed to be relegated to secondary place in contemporary opinion. In order to subdue the Lord of Rimini, Paul II allied himself with Venice. Other Italian states deemed this a threat to the balance of power and banded together to defeat the papal armies in 1469. Paul II was obliged to make peace, but was constructing a new alliance with Modena when he died on July 26, 1471. These incongruous wars and alliances were soon to become a commonplace to the renaissance papacy, and under Paul’s successors politics took at least equal prominence with Humanism.

(1) PRINCELY IMITATION: SIXTUS IV

    Sixtus IV (1471-84 ). Cardinal Francesco della Rovere, once minister-general of the Franciscans, was elected to succeed Paul II, August 9, 1471. The new pope had many good qualities. Yet by his nepotism he suggests the high priest Heli whose sons abused his indulgence. For Sixtus IV made one nephew, Leonardo, prefect of Rome and married him to a daughter of Ferrante of Naples—thus arose a feud with Florence. Another nephew, Giovanni, became prefect in succession to his brother, and married into the ruling family of Urbino, to which state the della Rovere clan eventually succeeded. A third nephew, fiery, ambitious, immoral Giuliano, was made cardinal—he was the future Julius II. A fourth nephew, Pietro Riario, promoted cardinal at twenty-five, was given Florence and five other sees. He set an unprecedented example of debauchery and extravagance. Still a fifth nephew, Girolamo Riario, was endowed with part of the Papal State as a secular duchy, though he was later assassinated. In all, six red hats and countless benefices were showered among eleven nephews and cousins. Not merely did Sixtus thus lavish the goods of the Holy See upon his family, but he directed papal diplomacy with a view to advancing Della Rovere fortunes.

    Ecclesiastical government. Sixtus IV drew up a program for curial reform, but when the cardinals objected, refrained from promulgating it. Another document was designed to mitigate rivalry between the Dominicans and Franciscans, and the regular and secular clergy. Such, however, was his partiality for his own order that his mediation had little effect; in fact, the Franciscans were themselves incensed at his efforts to unite the Observantine Friars with his own laxer branch of Conventuals  ^{[p. 22]}. Pope Sixtus’s cardinals were for the most part worldly or political figures. The pontiff was too complacent toward monarchs in conceding patronage; during his pontificate Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain secured from him virtual control of the sees in their dominions, as well as of the Inquisition. Nor was Sixtus a vigilant temporal administrator: without his knowledge, speculation in wheat resulted in bad management and exorbitant taxation. A redeeming feature of his pontificate was his devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Sixtus promoted the recitation of the rosary and favored the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, though he refrained from pronouncing a definition in the face of contemporary theological disputes.

    The Renaissance continued in favor. Platina was reinstated as librarian of an enlarged Vatican collection. Nicholas V’s building program was carried forward: the Sistine Chapel and several famous Roman churches were erected. Humanists were subsidized by Sixtus and his kin, though frequently without discernment and at disproportionate expense. Much was done, however, for public welfare in Rome by building bridges and introducing fresh water by a new aqueduct. Yet in popular estimation the abuse of nepotism overshadowed all of the pope’s benefactions, so that at Sixtus’s death there was a vindictive reaction against the members of his family.

(2) PAPAL-FLORENTINE CONTEST (1478-80)

    Anti-Florentine policy. Pope Sixtus IV’s designs of enriching his family threatened the status quo of Italian politics, and roused the opposition of the leading statesman, Lorenzo the Magnificent, “first citizen” of Florence. A refusal of a red hat to the Medici seems to have begun the estrangement. When the Medici banking firm in turn withheld a loan to the Holy See, Sixtus IV took papal finances from their management. Then, believing that the pope intended to encircle Florentine territory by means of fiefs bestowed upon his nephews, Lorenzo countenanced the rebellion of Citta di Castello against papal rule. Nomination of two of Sixtus’s relatives, Pietro Riario and Francesco Salviati, to the sees of Florence and Pisa, moreover, introduced these personae non gratae into the Medici sphere of influence.

    The Pazzi Conspiracy. The Pazzi, rival nobles of Florence, formed a plot in 1478 to overthrow the Medici’s domination of the city. Girolamo Riario, Lord of Imola, entered the conspiracy and sounded out the pope. After eliciting from Sixtus a wish for a change of government in Florence, Riario intimated that this could not be achieved without the death of the Medici. The pope replied that he wished no man’s death. In the end he consented to the use of armed men, repeated his injunction that no lives be sacrificed, but scarcely could have imagined that ^{[p. 23]} the two courses were compatible under the circumstances. Pastor suggests that Sixtus really wished the revolt to take place, though without formally implicating himself. If we are in possession of all the facts, this would seem to be a reasonable deduction.

