Pope Innocent VIII

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Sixtus IV
Personal details
Born
Giovanni Battista Cybo (or Cibo)

1432
Genoa, Republic of Genoa
Died25 July 1492(1492-07-25) (aged 59–60)
Rome, Papal States
Previous post(s)
Coat of armsInnocent VIII's coat of arms
Other popes named Innocent
Papal styles of
Pope Innocent VIII
His Holiness
Spoken styleYour Holiness
Religious styleHoly Father
Posthumous styleNone

Pope Innocent VIII (

Rodrigo Borgia. The following year, Pope Innocent supported the barons in their failed revolt
.

During his papacy, Pope Innocent issued a papal bull on witchcraft named Summis desiderantes affectibus. In March 1489, Cem, the captive brother of Bayezid II, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, came into Innocent's custody. Viewing his brother as a rival, the Sultan paid Pope Innocent not to set him free. The amount he paid to Pope Innocent was 120,000 crowns (an amount equal to all of the annual revenue to the Vatican) in addition to some holy relics and another sum of money to be paid annually. Any time the Sultan threatened war against the Christian Balkans, Innocent threatened to release his brother. On 28 January 1495, Cem was released by Innocent's successor, Pope Alexander VI, into the custody of King Charles's army.

Early years

Giovanni Battista

Pope Calixtus III. Giovanni Battista's early years were spent at the Neapolitan court. While in Naples he was appointed a Canon of the Cathedral of Capua, and was given the Priory of S. Maria d'Arba in Genoa.[2] After the death of King Alfonso (1458), friction between Giovanni Battista and the Archbishop of Genoa induced him to resign his canonry, and to go to Padua
and then to Rome for his education.

Early career

In Rome he became a priest in the retinue of Cardinal Calandrini, half-brother to

cardinal by Pope Sixtus IV, whom he succeeded on 29 August 1484 as Pope Innocent VIII.[3]

Papal election

Main article:
Papal conclave, 1484

The

papal conclave of 1484 was rife with factions, while gangs rioted in the streets. In order to prevent the election of the Venetian Cardinal Barbo, Camerlengo of the Sacred College of Cardinals, on the evening before the election, after the cardinals had retired for the night, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, nephew of the late Pope, and Cardinal Borgia, the Vice-Chancellor, visited a number of cardinals and secured their votes with the promise of various benefices.[4]

It was claimed that Cardinal della Rovere met secretly with Cardinal Marco Barbo in order to secure him more votes to become pope if he was promised a residence, though Barbo refused in fear it would make the conclave invalid due to simony. Cardinal della Rovere then met with Borgia, who disliked Barbo and wished to block his election, with an offer to turn their votes over to Cibò, promising them benefits for doing so.[4]

Papacy

Shortly after his investiture, Innocent VIII addressed a fruitless summons to Christendom to unite in a crusade against the Turks. A protracted conflict with King Ferdinand I of Naples was the principal obstacle. Ferdinand's oppressive government led in 1485 to a rebellion of the aristocracy, known as the Conspiracy of the Barons, which included Francesco Coppola and Antonello Sanseverino of Salerno and was supported by Pope Innocent VIII. Innocent excommunicated Ferdinand in 1489 and invited King Charles VIII of France to come to Italy with an army and take possession of the Kingdom of Naples, a disastrous political event for the Italian peninsula as a whole. The immediate conflict was not ended until 1494, after Innocent VIII's death.

Relations with the Ottoman Empire

Cem, who sought the support of the Mamluks of Egypt. Defeated by his brother's armies, Cem sought protection from the Knights of St. John
in Rhodes. Prince Cem offered perpetual peace between the Ottoman Empire and Christendom. However, the sultan paid the Knights a large amount to keep Cem captive. Cem was later sent to the castle of Pierre d'Aubusson in France. Sultan Bayezid sent a messenger to France and requested Cem to be kept there; he agreed to make an annual payment in gold for his brother's expenses.

In March 1489, Cem was transferred to the custody of Innocent VIII. Cem's presence in Rome was useful because whenever Bayezid intended to launch a military campaign against the Christian nations of the Balkans, the Pope would threaten to release his brother. In exchange for maintaining the custody of Cem, Bayezid paid Innocent VIII 120,000 crowns, a relic of the Holy Lance and an annual fee of 45,000 ducats.[5] Cem died in Capua on 25 February 1495 on a military expedition under the command of King Charles VIII of France to conquer Naples.

