Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/123

 jenseits des Guten und Bösen, to use Nietsche’s now almost proverbial expression. If he played a somewhat pitiable part at Constance, we may assume that the excesses of his earlier days had impaired his formerly brilliant mental power. Finding that a military career was not at that moment likely to lead to rapid advancement, Cossa took to study and visited the famed University of Bologna. He here obtained the degree of laureate both of civil and of canon law “in consequence of his talents,” though he was said to have been more assiduous in debauchery than in study. The accusations afterwards brought forward against Cossa at Constance are terrible. Even if we distrust some of Niem’s hideously-grotesque tales, and believe that some of the evidence produced at Constance may have been spurious, Cossa’s record remains very black. Almost all contemporary writers assert that he was tainted with unnatural vice. Cossa soon ingratiated himself with his countryman, Pope Boniface IX., who appointed him archdeacon of Bologna, an important office, the holder of which acted as rector of the university. To be nearer to the pontiff Cossa proceeded to Rome, and by paying large sums to the pope, whose avarice was insatiable, he became Bishop of Ischia, and cardinal in 1402. He then obtained other ecclesiastical dignities, and was finally sent as papal legate to Bologna, Ferrara Ravenna, and Rimini. These cities, which, during the then prevailing anarchy, had thrown off the papal rule, were subdued by Cossa. Not less greedy for money than his patron Pope Boniface, the new legate succeeded in extorting vast sums from these cities, particularly from Bologna, where even the churches and monasteries were not secure from his greed. Cossa for a time became absolute ruler of Bologna, hardly caring to keep up the pretence that he was acting as a papal legate. His reign of terror, which obtained for him the name of “diavolo cardinale,” scarcely suffered any interruption, when a conflict broke out between 2em