    The plot accordingly went forward. On Sunday, April 26, 1478, Sixtus’s grandnephew, Cardinal Raffaele Sansoni—innocent of the plot for he was but seventeen—came to Florence to preside at High Mass coram Medici. By prearranged signal, hired assassins, the clerics Stefano and Maffei, fell on the Medici brothers—at the time of the elevation, some said. Giovanni was slain, but Lorenzo was able to escape to the sacristy with but a light wound. There his retainers rallied and seized the chief conspirators. Most of them, including Archbishop Salviati, were hanged in the piazza without ceremony.

    Settlement. Sixtus IV could not easily reprove the Medici but demanded the release of Cardinal Sansoni and deplored the violation of clerical immunity in the case of Salviati. When the Florentines defied papal orders, Lorenzo was excommunicated and the city placed under interdict in June, 1478. To enforce his censures, the pope formed a league of Italian states against Florence. But Lorenzo by a daring personal visit to Ferrante of Naples detached that prince from the papal alliance, and in 1480 the Turkish capture of Otranto in southern Italy diverted attention. In December, 1480, after twelve Florentine citizens had expressed contrition for the violation of clerical immunity, Sixtus removed the interdict, though Lorenzo’s excommunication continued. Sixtus IV formed yet other pacts, often changing partners until his nephews dragged him into the ignominious Peace of Bagniolo, August 7, 1484. News of this settlement, so unfavorable to the family interests, precipitated the pope’s death on August 12—the fate of Heli.

4. THE EVIL STEWARDS

    Conclave. The announcement of Sixtus IV’s death was followed by mob violence. The Colonna, whom the Della Rovere had striven to dispossess, sacked the Riario palace and drove the papal nephews from Rome. Factions mounted armed guard; shops were closed; the cardinals barricaded themselves in their residences. Not until August 22 was Cardinal Barbo, a nephew of Paul II, able to secure the evacuation of armed bands so that an election might be held. But although actual violence was not perpetrated, representatives of the Roman and Italian nobility worked strenuously among the twenty-five cardinals to procure a candidate of their liking. The cardinals themselves were linked to many of the parties and the conclave of August 26 witnessed political  ^{[p. 24]} intrigues and financial haggling. The leading candidates were Cardinal della Rovere and Rodrigo Borgia. When it became clear that neither could obtain a majority of votes, they united forces on the undistinguished Cardinal Giovanni Battista Cibo, whom each believed that he could control. Sufficient votes were won, perhaps by simony, and Cibo assured of election. Prior to formal selection he signed favors in view of it; on August 28, he was saluted as Innocent VIII.

    Innocent VIII was a negative, amiable character, but by no means worthy of the pontifical name that he took. Before ordination he had become the father of two illegitimate children, whom he publicly acknowledged both before and after his election to the papacy. As Sixtus IV devoted much of his time to advancing his nephews, so Innocent VIII seemed wholly absorbed in providing for his family. Matrimonial alliances stood him in good stead in reconciling himself with Sixtus’s foes. Lorenzo de’ Medici was pacified by a match between Maddalena Medici and Franceschetto Cibo, and the creation of Giovanni de’ Medici a cardinal at the age of thirteen. The pope’s granddaughter Battistina was betrothed to Luigi, grandson of Ferrante of Naples, and the Vatican palace formed a good place to celebrate the wedding banquet. The latter alliance, however, came only in 1491 after the pope had spent his pontificate in a vain attempt to compel Ferrante by force of arms to respect papal rights over Neapolitan bishoprics. Innocent VIII was also a failure in administration: in 1488 it was discovered that chancery officials, who had bought their offices from the pope, had recouped their losses by forging and selling some fifty papal bulls—six culprits went to the stake. Yet Innocent’s authentic bulls were not remarkable; the most notorious was that against witchcraft in Germany, which though sound in doctrine, had accepted too readily unfounded rumors. But the pope acted prudently in prohibiting Pico della Mirandola’s offer to defend 900 theses on “dialectics, morals, physics, mathematics, metaphysics, theology, magic, and Cabalism,” as derived from the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldean, Arabian, and Egyptian sages. Even for a Humanist of the Renaissance, such a tour de force seemed excessive. Pope Innocent’s crusading activities were largely confined to purchasing from France the custody of the Turkish Prince Djem, for whose continued incarceration the Sultan was paying 45,000 ducats annually. For the rest, the pope is praised for his universal kindliness, often verging upon indulgence. But “charity does cover a multitude of sins,” and Innocent VIII was granted time to prepare for a pious death on July 25, 1492.