Relations with witchcraft

Further information: Summis desiderantes affectibus

On the request of German

witches
:

"It has recently come to our ears, not without great pain to us, that in some parts of upper Germany, [...]
Köln, Trier, Salzburg, and Bremen, many persons of both sexes, heedless of their own salvation and forsaking the catholic faith, give themselves over to devils male and female, and by their incantations, charms, and conjurings, and by other abominable superstitions and sortileges, offences, crimes, and misdeeds, ruin and cause to perish the offspring of women, the foal of animals, the products of the earth, the grapes of vines, and the fruits of trees, as well as men and women, cattle and flocks and herds and animals of every kind, vineyards also and orchards, meadows, pastures, harvests, grains and other fruits of the earth; [...]"[6]

The bull was written in response to the request of Dominican Heinrich Kramer for explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany, after he was refused assistance by the local ecclesiastical authorities,[7] who disputed his authority to work in their dioceses. Some scholars view the bull as "clearly political", motivated by jurisdictional disputes between the local German Catholic priests and clerics from the Office of the Inquisition who answered more directly to the pope.[8]

Malleus Maleficarum, 1520 edition

Nonetheless, the bull failed to ensure that Kramer obtained the support he had hoped for, causing him to retire and to compile his views on witchcraft into his book Malleus Maleficarum, which was published in 1487. Kramer would later claim that witchcraft was to blame for bad weather. Both the papal letter appended to the work and the supposed endorsement of Cologne University for it are problematic. The letter of Innocent VIII is not an approval of the book to which it was appended, but rather a charge to inquisitors to investigate diabolical sorcery and a warning to those who might impede them in their duty, that is, a papal letter in the by then conventional tradition established by John XXII and other popes through Eugenius IV and Nicholas V (1447–55).[9]

Other events

In 1487, Innocent confirmed

Tomas de Torquemada as Grand Inquisitor of Spain. Also in 1487, Innocent issued a bull Id Nostri Cordis[10] denouncing the views of the Waldensians (Vaudois), offering plenary indulgence to all who should engage in a Crusade against them. Alberto de' Capitanei, archdeacon of Cremona, responded to the bull by organizing a crusade to fulfill its order and launched an offensive in the provinces of Dauphiné and Piedmont. Charles I, Duke of Savoy eventually interfered to save his territories from further confusion and promised the Vaudois peace, but not before the offensive had devastated the area and many of the Vaudois fled to Provence
and south to Italy.

The noted

Franciscan theologian Angelo Carletti di Chivasso, whom Innocent in 1491 appointed as Apostolic Nuncio and Commissary, conjointly with the Bishop of Mauriana, was involved in reaching the peaceful agreement between Catholics and Waldensians.[11]

In 1486, Innocent VIII was persuaded that at least thirteen of the 900 theses of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola were heretical, and the book containing the theses was interdicted.[12]

In Rome, he ordered the

Vatican Palace. His successor would later turn the building into the Cortile del Belvedere. In season, he hunted at Castello della Magliana, which he enlarged. Constantly confronted with a depleted treasury, he resorted to the objectionable expedient of creating new offices and granting them to the highest bidders.[3] The fall of Granada in January 1492, was celebrated in the Vatican and Innocent granted Ferdinand II of Aragon
the epithet "Catholic Majesty."

Slavery

It was noted that the attitude of Renaissance popes towards slavery, a common institution worldwide in contemporary cultures, varied. Minnich states that those who allowed the slave trade did so in the hope of gaining converts to Christianity.

Barbary merchants in which foodstuffs would be given in exchange for slaves who could then be converted to Christianity.[13]

King Ferdinand of Aragon gave Innocent 100 Moorish slaves, who were shared out with favoured Cardinals.[14] The slaves of Innocent were called mori, meaning "dark-skinned men", in contrast to negro slaves who were called mori neri, meaning "black moors".[15]

Canonizations

The pope named two saints during his pontificate: Catherine of Vadstena (1484) and Leopold III (1485).

Consistories

Main article: Cardinals created by Innocent VIII

Innocent VIII named eight cardinals in one consistory which was held on 9 March 1489; the pope named three of those cardinals

1492 conclave
.

Death

By July 1492, Innocent had become very skinny. To Filippo Valori,[16] he had become 'an inert mass of flesh, incapable of assimilating any nourishment but a few drops of milk from a young woman's breast'.[17] He then developed a fever and died.

