Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/95

 INNOCENT 85 1404) to succeed him, after each of the cardinals had bound himself by a solemn obligation to employ all lawful means for the restoration of the church s unity in the event of his election, and even to resign the papal dignity should that be considered necessary to this end. The election was resisted at Rome by the Ghibelline party, but peace was maintained by the aid of Ladislaus of Naples, who thus laid Innocent under embarrassing obligations, from which he freed himself at the earliest possible moment. The assassination of some leading members of the city party by Ludovico Migliorati (a nephew of Innocent) and his friends compelled the pope to take refuge, in August 1405, at Viterbo, whence he did not return until January of the following year. These troubles furnished him with a pretext, of which he was not unwilling to avail himself, for postponing the meeting of a general council which was urged by Charles of France, the university of Paris, Rupert of Germany, and John of Castile, as the only means of healing the schism which had prevailed so long. It is hardly necessary to say that he showed no favour to the proposal that he as well as the antipope Benedict XIII. should resign in the interests of peace. He died somewhat suddenly at Rome on November 6, 1406; there is no evidence for the truth of the allegation that his death was not due to natural causes. His successor was Gregory XII. INNOCENT VIIL, Giovanni Battista Cibo, pope from 1484 to 1492, was born at Genoa (1432), and was the son of a man of senatorial rank. His early years were spent at the Neapolitan court, and subsequently he went to Padua and Rome for his education. In the latter city the influence of his friends procured for him, from Paul II., the bishopric, of Savona, and in 1473 he was made cardinal by Sixtus IV., whom he succeeded on August 29, 1484. Shortly after his coronation he addressed a fruitless summons to Christendom to unite in a crusade against the infidels ; the amount of his own zeal may in some degree be esti mated from the fact that in 1489, in consideration of head which had pierced the Saviour s side, he consented to favour the sultan Bajazet II. by detaining his fugi tive brother in close confinement in the Vatican. In 1486 Henry VII. of England was declared to be the lawful holder of the English crown by the threefold right of conquest, inheritance, and popular choice. Innocent, in his bull &quot; Summis desiderantes &quot; (5th December 1484), instigated very severe measures against magicians and witches in Germany ; the principles enun ciated by him were afterwards embodied in the Malleus maleftcarum (1487). He it was also who in 1487 appointed Torquemada to be grand inquisitor of Spain ; he also urged a crusade against the Waldensians, offering plenary indulgence to all who should engage in it. In 1486 he prohibited, on pain of severe ecclesiastical censures, the . reading of the nine hundred propositions of Pico Mirandola. An important event of his pontificate was the fall of J Granada (January 1492), which was celebrated in the Vatican with great rejoicings. He died July 25, 1492, leaving behind him numerous children (&quot; Octo Nocens pueros genuit, totidemque puellas ; Hunc merito poterit dicere Roma patrein &quot;), towards whom his nepotism had been as lavish as it was shameless. His successor was Alexander VI. INNOCENT IX. succeeded Gregory XIV. on October 29, 1591, and died on December 30 of the same year. His pontificate was unimportant. Clement VIIL was his successor. INNOCENT X., Giovanni Battista Pamphili, pope from i 1644 to 1655, was born at Rome in 1574, attained the dignity of cardinal in 1629, and through French influence Throughout his reign the influence exercised over him by Olympia Maidalchina, his deceased brother s wife, was very great, and such as to give rise to gross scandal, for which, however, there appears to have been no adequate ground. He naturally enough objected to the conclusion of the peace of Westphalia, against which his nuncio in his name vainly protested, and against which he issued the bull &quot;Zelo domus Dei&quot; in November 1648. The most important of his doctrinal decisions was his condemnation of the five Jansenist propositions in 1653. The avarice of his female counsellor gave to his reign a tone of oppression and sordid greed which probably it would not otherwise have shown, for personally he was not without noble and reforming impulses. He died January 5, 1655, and was succeeded by Alexander VII. INNOCENT XL, Benedetto Odescalchi, pope from 1676 to 1689, was born at Como in 1611, studied law at Rome and Naples, held successively the offices of protono- tary, president of the apostolic chamber, commissary of the Marca di Roma, and governor of Macerata; in 1647 Innocent X. made him cardinal, and he afterwards succes sively became legate to Ferrara and bishop of Novara. In all these capacities the simplicity and purity of character which he displayed had combined with his unselfish and openhanded benevolence to secure for him a high place in the popular affection and esteem ; and two months after the death of Clement X. he was (September 21, 1676), in spite of French opposition, chosen his successor. He lost no time in declaring and practically manifesting his zeal as a reformer of manners and a corrector of administrative abuses. He sought to abolish sinecures and to put the papal finances otherwise on a sound footing; beginning with the clergy, he sought to raise the laity also to a higher moral standard of living. Some of his regulations with the latter object, however, may raise a smile as showing more zeal than judgment. In 1679 he publicly condemned sixty-five propositions, taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Suarez, and the like, as &quot; propositiones laxorum moralistarum,&quot; and forbade any one to teach them under penalty of excommunication. Personally not unfriendly to Molinos, he nevertheless so far yielded to the enormous pressure brought to bear upon him as to confirm in 1687 the judgment of the inquisitors by which sixty-eight Molinist propositions were condemned as blasphemous and heretical. His pontificate was marked by the prolonged struggle with Louis XIV. of France on the subject of the so-called &quot; Gallican Liberties,&quot; and also about certain immunities claimed by ambassadors to the papal court. He died after a long period of feeble health on August 12, 1689. Hitherto repeated attempts at his canonization have invariably failed, the reason popularly assigned being the influence of France. The fine moral character of Innocent has been sketched with much artistic power as well as with historical fidelity by Mr Robert Browning in The Ring and the Booh Innocent XL was succeeded by Alexander VIIL INNOCENT XII., Antonio Pignatelli, pope from 1691 to 1700, was the successor of Alexander VIIL He came of a distinguished Neapolitan family, and was born March 13, 1615. Educated at the Jesuit college in Rome, he in his twentieth year became an official of the court of Urban VIIL ; under successive popes he served as nuncio at Florence and Vienna and in Poland ; and by Innocent XL he was made cardinal (1681) and archbishop of Naples. Immediately after his election (July 12, 1691) he declared against the nepotism which had too much and too long been one of the greatest scandals of the papacy ; the bull &quot;Romanum decet Pontificem,&quot; issued in 1692, prohibited popes in all times coming from bestowing estates, offices, or revenues on any relative ; at the same time he sought
 * i yearly sum of 40,000 ducats and a gift of the spear
 * was chosen to succeed Urban VIIL on September 15,1644.