(2) ALEXANDER VI (1492-1503)

    Simonical conclave. The election of August, 1492, was more disgraceful even than the preceding. The chief contenders were the same as in ^{[p. 25]} 1484, but Cardinal della Rovere had been discredited by his diplomatic service during the last disastrous pontificate. His rival, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, nonetheless lacked enough votes among the twenty-three cardinals entering the conclave. After three unsuccessful ballots, Borgia is reported to have purchased the vote of his other rival, Ascanio Sforza, by promising him the Roman vice-chancellorship, the most lucrative office in the curia, which Borgia then held. About nine other votes were influenced by the promises of lesser benefices, and these with the suffrages of his partisans—including his own—brought Borgia to one short of the necessary two thirds. The other cardinals resisted suasion of any fashion until the night of August 10, when the ninety-five year old Cardinal Gherardo was prevailed upon to give his decisive but dubiously lucid vote. The next day Borgia emerged from the conclave as Alexander VI.

    Rodrigo Borgia (1431-1503) had been created cardinal over thirty years previously by his uncle, Pope Calixtus III. Since the age of twenty-five, Borgia had been a prominent, efficient, and scandalous member of the papal curia. A reprimand from Pius II in 1460 hints at his immorality or at least serious misconduct at Siena. Borgia was living in concubinage with twice married Vanozza dei Cattanei, by whom he had four illegitimate and sacrilegious children—for he had been ordained (1468) and consecrated (1471 ) . These children, all born between 1474 and 1481, were Juan, duke of Gandia and grandfather of St. Francis Borgia; Caesar, cardinal and later duke of Valentinois; Joffre, prince-consort of Naples; and the notorious Lucrezia, who fortunately does not seem to have lived up to her reputation. By another concubine, Rodrigo Borgia had a son Pedro and a daughter Girolama. But it seems that this dismal tale does not cease with Borgia’s election to the papacy: for a bull of September 1, 1501, legitimates one Juan Borgia as the son of Alexander VI. Juan was born in 1497 and his mother could have been Vanozza (1442-1518) , Borgia’s privately acknowledged mistress since 1460, or quaedam Romana of the contemporary gossips. The foregoing seem to be the facts, and no defense, including Orestes Ferrara’s, has succeeded in refuting them. On the other hand, this “revisionist literature” has rendered a service in revealing that many charges of incest and unnatural crimes were entirely unsubstantiated, if not disproved. Rodrigo Borgia was by no means a monster; he was simply a brilliant man of the world, capable of being an efficient secular prince, but entirely miscast in the role of ecclesiastic. His highly developed sexual instinct he would not curb, nor would he sacrifice his clerical ambitions by entering a legitimate marital union. He sinned habitually, and acknowledged his failings at least to intimates. His frequent repentances seem to have been sincere, but life-long habit was not overcome by ^{[p. 26]} pious wishes. Intent in his own way on advancing the interests of the Holy See by political security, Alexander VI seems to have postponed his own conversion from day to day. Meanwhile he hoped against hope in the Blessed Virgin—it is by his directive that the Angelus is recited today. And that Blessed Lady may have saved him: he died suddenly, but not before he could make his confession and receive Viaticum. As an individual Alexander sinned through weakness rather than malice, but he could not have blinded himself to the immense scandal that he gave to the Church. He was a great “King of Rome,” but as pope his sole reason for existence seems to have been to prove St. Leo’s assertion that “Peter’s dignity does not fail in an unworthy successor.”

(1) FRENCH INVASION (1492-95 )

    Political alignments. To offset Florentine influence, and to secure a marriage for his son, Alexander VI allied himself with Alfonso of Naples. Florence, bereft of Lorenzo the Magnificent since 1492, vacillated between his incompetent son Piero and the rising prestige of the Friar Savonarola. But the French, still claiming Naples in virtue of Queen Jane’s will, were alienated from the Papal State. Also discontented were Cardinal Ascanio Sforza and his brother, Lodovico Il Moro, regent of the Milanese. Lodovico, unwilling to yield power to the rightful duke, his nephew Gian-Galeazzo, sought to maintain himself with French aid. He invited Charles VIII of France to invade the Italian peninsula, an undertaking entirely agreeable to the latter on his own account. This invasion proved the beginning of a long period of foreign intervention and domination in Italian affairs.