Tomb

Monument to Innocentius VIII in Saint Peter's Basilica

Innocent was first buried in the Oratory of Our Lady in Old St. Peter's Basilica. The tomb was crafted by Antonio del Pollaiuolo, who completed the work shortly before his own death in February 1498.[18] Around 1507 it was moved to the "Shroud" aisle adjacent to the Chapel of the Holy Lance.

The inscription below his tomb in Saint Peter's states: "Nel tempo del suo Pontificato, la gloria della scoperta di un nuovo mondo" (transl. "During his Pontificate, the glory of the discovery of a new world."). Writer Ruggero Marino, in his book Cristoforo Colombo e il Papa tradito (transl. Christopher Columbus and the betrayed Pope) argues that since Innocent died shortly before the departure of Christopher Columbus on his presumedly first voyage over the Atlantic, this suggests that Columbus actually traveled before the known date and re-discovered the Americas for the Europeans before the supposed date of 12 October 1492.[19]

At some point the pope's coat of arms was replaced with an inscription, and the position of the two images of Innocent switched. After completion of the nave of the new basilica, in 1621 the monument was dismantled and relocated courtesy of Innocent's great nephew, Alberico Cybo Malaspina, prince of Massa, duke of Ferentillo, and marquis of Carrara.[20]

"The monument does have some historical inaccuracies, as already widely noted by the critics...":[20] "Ciibo" instead of "Cibo", "vixit" instead of "sedit", the date of death as "1497" instead of "1492", a reference to the "Crucis Ssancro Santi; in addition, a reference to Bayezid as Imper(atore) scratched out and replaced with "Tyrant", any of which could have taken place during the reconstruction.[21][20]

Family

Innocent had at least seven illegitimate children born before he entered the clergy.

Savonarola chastised him for his worldly ambitions.[23]

His grandnephew Bindo Altoviti was one of the most influential bankers of his time and a notable patron of the arts, being friends with Raphael and Michelangelo.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Innocentius VIII.
Wikisource has original works by or about:
Innocent VIII

Notes

  1. ^ Bizzocchi 1995, p. 76.
  2. ^ Francesco Serdonati (1829). Vita e fatti d'Innocenzo VIII., papa CCXVI. Milan: Tip. di V. Ferrario. p. 10.
  3. ^ a b c Weber, Nicholas (1910). "Pope Innocent VIII" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  4. ^ a b John Paul Adams, "Sede Vacante August 12, 1484 – August 29, 1484", California State University, Northridge, retrieved: 3 August 2016.
  5. ISBN 978-0300115970
    , p. 196
  6. ^ Wikisource:Summis desiderantes
  7. ISBN 0812217519
    , p. 177
  8. ^ Darst, David H. (15 October 1979). "Witchcraft in Spain: The Testimony of Martín de Castañega's Treatise on Superstition and Witchcraft (1529)". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 123 (5): p. 298
  9. ^ cf., Joyy et al., Witchcraft and Magic In Europe, p. 239 (2002).
  10. ^ Innocent VIII (1669). Id nostri cordis. Histoire générale des Eglises Evangeliques des Vallées du Piemont ou Vaudoises. Vol. 2. p. 8.
  11. ^ Donovan, Stephen (1907). "Bl. Angelo Carletti di Chivasso" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  12. ^ Lejay, Paul (1911). "Giovanni Pico della Mirandola" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  13. ^ a b Minnich, p. 281
  14. ISBN 0691114366
    )
  15. ^ David Brion Davis, p. 101 fn. 21
  16. ^ "Sede Vacante1492".
  17. ^ Valori, quoted in Pirie, The Triple Crown, Spring 1935, p. 29
  18. ^  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pollaiuolo s.v. Antonio". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 1.
  19. ^ Carnimeo, Nicolò (19 May 2014). "Haiti, i dubbi sul ritrovamento della Santa Maria di Colombo (Doubts over the finding of the Santa Maria of Colombo)". ilfattoquotidiano.it2014. Retrieved 21 May 2013.
  20. ^ a b c ""St. Peter's Basilica – A Virtual Tour", Our Sunday Visitor, 1999".
  21. ISBN 978-9004226432
    .
  22. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Innocent/Innocent VIII" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 581–582. (sub-section within article "innocent", pp. 577–583)
  23. ^ Roberto Ridolfi (1959) The Life of Girolamo Savonarola

References

  • Doubts over the finding of the Santa Maria of Colombo, Nicolò Carnimeo, IlFattoQuotidiano.it, 2014
Catholic Church titles
Preceded by
Camerlengo of the Sacred College of Cardinals

1484 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Pope
29 August 1484 – 25 July 1492 		Succeeded by
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