It is curious to observe, that generally throughout the pontifical history, scandalously infamous popes and tolerably decent popes, are found in bunches, or series of six or eight in succession; a striking proof of the fact that when they have been of the better sort, the amelioration has been due to some force of circumstance operative from without. Never were they worse, with perhaps one or two exceptions, than during the century which preceded the first quickly-crushed efforts of the Reformation in Italy—from about 1450, that is to say, down to 1550. Competing Protestantism then began to act on the Roman Church exactly as competing Methodism acted on the Anglican Church three centuries later; and a series of Popes of a different sort was the result.
But the conduct of the great family-founding popes, which strikes us, looking at it through the moral atmosphere of the nineteenth century, as so monstrous, wore a very different aspect even to the gravest censors among their contemporaries. The Italian historians of the time tell us of the "royal-mindedness" and "noble spirit" of this ambitious Franciscan, Pope Sixtus, in a tone of evident admiration. And the gross worldliness, the low ambition, and the unscrupulous baseness, of which he may fairly be accused, did not seem even to Du Plessis Mornai,[53] and the French Protestant writers of that stamp, to be sufficient ground for denouncing him and the system which produced him. Otherwise they would not have disgraced themselves and their cause by asserting that he was guilty of hideous and nameless atrocities, for which, as the less zealous but more candid Bayle[54] has sufficiently shown, there is no foundation either in fact or probability.
A POPE'S NEPHEW.
The new Pope lost no time in turning the papacy to the best possible account, in the manner which had for him the greatest attractions. And it so happened that he was singularly well supplied with the raw material from which the edifice of family greatness he was bent on raising was to be furnished forth. He had no less than nine nephews: five of them the sons of his three brothers, and four the sons of his three sisters!—a field for nepotism sufficiently extensive to satisfy the "high-spirited" ambition of even a Sixtus IV. But among all this wealth of nephews, the two sons of his eldest sister, Girolamo and Pietro Riario, were distinguished by him so pre-eminently, that a great many contemporary writers, thinking it strange that he should prefer them to those of his own name, have asserted that these young men were in fact his sons.[55] Giuliano della Rovere, the eldest of all the nine, who received a cardinal's hat from his uncle, but could obtain from him no further favour, was nevertheless destined, as Pope Julius II., to become by far the most important pillar of the family greatness. The course of Catherine's fortunes, however, will justify the present reader in confining his attention, as all Rome was doing in the year 1472, to the two fortunate young men on whom the pontifical sun shone brightest.
Peter Riario was, like his uncle, a Franciscan monk, and was twenty-six years old when the latter was elected. Within a very few months he became Bishop of Treviso, Cardinal-Archbishop of Seville, Patriarch of Constantinople, Archbishop of Valentia, and Archbishop of Florence! From his humble cell, from his ascetic board, from his girdle of rope and woollen frock renewed yearly, and baked occasionally to destroy the vermin bred in its holy filth, this poverty-vowed mendicant suddenly became possessed of revenues so enormous, that his income is said to have been larger than that of all the other members of the Sacred College put together! The stories which have been preserved[56] of his reckless and unprecedented expenditure at Rome, would seem almost incredible were they not corroborated by the fact that he had in a very short time, besides dissipating the enormous wealth assigned to him, incurred debts to the amount of sixty thousand florins! He gave a banquet to the French ambassadors which cost twenty thousand crowns, a sum equal to more than ten times the same nominal amount at the present day. "Never," says the Cardinal of Pavia, "had pagan antiquity seen anything like it. The whole country was drained of all that was rare and precious; and the object of all was to make a display, such as posterity might never be able to surpass.[57] The extent of the preparations, their variety, the number of the dishes, the price of the viands served up, were all registered by inspectors, and were put into verse, of which copies were profusely circulated, not only in Rome, but throughout Italy, and even beyond the Alps."
Girolamo, the brother of this spendthrift monk, and equally a favourite of his uncle, was a layman; and the process of enriching and aggrandising him was necessarily a somewhat slower one. Not even a fifteenth-century pope could accomplish so monstrous an iniquity and insult to humanity as the promotion of Peter Riario in any other branch or department of human affairs save the Church! Girolamo, however, who was, we are told, "not literate," was at once made Captain-General of the pontifical troops, and Governor of the Castle of St. Angelo. And for his further advancement measures were adopted, which, among other advantages, have conferred upon him that of occupying a prominent place in these pages.
SLIP BETWEEN CUP AND LIP.
For it so happened, that the elevation of Sixtus IV. to the papal throne turned out to be the "slip" which dashed from poor Guidazzo's lips the cup he was waiting for in the shape of the bride, who was to bring back to him as her dower his lost principality of Imola. The tidings from Rome, which were astonishing all history with accounts of the wonderful and unprecedented "greatness" achieved by the Riario brothers, produced a prodigious sensation at the court of Milan. Here was evidently a rising sun worth a little worship! And now, how valuable became our little "legitimatised" Kate, as a means of hooking on our ducal fortunes to the career of this "high-spirited" Pope, and the magnificent nephews so evidently marked out for high destinies! What was Guidazzo and his little state of Imola in comparison to the favourite nephew of a "high-spirited" Pope? And besides, there is no reason to give up Imola, because we give up Guidazzo. Imola is in our own hands, and will make a dower for our daughter by no means unworthy of the consideration of a Franciscan monk's reputed son, about to start on his career of sovereign prince. So Guidazzo may go whistle for his patrimony!
The gorgeous accounts of the Cardinal Peter Riario's unprecedented splendour and reckless prodigality especially touched a sympathetic chord of admiration in the bosom of Maria Galeazzo. The splendid Duke, who lavished on upholstery, festivals, and courtezans, the substance wrung from a groaning people, recognised a kindred spirit in the princely churchman, who expended the revenues of a dozen sees on a banquet and revel. The spirit of noble rivalry, too, was awakened in the Ducal bosom. Here was a man in whose eyes it was worth while to shine, and whose admiration would confer real glory.
It was to the Cardinal, accordingly, that Galeazzo caused the first cautious overtures to be made; and the reception of them was such as to encourage him to entreat his Eminence to honour his poor court with a visit. The Cardinal was nothing loth to accept the invitation. He, too, recognised in the Duke of Milan that "greatness" which was most calculated to excite his sympathy and admiration. He, too, felt, that here was a spirit of his own calibre,—one with whom he would willingly pull together in the arduous work of furthering their mutual fortunes, and vie in the ostentation of magnificence.