    French victories. In September, 1494, Charles VIII departed from France to join Lodovico, who was emboldened to dispose of GianGaleazzo. Charles next marched to Florence where Savonarola hailed him as the instrument of divine vengeance which he had long prophesied. The friar induced his fellow-citizens to expel Piero de’ Medici and admit the French. Cardinal della Rovere deserted to the French and incited the king to march on Rome where he might coerce Alexander VI into bestowing Neapolitan investiture. Unable to resist, the pope excommunicated Charles and prepared to flee. But the king was too quick for him and occupied Rome without opposition. Alexander was now in great peril, for his foes talked of an ecumenical council to try him for simony and immorality, charges that he could scarcely rebut. Cardinal della Rovere threatened vengeance and Fabrizio Colonna held Ostia. But Alexander VI made the best of a bad diplomatic position by reaching an accord on New Year’s Day, 1495, with the French king. By its terms Charles was authorized to traverse papal territory to attack Naples  ^{[p. 27]} with which Alexander renounced his alliance. While Charles bore down on Naples, Alfonso in despair abdicated in favor of his son, Ferrante II, and fled to Sicily. Ferrante soon followed, permitting Charles VIII to occupy Naples in February, 1495.

    Reversal. While the king dallied in Naples, giving himself up to pleasure and awaiting formal papal investiture in this fief, Alexander VI was busy. He detached Lodovico Il Moro from the French alliance to join a “League of Venice,” an ephemeral Italian combination to expel the foreigner from Italy. Only Florence, hoping to regain revolted Pisa with French assistance, held aloof. Emperor Maximilian and King Ferdinand of Aragon, to whose family the deposed Neapolitan rulers belonged, also entered this papal coalition. When Charles VIII turned north to attack the League, Alexander escaped to Orvieto to avoid a second encounter. The French king, his line of communications with France cut off, resolved to force his way through. In July, 1495, his forces, weakened by disease and desertion, were defeated at Fornova, but another change of sides by Lodovico Il Moro allowed the king and his best troops to escape to France through Milan. But behind them the French hold on Naples had collapsed, and Alexander VI had safely regained Rome. He had had a narrow escape. But from Charles VIII he had nothing further to fear; in April, 1498, that diminutive king forgot to duck when passing under a doorway and was succeeded by his cousin, Louis of Orléans.

(2) FLORENTINE THREAT (1495-98)

    Girolamo Savonarola (1452-98) had become the chief personage in Florence. Introduced to Lorenzo de’ Medici by Pico della Mirandola, he had begun to denounce the moral disorders of the city in 1490. The pagan Renaissance seemed to have made Florence its capital, and the intrepid friar found ample matter for castigation in a cesspool of gilded vice. He assumed the demeanor of a prophet to warn of imminent chastisement in case his strictures were not heeded. His appeal caught on. Prior of San Marco convent in 1491, he introduced strict observance of the Dominican rule. In 1493 with papal permission he became provincial of an autonomous congregation of Dominicans to ensure the permanence of his reforms.

    French alliance. His lay followers, the Piagnoni or “Weepers,” were now urging him to civic reform. In September, 1494, Savonarola predicted a “deluge” to chastise Florentine sins, and the flight of the Medici and the approach of the French invaders seemed to vindicate him. The friar was named to negotiate the peaceful entry of the French into Florence, which now adhered to their cause on Savonarola’s identification of Charles with Cyrus, a heaven-sent liberator. Savonarola was next  ^{[p. 28]} asked to draw up a constitution for Florence. This he did largely on the Venetian model. The result was an aristocracy, but an “aristocracy of virtue”: the Piagnoni for a time presided over a theocratic or even puritanical regime. Blue laws were promulgated; bands of children were encouraged to denounce and correct their elders; “vanities” were publicly burned. Such acts alienated all but the friar’s most ardent followers, and an opposition termed the Arrabbiati or “Enraged” formed against him. French discomfiture weakened Savonarola’s influence, though the friar who claimed to “hold Pisa in the palm of his hand,” kept the Florentines still loyal to France in the hope of regaining the revolted subject city.

