Pope Sixtus IV (orXystus IV,[1]Italian:Sisto IV; bornFrancesco della Rovere; (21 July 1414 – 12 August 1484) was head of theCatholic Church and ruler of thePapal States from 9 August 1471 until his death in 1484. His accomplishments aspope included the construction of theSistine Chapel and the creation of theVatican Library. A patron of the arts, he brought together the group of artists who ushered the earlyRenaissance intoRome with the first masterpieces of the city's new artistic age.
Francesco was a member of theDella Rovere family, a son of Leonardo Beltramo di Savona della Rovere and Luchina Monteleoni.[2] He was born inCelle Ligure, a town nearSavona.[3]
As a young man, Della Rovere joined theFranciscan Order, an unlikely choice for a political career, and his intellectual qualities were revealed while he was studyingphilosophy andtheology at theUniversity of Pavia. He went on to lecture at Padua and many other Italian universities.[4]
Before his papal election, Cardinal della Rovere was renowned for his unworldliness and had written learned treatises, includingOn the Blood of Christ andOn the Power of God.[5]
His reputation for piety was one of the deciding factors that prompted theCollege of Cardinals to elect him Pope upon the unexpected death of Paul II at the age of fifty-four.[6]
Upon being electedPope, Della Rovere adopted the name Sixtus, which had not been used since the 5th century. One of his first acts was to declare a renewedcrusade against theOttoman Turks inSmyrna. However, after the conquest of Smyrna, the fleet disbanded.[7] Some fruitless attempts were made towards unification with theGreek Church. For the remainder of his pontificate, Sixtus turned to temporal issues and dynastic considerations.
His nephew, Pietro Riario, possibly also benefited from his alleged nepotism. He was successively promoted to be a cardinal, the bishop of Florence, the Patriarch of Constantinople and given some 45 additionalbenefices. Pietro became one of the richest men inRome and was entrusted with Pope Sixtus IV's foreign policy, in addition to being given an unofficial post as the de facto ruler of Rome. He reportedly spent 200,000gold ducats on foodstuffs and festivities during two years in office.[9] Pietro died prematurely in 1474.[10] Chroniclers of his life seem to regard his death as unnatural and thus connect his alleged grandiose spending habits and the impression they left on his contemporaries as causal.[11]
Criticisms ofPietro's meteoric rise were not constrained to the charge of benefiting from nepotism as Sixtus IV's nephew, nor to allegations of possibly having been Sixtus IV's illegitimate son. Indeed, Pietro and his brother Girolamo Riario were alleged to have been lovers of Sixtus IV in polemics against the latter. According to the later published chronicle of the Italian historianStefano Infessura,Diary of the City of Rome, Sixtus was a "lover of boys and a sodomite" (Latin:puerorum amator et sodomita) awarding benefices and bishoprics in return for sexual favours and nominating a number of young men as cardinals.[12] Sexualised polemics, in truth concerned with politics and not the sexual lives of their victims, were not uncommon during this time; but asPfisterer (sic) notes "the novel flood of accusations of sodomy against a pope" and "true flood of corresponding lampoons, reviling poems, and fictional epitaphs" following his death are at the very least evidence for his contemporaries' opinions about the promotions of these young men.[13]
The secular fortunes of the Della Rovere family began when Sixtus invested his nephewGiovanni with the lordship ofSenigallia and arranged his marriage to the daughter ofFederico III da Montefeltro, duke ofUrbino; from that union came a line of Della Rovere dukes of Urbino that lasted until the line expired, in 1631.[14] Six of the thirty-four cardinals that he created were his nephews.[15]
However, Infessura had partisan allegiances to theColonna and so is not considered to be always reliable or impartial.[19] The English churchman andProtestant polemicistJohn Bale, writing a century later, attributed to Sixtus "the authorisation to practicesodomy during periods of warm weather" to the "Cardinal of Santa Lucia".[20] This prompted the noted historian of the Catholic Church,Ludwig von Pastor, to issue a firm rebuttal.[21]
Sixtus continued a dispute with KingLouis XI of France, who upheld thePragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438), which held that papal decrees needed royal assent before they could be promulgated in France.[4] That was a cornerstone of the privileges claimed for theGallican Church and could never be shifted as long as Louis XI manoeuvred to replace KingFerdinand I of Naples with a French prince. Louis was thus in conflict with the papacy, and Sixtus could not permit it.
