On the 29th, while they were still on their journey, Cardinal Cibo was created Pope by the name of Innocent VIII.
The news of this election was most important and most welcome to the sovereigns of Forlì; for Innocent VIII. had been most materially assisted in his elevation by the two Riario Cardinals, one the cousin and the other the nephew of Girolamo. Infessura lets us into quite enough of the secrets of the Conclave which elected Innocent VIII., to make it clear how grossly simoniacal was their choice—an affair of unblushing bargain and barter altogether. And it may be safely concluded that Girolamo and his fortunes were not forgotten in the agreement for the price of the voices of the Cardinals his kinsmen.
Accordingly, on the fourth day after their arrival at Forlì, arrived three documents, executed in due form: the first recognising and confirming the Count's investiture, with the principalities of Forlì and Imola; the second continuing his appointment as General of the Apostolic forces; and the third dispensing with the residence in Rome which his office in usual course entailed.[112]
Notwithstanding these great points gained, the position of Girolamo and Catherine was a difficult one, and very different indeed from what it had been at the period of their last arrival in their capital. On this occasion we hear nothing of festal processions and olive branches, of balls, tournaments, or speechifications. The Forlivesi, doubtless, already appreciated by anticipation the great difference, soon to be more vividly brought home to them, between belonging to an enormously wealthy Papal favourite, who had the means of freely spending among them a portion of the immense revenues derived from sources which in no way wrung their withers, and being the subjects of a needy prince, who expected to draw from them the principal part of his income.
DANGERS IN THE PATH.
Besides, the abortive attempts to increase his possessions, which had formed the leading object of his life for the last eight years, had most materially contributed to increase the difficulties of holding what he had acquired under his present changed circumstances. Lorenzo de' Medici, at Florence, whom he had failed to assassinate, Hercules d'Este, at Ferrara, whom he had failed to drive from his dukedom by force, and the Venetians whom Sixtus had suddenly jilted the year before to ally himself with their enemies, and had then excommunicated, were none of them likely to be very cordial or safe neighbours, and were not unlikely to lend a favourable ear, and, under the rose, a helping hand to those persevering Ordelaffi youths, who were always in search of some such means of recovering the heritage of their ancestors.
Thus the four years following the death of Sixtus were little else for Girolamo and Catherine, than a period of continually increasing difficulty and struggle. To the sources of trouble indicated above Girolamo soon added by his imprudence another, which in the sequel led to consequences still more fatal. At the time of the Pope's death he had, as may easily be imagined from some little indications we have had of his theory and practice of administration of the Papal affairs, a very considerable sum of ready money in his hands. But for the last thirteen years of his life his command of resources had been practically almost unlimited; and he was wholly unused to the necessity of abstaining from what he wished on account of considerations of cost. He was a man of magnificent and expensive tastes; and like his apostolic kinsman, had especially that, most fatal to the pocket, of building. At the same time, the extremely distressed state of the people of his principalities at the period of his second arrival among them from Rome, arising from the war and the consequently neglected state of industry and agriculture, made it absolutely necessary to do something for their relief. Girolamo remitted the tax on meat; and at the same time launched out into great and costly building enterprises.
Besides enlarging and beautifying their own residence, and raising the fine vaulting of the cathedral, which still remains to testify to the skill of the builders and the ungrudging orders of their employers, the Count and Countess completed the fortress of Ravaldino[113] on a greatly increased scale of magnificence and cost. It was now made capable of accommodating 2000 men-at-arms, besides containing magnificent apartments for their own dwelling in case of need, immense storehouses of all sorts, and last, though very far from least in importance, ample prisons. Then, again, there were certain ugly Pazzi and Colonna reminiscences, which made it only common prudence to invest a considerable sum in building a convent or two, considering, as our modern insurance offices remind us, the uncertainty of life. So a Franciscan cloister, and a nunnery of Santa Maria were built "con incredible spesa," says Burriel. The former tumbled down when just finished, and had to be built a second time. Let us hope, that the catastrophe was not due to any unhandsome attempt at palming off cheap work on "the recording angel."