    Papal discipline. Alexander VI was more disturbed by the politics than the moral strictures of the Florentine friar. After Novara, the Pope cited Savonarola to Rome to explain his preaching. Though he accepted the friar’s excuses of ill health, Alexander suspended the autonomy of San Marco and put a restraint upon its prior’s activities. But despite evident papal disapprobation, Savonarola yielded to the insistence of the Piagnoni that he was their greatest political asset. He continued to preach in defiance of papal desires. When Alexander tried to win him over by an offer of the cardinalate, Savonarola indignantly spurned “hats and miters” and turned his denunciations directly against the papal curia. Alexander was exceedingly patient—or timorous—but at length in May, 1497, excommunicated Savonarola. The friar struck back by claiming a divine commission which must prevail over papal censure, charged that Alexander’s crimes rendered his election invalid, and appealed to a general council to try and depose him. Only French power could effect all this, and the Arrabbiati allied themselves with Alexander to silence the demagogue for political reasons. First they confined him to preaching in San Marco, March, 1498. This was too small a pulpit for Savonarola’s devoted adherent, Fra Domenico: he demanded vindication by ordeal of fire. This idea captivated all parties, and it was arranged for April 7. It came to naught amid lengthy squabbling over the “rules”: Fra Domenico wished to bear the Sacred Host with him into the fire. The Florentines, disappointed in their spectacle, stormed San Marco the following day. Subjected to torture by the signoria, Savonarola, while never repudiating his basic message, “the Church must be scourged and then cleansed,” made, or is said to have made, all sorts of admissions to delusion and falsity. Papal inquisitors ratified a civil verdict of strangulation and burning, which Savonarola, having received the last sacraments, suffered in the piazza on Ascension Eve, May 23, 1498. A severe antipapal menace had been terminated, but many observers remarked that if this had been a false prophet, he had spoken much truth. ^{[p. 29]}

 (3) MASTERY OF THE PAPAL STATE (1498-1503)

    French Alliance. People in Italy were not entirely appeased, therefore, and Alexander VI, still pursuing papal security through politics rather than reform, vainly sought Venetian co-operation in a league of Italian states. This failing, the Spanish pope decided to bring in the foreigner. The new king of France, Louis XII, wished to reassert his country’s claims to Naples and to replace his wife, St. Jane of Valois, with the widow of Charles VIII, and heiress of the valuable fief of Brittany. Louis’s pleas for an annulment were based on alleged non-consummation and fear induced by Jane’s father, King Louis XI. A local ecclesiastical tribunal duly pronounced in the king’s favor and Alexander VI with scant if any investigation gave the necessary dispensations. It is quite possible that St. Jane might have obtained justification by appealing to the Holy See as did Catherine of Aragon thirty years later. She did not, however, but retired voluntarily to become foundress of the Order of the Annunciation. In exchange for his complacence, Alexander seems to have obtained a dukedom for his son, ex-Cardinal Caesar, and a French promise of support in Caesar’s designs on the vassals of the Papal State.

    Borgia triumph. In 1499 Louis XII invaded the Milanese in his turn, deposed and imprisoned the faithless Il Moro, and himself assumed the crown of Milan. Alexander VI meanwhile declared all rebels in the Papal State deprived of their fiefs, and during the next years Caesar Borgia with French aid or neutrality reduced these to subjection. Caesar, created duke of the Romagna, was assured that this papal territory would become an hereditary Borgia possession. Except for Florence, protected by Louis XII, central Italy thus came under the rule of Alexander and his son. Payment for this required Alexander’s benevolence toward a secret treaty of Granada (1500) , whereby Louis XII and Ferdinand of Aragon had agreed to divide the Two Sicilies between them after expelling the ruling dynasty. Alexander VI, as feudal suzerain of the Two Sicilies, then declared Federigo, Ferrante’s successor, deposed and awarded the country jointly to Louis and Fedinand. The two kings successfully occupied the Two Sicilies during 1501, but by 1502 were disputing the spoils. Assisted by the “Great Captain,” Gonzalvo de Cordoba, King Ferdinand cornered the entire territory for Aragon by April, 1503. From that date until 1700 the mainland south of the Papal State as well as the island of Sicily were practically a Spanish possession. Such discomfiture of Louis XII did not disturb the Spanish-born Alexander VI. In fact, the resulting division of Italy into a northern French sphere and a southern Spanish territory corresponded to the traditional medieval ideal balance of power for the Papal State.^{[p. 30]}

 Alexander VI had not only reduced the papal temporal states to internal order, he had, partly by design and partly by luck, brought external affairs to a favorable condition. By August, 1503, Borgia policy had achieved a brilliant success that augured some stability. But before the end of that month, Alexander VI was dead and Caesar Borgia critically ill. These circumstances would prove fatal for the future of Borgia family power, but some good came from its selfish scheming to the benefit to the Holy See in the better order introduced into the government of the Papal States which were presently to revert to pontifical control.

5: THE MILITANT AND HUMANIST PAPACY

     Pius III (1503) . At the moment of Alexander VI’s death, then, Caesar Borgia was immobilized by serious illness. This enabled the cardinals to secure comparative tranquility for the conclave of September, 1503. Giuliano della Rovere was back, but could not at once turn the reaction against the Borgia to his favor. After five days of deadlock, irreconcilable factions compromised on the aged and sickly Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, a nephew of Pius II, who took the name of Pius III. He enjoyed a high reputation for virtue and promised reforms, but after a pontificate of only twenty-six days, died on October 18.

