The Age of the Reformation | Page 9

the popes came to occupy the position of princes of one of the
Italian states, and were elected, like the doges of Venice, by a small
oligarchy. Within seventy years the families of Borgia, Piccolomini,
Rovere, and Medici were each represented by more than one pontiff,
and a majority of the others were nearly related by blood or marriage to
one of these great stocks. The cardinals were appointed from the
pontiff's sons or nephews, and the numerous other {16} offices in their
patronage, save as they were sold, were distributed to personal or
political friends.
Like other Italian princes the popes became, in the fifteenth century,
distinguished patrons of arts and letters. The golden age of the

humanists at Rome began under Nicholas V [Sidenote: Nicholas V
1447-55] who employed a number of them to make translations from
Greek. It is characteristic of the complete secularization of the States of
the Church that a number of the literati pensioned by him were skeptics
and scoffers. Valla, who mocked the papacy, ridiculed the monastic
orders, and attacked the Bible and Christian ethics, was given a prebend;
Savonarola, the most earnest Christian of his age, was put to death.
[Sidenote: 1453]
The fall of Constantinople gave a certain European character to the
policy of the pontiffs after that date, for the menace of the Turk seemed
so imminent that the heads of Christendom did all that was possible to
unite the nations in a crusade. This was the keynote of the
statesmanship of Calixtus III [Sidenote: Calixtus III 1455-8] and of his
successor, Pius II. [Sidenote: Pius II 1458-64] Before his elevation to
the see of Peter this talented writer, known to literature as Aeneas
Sylvius, had, at the Council of Basle, published a strong argument
against the extreme papal claims, which he afterwards, as pope,
retracted. His zeal against the Turk and against his old friends the
humanists lent a moral tone to his pontificate, but his feeble attempts to
reform abuses were futile.
[Sidenote: Paul II 1464-71]
The colorless reign of Paul II was followed by that of Sixtus IV,
[Sidenote: Sixtus IV 1471-84] a man whose chief passion was the
aggrandizement of his family. He carried nepotism to an extreme and
by a policy of judicial murder very nearly exterminated his rivals, the
Colonnas.
[Sidenote: Innocent VIII 1484-92]
The enormous bribes paid by Innocent VIII for his election were
recouped by his sale of offices and spiritual graces, and by taking a
tribute from the Sultan, {17} in return for which he refused to proclaim
a crusade. The most important act of his pontificate was the publication
of the bull against witchcraft.

[Sidenote: Alexander VI 1492-1503]
The name of Alexander VI has attained an evil eminence of infamy on
account of his own crimes and vices and those of his children, Caesar
Borgia and Lucretia. One proof that the public conscience of Italy,
instead of being stupified by the orgy of wickedness at Rome was
rather becoming aroused by it, is found in the appearance, just at this
time, of a number of preachers of repentance. These men, usually friars,
started "revivals" marked by the customary phenomena of sudden
conversion, hysteria, and extreme austerity. The greatest of them all
was the Dominican Jerome Savonarola [Sidenote: Savonarola] who,
though of mediocre intellectual gifts, by the passionate fervor of his
convictions, attained the position of a prophet at Florence. He began
preaching here in 1482, and so stirred his audiences that many wept and
some were petrified with horror. His credit was greatly raised by his
prediction of the invasion of Charles VIII of France in 1494. He
succeeded in driving out the Medici and in introducing a new
constitution of a democratic nature, which he believed was directly
sanctioned by God. He attacked the morals of the clergy and of the
people and, besides renovating his own order, suppressed not only
public immorality but all forms of frivolity. The people burned their
cards, false hair, indecent pictures, and the like; many women left their
husbands and entered the cloister; gamblers were tortured and
blasphemers had their tongues pierced. A police was instituted with
power of searching houses.
It was only the pope's fear of Charles VIII that prevented his dealing
with this dangerous reformer, who now began to attack the vices of the
curia. In 1495, however, the friar was summoned to Rome, and {18}
refused to go; he was then forbidden to preach, and disobeyed. In Lent
1496 he proclaimed the duty of resisting the pope when in error. In
November a new brief proposed changes in the constitution of his order
which would bring him more directly under the power of Rome.
Savonarola replied that he did not fear the excommunication of the
sinful church, which, when launched against