§ 53. INNOCENT VIII. 1484-1492. 437
the cardinals. According to Burchard, the pope about to be elected sat 1125 all night signing promises. The next morning the two cardinals aroused the six whom they had not disturbed, exclaiming, "• Come, let us make a pope." " Who ? " they said. " Cardinal Cibo." " How is that ? " they asked. "• While you were drowsy with sleep, we gathered all the votes except yours," was the reply.
The new pope, Lorenzo Cibo, born in Genoa, 1432, had been made cardinal by Sixtus IV.,1473t. During his rule, peace was maintained with the courts of Italy, but in Rome clerical dissipation, curial venality and general lawlessness were rampant. " In darkness Innocent was elected, in darkness he lives, and in darkness he will die," said the general of the Augustinians.^ Women were carried off in the night. The murdered were found in the streets in the morning. Crimes, before their commission, were compounded for money. Even the churches were pilfered. A piece of the true cross was stolen from S. Maria in Trastavere. The wood was reported found in a vineyard, but without its silver frame. When the vice-chancellor, Borgia, was asked why the laws were not enforced, he replied, " God desires not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should pay and live."^ The favorite of Sixtus IV., Jerome Riario, was murdered in 1488. His widow, the brave and masculine Catherine Sforza, who was pregnant at the time, defended his castle at Forli and defied the papal forces besieging it, declaring that, if they put her children to death who were with her, she yet had one left at Imola and the unborn child in her womb. The duke of Milan, her relative, rescued her and put the besiegers to flight.
All ecclesiastical offices were set for sale. How could it be
1 Infessura, p. 177. The Augustinian was thrown into prison for making the remark. Infessura returns again and again, pp. 237 sq., 243, 256 sq., to the reign of crime going on in the city.
2 Infessura gives the case of a father who, after committing incest with his two daughters, murdered them and was set free upon the payment of 800 ducats. Gregorovius, VII. 297, says of the Italian character of the last 30 years of the 15th century that "it displays a trait of diabolical passion. Tyrannicide, conspiracies and deeds of treachery are universal, and criminal selfishness reigns supreme."
438 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
otherwise, when the papal tiara itself was within the reach of the highest bidder ? ^ The appointment of 18 new papal secretaries brought 62,400 ducats into tlie papal treasury. The bulls creating the offices expressly declared the aim to be to secure funds. 52 persons were appointed to seal the papal bulls, culled plu7nbatores, from the leaden ball or seal they used, and the price of the position was fixed at 2,500 ducats. Even the office of librarian in the Vatican was sold, and the papal tiara was put in pawn. In a time of universal traffic in ecclesiastical offices, it is not surprising that tlie fabrication of papal documents was turned into a business. Two papal notaries confessed to having issued 50 such documents in two years, and in spite of the pleas of their friends were hung and burnt, 1489.2
Innocents children were not persons of marked traits, or given to ambitious intrigues.^ Common rumor gave their number as 16, all of them children by married women. ^ Franceschetto and Theorina seem to have been born before the father entered the priesthood. Franceschctto's marriage to Maddalena, a daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was celebrated in the Vatican, Jan. 20, 1488. Ten months later, the pope's granddaughter, Peretta, child of Theorina, was also married in the Vatican to the marquis of Finale. The pontiff sat with the ladies at the table, a thing contrary to all the accepted proprieties. In 1492, another grandchild, also a daughter of Theorina, Battistana, was married to duke Louis of Aragon.^
Thp^f.n|.f>nip"fc ^f Tnft^ssiirn is diffiffult to IHioAro, glthnugl^ itjsjtnade_at.1p,n)?rt]i,-tihat Innocent issued a decree permitting
1 Funk, Turchengesch., 373, says, Tn Rom. schien alles kauflich zu sein.
2 For the details, see Burchard, I. 365-368. ' So Marullus in his epigram —
Octo nocens pueros gemdt totidcmque pxiellas,
Ilunc merito poterit dicere liovia patrem. Illegitimately he begat 8 boys and girls as many. Hence Rome deservedly may call him father. Burchard, I. 321, calls Franceschetto bastardus.
* Burchard, I. 323, 488. In 1883, the Berlin Museum came into possession of a bust of Tlieorina bearing the inscription, " Teorina Cibo Inn. VIII. P. M. f. singuli exempli matrona formceque dignitatc conjnaria."'