    Julius II (1503-13) . This event, not entirely unforeseen by Della Rovere, had enabled him to utilize the brief interval since the last conclave to advance his own candidacy. Dissembling his antipathy for the Borgias, he had made a pact with Caesar according to which the latter would be confirmed in his temporal office in exchange for withdrawing his opposition to Della Rovere’s choice. Caesar fell into this trap, for Alexander VI had handled the diplomatic background for Caesar’s military exploits, and the condottiere was quite unversed in renaissance negotiations. With opposition to himself thus neutralized, Cardinal della Rovere reached his life-long ambition on November 1, 1503, and became Pope Julius II. The new pontiff was a contrast to his old rival, Alexander VI. Like the latter, he had had a number of illegitimate children, but unlike him, had reformed with age, at least after becoming pope. Like Alexander he was inordinately ambitious and tended to subordinate the spiritual to the temporal; on the other hand he was faithful to his liturgical obligations, rigidly economical in the use of papal funds, a protector of the poor and lowly, a defender of clerical independence, a vigorous, if eccentric, reformer, a foe to the nepotism by which he had himself achieved prominence. His temperament was energetic, irascible, fiery, rude to the point of savagery: il pontifice terribile.  ^[p.31] He laid the cornerstone for the new St. Peter’s on April 18, 1506, and vehemently urged Bramante, Raphael, and Michelangelo to devote their talents to its erection. The Belvedere palace was merged into the Vatican, and with the Laocoön group the Vatican Museum may be said to have made a beginning.

Borgian downfall. But above all Julius II was a temporal prince and warrior. He detested the aliens whom his Spanish foe, Alexander VI, had introduced into Italy. His own policy, not yet openly acknowledged, would now be: fuori i barbari; “out with the aliens.” Once securely installed on the pontifical throne, Julius II made short work of Caesar Borgia. The latter’s French allies were chastened by their defeat at Naples, and Venice was engaged to threaten the Borgia position. Outmaneuvered diplomatically, Caesar lost his nerve and fled to Neapolitan territory. But Julius had the new master of Naples, Ferdinand of Aragon, detain him in prison for two years. Borgia emerged only to die in Spain, May, 1507. In his absence, the pope regained control of Rome and vicinity.

(2) PAPAL LIBERATION of ITALY

    Venetian campaign. Though Julius II may have wished to expel all the foreigners from Italy, he was for a time obliged to dissemble his ire in order to achieve his first objective of recovering the papal lands. To do this he had to oppose an Italian state, but one which had long pursued a selfish policy. Venice had occupied papal territory in the north and was abetting the tyrant of papal Bologna, Bentivoglio. Julius II set out in person at the head of his army in August, 1503. He retook Perugia and Bologna, but Venice proved too strong. Inasmuch as Venice had antagonized all of her neighbors, Julius found little difficulty in forming the League of Cambrai with Emperor Maximilian and King Louis XII of France against Venice. In May, 1509, the allies gave Venice a severe defeat at Agnadello. Germans and French now haggled over the spoils, while the alarmed Republic hastened to make a separate peace with the pope. When Venice agreed to restore papal lands and rights, and to respect clerical immunity in the future, the pope removed his interdict, February, 1510.

    Milanese campaign. In making this arrangement with Venice, Julius II had disrupted the League of Cambrai. The emperor was disgruntled but had no reliable forces with which to prosecute war against the pope. But Louis XII was angered by Julius’s “betrayal” and prepared to fight him with every weapon at his command. Leaving the royally inspired rebel Council of Pisa for separate treatment, it may here be noted that he reinstated Bentivoglio at Bologna, where that worthy melted down a commemorative statue of Julius II into a cannon named the “Giulia.” ^{[p. 32]}

    The pope then joined his forces with his late foes of Venice and prepared to drive out the French. Yet when he fell critically ill during August, 1511, his very independence seemed doubtful. But Julius II made a rapid physical and diplomatic recovery. In October he was arranging the “Holy League” which allied against the French Venice, Ferdinand of Aragon, Henry VIII of England, and eventually Emperor Maximilian. Personally leading his troops and sometimes spurring them on with choice profanity, Julius II, in full armor, drove into the Alps in midwinter. The French, indeed, had the better of the papal troops at Ravenna in April, 1513, but lost their commander, Gaston de Foix. The emperor, feudal suzerain of the Swiss mercenaries, at this juncture recalled them from French to imperial service. This dealt the French forces in Italy the coup de grâce, and they rescued themselves only by evacuating the Milanese.

