§ 50. .ENEAS SYLVIUS DE' PICCOLOMINI, PIUS 11. 421
and Melchisedek. As for the Council of Constance, Pius expressed his regard for its decrees so far as they were approved by his predecessors, but the„definitions of general councils, he affirmed, are subject to the sanction of the supreme pontiff, Peter's successor. With reference to his former utterances at Basel, he expressly revoked anything he had said in conflict with the positions taken in the bull, and ascribed those statements to immaturity of mind, the imprudence of youth and the circumstances of his early training. Quis non errat mortalis — what mortal does not make mistakes, he exclaimed. Reject ^neas and follow Pius — j^^neam rejicite, Pium recipite — he said. The first was a Gentile name given by parents at the birth of their son; the second, the name he had adopted on his elevation to the Apostolic see.^
It would not be ingenuous to deny to Pius II., in making retractation, the virtue of sincerity. A strain of deep feeling runs through its long paragraphs which read like the last testament of a man speaking from the heart. Inspired by the dignity of his office, the pope wanted to be in accord with the long line of his predecessors, some of whom he mentioned by name, from Peter and Clement to the Innocents and Boniface. In issuing_the decree of j)apal infallibility four centuries later, Pius IX. did not excel his predecessor in the art of composition ; but he had this advantage over him that his announcement was stamped with the previous ratification of a general council. The two documents of the two popes of the name Pius reach the summit of papal assumption and consigned to burial the theories of the final authority of general councils and the infallibility of their decrees.
Scarcely could any two things be thought of more incongruous than Pius II. 's culture and the glorious reception he gave in 1462tothereputedheadof the Apostle Andrew. This highly prized treasure was brought to Italy by Thomas Palteologus, who, in recognition of his pious benevolence toward the holy see, was given the Golden Rose, a palace in Rome and an annual al-
1 The same time that Pius issued his bull of retractation, Gabriel Biel, called the last of the Schoolmen, issued his tract on Obedience to the Apostolic see, taking the same ground that Pius took.
422 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
lowance of 6,000 ducats. The relic was received with ostentatious signs of devotion. Bessarion and two other members of the sacred college received it at Narni and conveyed it to Rome. The pope, accompanied by the remaining cardinals and the Roman clergy, went out to the Ponte Molle to give it welcome. After falling prostrate before the Apostle's skull, Piusdelivered an appropriate address in which he congratulated the dumb fragment upon coining safely out of the hands of the Turks to find at last, as a fugitive, a place beside the remains of its brother Apostles. The address being concluded, the procession reformed and, with Pius borne in the Golden Chair, conducted the skull to its last resting-place. The streets were decked in holiday attire, and no one showed greater zeal in draping his palace than Rodrigo Borgia. The skull was deposited in St. Peter's, after, as Platina says, " the sepulchres of some of the popes and cardinals, which took up too much room, had been removed." The ceremonies were closed by Bessarion in an address in which he expressed the conviction that St. Andrew would join with the other Apostles as a protector of Rome and in inducing the princes to combine for the expulsion of the Turks. ^
In_his_closiiig-ilaySj Pius II. continued to be occupiedjvith the crusade. He had written a memorable letter to Mohammed II. urging liim to folio w his mother's religion and turn Christian, and assuring him that, as Clovis and Charlemagne had been renowned Christian sovereigns, so he might become Christian emperor over the Bosphorus, Greece and Western Asia. No reply is extant. I n 1458, the year before the Mantuan congress assembled, the crescent had been planted on the Acropolis of, Athens. All Southern Greece suffered the indignity and horrors of Turkish oppression. Servia fell into the hands of the invaders, _14o9, and Bosnia followed, 1462.
Pius' bull of 1463, summoning to a crusade, was put aside by the princes, but the pontiff, altliough he was afflicted with serious bodily infirmities, the stone and the gout, was determined to set an example in the right direction. Like Moses, he wanted, at least, to watch from some promontory or ship
1 Pastor, II. 233-230, and Creigliton, II. 430-438, give elaborate accounts of this curious piece of superstition.