§ 53. INNOCENT VIII. 1484-1492. 441
to have put four men to death with his own hand. But Djem was a dignitary who signified too much to be cast aside for such offences. Innocent assigned him to elegantly furnished apartments in the Vatican, and thus the strange spectacle was afforded of the earthly head of Christendom acting as the host of one of the chief living representatives of the faith of Islam, whichhad almost crushed out the Christian churches of the East and usurped the throne on the Bosphorus.
Bajazet was willing to pay the pope 40,000 ducats for the hospitality extended to his rival brother, and delegations came from him to Rome to arrange the details of the bargain. The report ran that attempts were made by the sultan to poison both his brother and the pope by contaminating the wells of the Vatican. When the ambassador brought from Constantinople the delayed payment of three years, 120,000 ducats, Djem insisted that the Turk's clothes should be removed and his skin be rubbed down with a towel, and that he should lick the letter " on every side," as proof that he did not also carry poison. 1 Djem survived his first papal entertainer. Innocent VIII., three years, and figured prominently in public functions in the reign of Alexander VI. He died 1495, still a captive.
Another curious instance was given in Innocent's reign of the hold open-mouthed superstition had in the reception given to the holy lance. This pretended instrument, with which Longinus pierced the Saviour's side and which was found during the Crusades by the monk Barthelemy at Antioch, was already claimed by two cities, Niirnberg and Paris. The relic made a greater draft upon the credulity of the age than St. Andrew's head. The latter was the gift of a Christian prince, howbeit an adherent of the schismatic Greek Church ; the lance came from a Turk, Sultan Bajazet.
Some question arose among the cardinals whether it would not be judicious to stay the acceptance of the gift till the
1 Totam ah omnibus ejus lateribus lingua sua lamhivit. Infessura, p. 263. For the letter of the painter Mantegna to the duke of Mantua and its curious details, June 15, 1489, see Pastor, 1st ed., III. 218. The picture of the Disputation of St. Catherine in the sala dei santi in the Vatican contains a picture of Djem riding a white palfrey. Infessura and Burchard enter with journalistic relish into the details of Djem's appearance and treatment in Rome.
442 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
claims of the lance in Niirnberg had been investigated. But the pope's piety, such as it was, would not allow a question of that sort to interfere. An archbishop and a bishop were despatched to Ancona to receive the iron fragment, for only the head of the lance was extant. It was conducted from the city gates by the cardinals to St. Peter's, and after mass the pope gave his blessing. The day of the reception happened to be a fast, but, at the suggestion of one of the cardinals, some of the fountains along the streets, where the procession was appointed to go, were made to throw out wine to slake the thirst of the populace. After a solemn service in S. Maria del Popolo, on Ascension Day, 1492, the Turkish present, encased in a receptacle of crystal and gold, was placed near the handkerchief of St.Veronica in St. Peter's.^
The two great stains upon the pontificate of Innocent VIII., the crusade he called to exterminate the Waldenses, 1487, and his bull~directed against tlie witches ot (ierman^, 1484, which Inaugurated two horrible dramas of cruelty, have treatment in another place.
Innocent was happyin being permitted to join withEurope in rejoicings over the expulsion of the last of the Moors from Granada, 1492. Masses were said in Rome, and a sermon preached in the pontiff's presence in celebration of the memorable event.^ With characteristic national gallantry, Cardinal Borgia showed his appreciation by instituting a bull-fight in which five bulls were killed, the first but not the last spectacle of the kind seen in the papal city. In his last sickness. Innocent was fed by a woman's inilk.^ Several years before, when he was thought to
^ Infessura, p. 224, and especially Burchard, I. 482—186, and Sii,ismondo, IT. 25-29, 69, give extended accounts of the honors paid to the piece of iron, the sacratissimum ferreum lancece. The sultan's representative, Chainisbuerch, who was also present, was reported to have handed the pope a package containing 40,000 ducats. Sigismondo uses the word spicula, little point, for the lance.
2 Burchard, I. 444 sqq.
3 The harrowing story was told that, at the suggestion of a Jewish physician, the blood of three boys was infused into the dying pontiff's veins. They were ten years old, and had been promised a ducat each. All three died. The Jewish physician fled. The story is told by Infessura and repeated by Raynaldus. It is plea.sant to have Gregorovius, VII. 338, as well as Pastor, III. 275 sq., give it no credence.