    Italian settlement. In August, 1513, the Congress of Mantua restored the Italian status quo preceding the French invasion under Charles VIII in 1494. The Milanese was now returned to the legitimate Sforza heirs; Florence, hitherto benevolently neutral toward France, was forced to take back the Medici; Bologna submitted again to Julius II, and the pope presided over a restored and enlarged pontifical temporal domain. Whether Julius also planned to evict the Spaniards from southern Italy —which would have been quite another matter—will never be certainly known, for he died shortly after his triumph over the French, on February 21, 1513.

(1) REBEL CONCILIARISM: THE SECOND PISA

When Julius II made his separate peace with Venice early in 1510, both his German and French allies were offended. The pope’s autocratic manners, moreover, had alienated many of his cardinals, and now nine Frenchmen and other malcontents in the College allied themselves to Louis XII. With the French king’s firm backing, and the hesitant approval of Emperor Maximilian, the rebel cardinals, assembled at Pisa in May, 1511, issued a summons for an ecumenical council. In this, their only significant document, they complained that Frequens, the decree of the Council of Constance requiring general councils every ten years, had long been neglected. Now they claimed that Christendom could wait no longer for the dilatory Julius II, who was directed to sanction the convocation and appear before the council. Julius was the last man in the world to respond to such a citation. Before the Pisans could hold their first session, the energetic and resourceful pontiff had himself convoked an ecumenical council to meet at the Lateran in July, 1511. ^{[p. 33]}

But the promoters of Pisa now fell out among themselves. Every conciliarist attempt since Basle had been foiled because Germans and French each insisted on managing the council within their own national boundaries. Pisa II proved no exception. Emperor Maximilian, warned by Abbot Trithemius that the prospective assembly at Pisa would lead to schism, drew back from Pisa and reopened negotiations with Julius which ended in his recognition of the Lateran council as satisfactory for purposes of reform. During the autumn of 1511 the Pisan Synod began its anemic sessions with merely French support. Before the conferees had gotten beyond the declamation stage, they were driven into France by Julius II’s victories over the Milanese. The Synod lingered on in France to die a natural death when in December, 1513, Louis XII deserted it for the papal assembly. Thus expired the last concerted attempt to put the conciliar theory into effect, though the dread of its resuscitation continued to worry the popes throughout the sixteenth century, and malcontents gestured toward conciliarism down to the Synod of Pistoia in 1786.

(2) PAPAL COUNCIL: FIFTH LATERAN

The Fifth Lateran Ecumenical Council, thus originally called to counteract Pisa, opened in Rome on May 3, 1512, under the presidency of Pope Julius II. It continued in session under his successor, Leo X. The council was poorly attended and the majority of the 80 to 90 bishops present were Italians. With the exception of the condemnation of the neo-Aristotelian doubts about the immortality of the soul, the Lateran decrees were principally disciplinary in character. Almost everything under this head that was later discussed at Trent was treated at the Lateran, but the sense of urgency given Trent by the Protestant Revolt was absent. Excellent reform regulations were drawn up; strict rules were laid down for cardinals and members of the curia—and sometimes disregarded by Leo X before the Lateran Council had even adjourned. Censorship of the printing of books was planned, and preachers were warned against rash prophecies and criticism of the hierarchy. The old strictures against absenteeism, pluralities, and commendations were repeated, but dispensations by “broad-minded” prelates continued largely to nullify their execution. After these and many other salutary enactments, which usually remained pious wishes, the Fifth Lateran was closed on March 16, 1517, just six months before Luther’s attack on indulgences. Even had the conciliar reform decrees been put into effect, they would have been too late for many souls. The time of grace had run out and the ordeal was at hand; as Savonarola had said: “The Church will be scourged and regenerated, and that soon.” ^{[p. 34]}

(1) LEO X (1513-21)

    Peaceful conclave. Julius II died during the night of February 20-21, 1513, and the conclave to choose his successor took place between March 4 and 11. With the rebel cardinals of Pisa excluded, the remaining twenty-five were not divided by any radical rivalries. The recently established Italian peace met with the approval of the majority; their chief concern was to find someone to maintain it with somewhat less vigor than Julius II, and to reconcile outstanding differences. This cardinalatial “era of good feeling” reached its acme with the accord between Cardinal Sansoni, decoy at the Pazzi assassination (1478) , and Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, son of the intended chief victim. The latter had recently been restored to political power at Florence and was known to be conciliatory; on March 11 he was proclaimed as Leo X.

