Innocent VIII

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Innocent VIII 1432–92, pope (1484–92), a Genoese named Giovanni Battista Cibo; successor of Sixtus IV. He was made a cardinal in 1473. His close friend, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (later Pope Julius II), largely directed the papal affairs. Like his predecessors, Innocent wished to stop the Turkish advance, but he succeeded by means other than the crusade he originally planned. Djem, brother and rival of Sultan Beyazid II , was being held captive by Pierre d' Aubusson ; the pope saw that if he held over the sultan the threat of supporting Djem's pretensions, Beyazid would come to terms. Beyazid (1490) agreed to leave Europe at peace if the pope kept Djem captive. Innocent VIII was known as a nepotist and was attacked by Savonarola for his worldliness. He was succeeded by Alexander VI.

Innocent VIII (29 Aug. 1484–25 July 1492). The conclave following Sixtus IV's death was a hotbed of intrigue, with his nephew Giuliano della Rovere (Julius II), aware that he himself stood no chance, lobbying for the election of someone he could dominate. The man chosen, after endorsing the petitions of several cardinals for favours in his cell the night before, was the easygoing but ineffective Giovanni Battista Cibò. The son of a Roman senator, he was born at Genoa in 1432, spent his youth at the court of Naples and then studied at Padua and Rome, took orders and, through the favour of Cardinal Calandrini, was made bishop of Savona in 1467 and then Molfetta in 1472, and was created a cardinal by Sixtus IV in 1473. He had little experience of politics, and, having fathered several illegitimate children before ordination, he now provided for them by marriage into princely houses.

Irresolute, lax, chronically ill, but personally affable as he was, there could be no question of church reform in Innocent's reign. His court, like Sixtus IV's, was as colourful and loose as any Italian prince's, and his cardinals, mostly Sixtus's creations, were worldly grands seigneurs. He inherited vast debts from Sixtus, and the financial state of the curia continued to get worse. To alleviate it he resorted to the expedient of creating countless unneeded curial and other offices and then selling them to the highest bidder. His insolvency was not helped by his siding in 1485, persuaded by Giuliano, with the rebellious Neapolitan barons against Ferdinand I of Naples (1458–94), who refused to pay the papal dues. The results were disastrous for Rome and the papal state, and he had to accept a disadvantageous peace in Aug. 1486. Freed for a time from Giuliano's influence, he now made an alliance with Lorenzo de' Medici, to whose daughter he married his undeserving son Franceschetto, and whose thirteen-year-old son he raised to the cardinalate. Hostilities with Naples, however, broke out afresh in 1489, since Ferdinand failed to fulfil his side of the peace, and in Sept. Innocent excommunicated and deposed him. A reconciliation was patched up in Jan. 1492, but the papacy lost L'Aquila and most of its political prestige.

The attempts Innocent made to rally action to meet the Turkish menace proved abortive. The fact that he was the first pope to enter into relations with the Ottoman empire may have contributed to this. In 1489 he agreed an arrangement with the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II (1481–1512) whereby, in return for 40,000 ducats yearly and the gift of the Holy Lance (supposed to have pierced Christ's side at his crucifixion), he detained his fugitive brother and potential rival Jem in close confinement at Rome. To escape from Bayezid Jem had fled to Rhodes, and the grand master of the Knights of St John, in return for a cardinal's hat, handed him over to the pope, who was glad to have such an important hostage for the sultan's good behaviour.

In 1486 Innocent formally recognized Henry VII as rightful king of England on the threefold ground of conquest, inheritance, and national choice. He is also remembered both for his bull Summis desiderantes (5 Dec. 1484) ordering the Inquisition in Germany to proceed with the utmost severity against supposed witches, which gave a powerful stimulus to the persecution of witchcraft, and for his ban (1486) on the discussion and study of the theses of Pico della Mirandola (1463–94), the exponent of Renaissance Platonism. As his ineffective reign drew to its close, he and Rome were filled with jubilation by the news of the expulsion of the Moors from Granada (2 Jan. 1492), but the triumph was due to Ferdinand V and Isabella of Castile (1474–1504), not to the holy see; in recognition of this he awarded Ferdinand and his successors the title of ‘Catholic Kings’. As pope he was incapable of exercising firm control over Rome and left the papal states in anarchy, and his death was the signal for an outbreak of unprecedented violence and disorder.

Bibliography

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