    Giovanni de’ Medici (1475-1521), although not yet thirty-eight years old, was a curial veteran, since he had been cardinal from the age of thirteen. He was the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and great things were expected of him. Humanists in the bizarre style of the Renaissance saluted the new pontificate: “First Venus ruled (Alexander VI) ; then came the god of war (Julius II) ; now great Minerva ( Leo X) , it is thy day that dawns.” Leo X was well suited for the leisurely and cultured pontificate planned for him. He was himself a connoisseur of art, a patron of humanists, a generous spender: “It was easier for a stone to leap from the ground than for the pope to keep a thousand ducats.” A lampoon would pass judgment on him that “Leo X had consumed three pontificates: the treasure of Julius II, the revenues of his own reign, and those of his successor.” Giovanni de’ Medici was fat and pleasant; he loved the finer things of life. The poor, real or simulated, were not neglected, for he made work for hundreds of Humanists, servants, chamberlains. He was wholesome and broad-minded. He banished the scandals of Borgia times; the dances and fetes that Leo attended were never immoderately indecent. He knew how to relax, but not at the expense of piety: he always attended Mass before going out hunting—now and then he even celebrated Mass. He was moderate in eating and drinking, and cultivated the mind while nourishing the body: music was played, jesters performed, or actors put on a play. He appreciated the value of sport, e.g., bull fighting. Though he sold benefices, his own election had been free from simony. He was a man of peace; instead of fighting he would simply make the same pacts—one open, one secret—with both sides, and they could interpret his policy as they would. He never overworked, and had discovered the secret of complete relaxation by getting into the country for months at a time and letting affairs go  ^{[p. 35]} on without him. Once when he returned from one of his “month-ends,” he learned that there had been some petty squabble involving a monk named Luther, but was informed that the latter was unrefined, ate garlic, and was something of a beast. It was a rather general failing of Teutons to be overserious and puritanical: too many Germans viewed the foibles of the clergy seriously; they could not appreciate a joke. And yet this almost caricature of a spiritual leader, “because he was the high priest of that year,” would yet evoke the forces of Catholic Reformation with the call, Exurge Domine, condemning Lutheran errors.

(2) DIPLOMATIC TERGIVERSATION (1513-21)

    French preponderance. Throughout his pontificate, Leo X wavered without decision between an alliance with France or Spain. In 1515 the French came back to Italy under a new monarch, Francis I. His victory at Marignano in September rewon the Milanese for the French crown. Thereupon Leo reverted to the traditional Florentine alliance with France. During the winter of 1515-16, the pope had an interview with Francis at Bologna and capitulated to the latter’s terms which fastened French domination on Lombardy for a decade. Simultaneously the Concordat of Bologna assured the French monarchy of control of nominations to French prelacies down to the Revolution of 1789.

    Domestic crisis. These concessions and his extravagance had already reduced Leo’s treasury to bankruptcy. To recoup his funds, Leo X was obliged to create more cardinals and provide more offices. Intrigue for curial favor produced a serious conspiracy in 1517 designed to depose or kill the pope. Cardinal Petrucci and some lesser fry were executed, and sensational trials of three other cardinals occupied the months preceding the posting of Luther’s Theses. To prevent a recurrence of such power politics, the papal court made it a point to announce no policy, and a laissez-faire course was pursued.

    Gravitation toward Spain. New figures were appearing on the political horizon. In 1515 Wolsey became the English prime minister, prepared to embroil Europe in a quest for the balance of power for his country and a personal search for the tiara. In 1516, Charles of Habsburg, serious, determined, and able, became king of Spain, and within three years became a candidate for the imperial throne when Emperor Maximilian died in January, 1519. Leo X at first tried to support Francis I of France against Charles, and then veered toward the candidacy of Frederick the Wise of Saxony, Luther’s current protector. But when Charles was selected by the German electors in June, 1519, Leo X inclined toward Spain. Yet in September of that year he tried to offset Charles’s growing might by means of a secret treaty with France. Next when Francis of France seemed the more likely military victor, Leo X aligned himself ^{[p. 36]} with the new emperor in another secret pact. Eventually despite these treaties, open and secret, Leo was involved in war on the imperial side and its course was troubling him more than Luther’s when he died on December 1, 1521. He was the last of the popes of the Renaissance to regard the papacy chiefly as a temporal principality. Yet for all his secular preoccupations, this member of the Medici banking family left the Holy See 400,000 ducats in debt. Perhaps the bankruptcy was spiritual as much as financial for Leo’s curia. It is to be hoped that Leo X had some inkling of this before he died, for he expired with the sacraments, and his last word was, “Jesus.”