On 1 November 1478, Sixtus published thepapal bullExigit Sincerae Devotionis Affectus through which theSpanish Inquisition was established in theKingdom of Castile.[22] Sixtus consented under political pressure fromFerdinand of Aragon,[22] who threatened to withhold military support from his kingdom ofSicily. Nevertheless, Sixtus IV quarrelled over protocol and prerogatives of jurisdiction; he was unhappy with the excesses of the Inquisition and condemned the most flagrant abuses in 1482.[23]
For refusing to desist from the very hostilities that he himself had instigated and for being a dangerous rival to Della Rovere dynastic ambitions in theMarche, Sixtus placed Venice underinterdict in 1483. He also lined the coffers of the state by unscrupulously selling high offices and privileges.[7]
In ecclesiastical affairs, Sixtus promoted the dogma of theImmaculate Conception, which had been confirmed at theCouncil of Basle in 1439,[7] and he designated 8 December as its feastday. In 1476, he issued the apostolic constitutionCum Praeexcelsa, establishing a Mass and Office for the feast. He formally annulled the decrees of theCouncil of Constance in 1478.[24]
The two papal bulls issued byPope Nicholas V,Dum Diversas of 1452 andRomanus Pontifex of 1455, had effectively given the Portuguese the rights to acquire non-Christian slaves along the African Coast by force or trade. Those concessions were confirmed by Sixtus in his own bull,Aeterni regis, of 21 June 1481.[25] Arguably the "ideology of conquest" expounded in those texts became the means by which commerce and conversion were facilitated.[26]
In November 1476, Isabel and Fernando ordered an investigation into rights of conquest in the Canary Islands, and in the spring of 1478, they sent Juan Rejon with sixty soldiers and thirty cavalry to the Grand Canary, where the natives retreated inland.[citation needed] Sixtus's earlier threats to excommunicate all captains or pirates who enslaved Christians in the bullRegimini Gregis of 1476 could have been intended to emphasise the need to convert the natives of theCanary Islands andGuinea and establish a clear difference in status between those who had converted and those who resisted.[27] The ecclesiastical penalties were directed towards those who were enslaving the recent converts.[28]
As a civic patron in Rome, even the anti-papal chronicler Stefano Infessura agreed that Sixtus should be admired. The dedicatory inscription in the fresco byMelozzo da Forlì in theVatican Palace records: "You gave your city temples, streets, squares, fortifications, bridges and restored theAcqua Vergine as far as theTrevi..."
In addition to restoring the aqueduct that provided Rome an alternative to the river water, which had made the city famously unhealthy, he restored or rebuilt over 30 of Rome's dilapidated churches such asSan Vitale (1475) andSanta Maria del Popolo, and he added seven new ones. TheSistine Chapel was sponsored by Sixtus IV, as was thePonte Sisto,[8] theSistine Bridge (the first new bridge across theTiber since Antiquity), and the building ofVia Sistina (later namedBorgo Sant'Angelo), a road leading fromCastel Sant'Angelo to Saint Peter.[citation needed]
All of that was done to facilitate the integration of theVatican Hill andBorgo with the heart of Old Rome. That was part of a broader scheme ofurbanization carried out under Sixtus IV, who swept the long-established markets from theCampidoglio in 1477 and decreed in a bull of 1480 the widening of streets and the first post-Roman paving, the removal of porticoes and other post-classical impediments to free public passage.[citation needed]
At the beginning of his papacy, in 1471, Sixtus had donated several historically important Roman sculptures that founded a papal collection of art, which would eventually develop into the collections of theCapitoline Museums. He also refounded, enriched and enlarged theVatican Library.[8] He hadRegiomontanus attempt the first sanctioned reorganisation of theJulian calendar[29] and increased the size and prestige of the papal chapel choir, bringing singers and some prominent composers (Gaspar van Weerbeke,Marbrianus de Orto andBertrandus Vaqueras) to Rome from the north.[citation needed]
In addition to being a patron of the arts, Sixtus was a patron of the sciences. Before he became pope, he had spent time at the very liberal and cosmopolitanUniversity of Padua, which maintained considerable independence from the Church and had a very international character.[30][31]
As Pope, he issued apapal bull allowing local bishops to give the bodies of executed criminals and unidentified corpses to physicians and artists for dissection. It was that access to corpses which allowed the anatomistVesalius, along withTitian's pupilJan Stephen van Calcar, to complete the revolutionary medical/anatomical textDe humani corporis fabrica.[citation needed]
The Pope created 34 cardinals in eight consistories held during his reign, among them three nephews, one grandnephew and one other relative, thus continuing the practice of nepotism that he and his successors would engage in during this period.
In 1477, Sixtus IV issued apapal bull authorizing the creation ofUppsala University – the first university inSweden and in the whole ofScandinavia. The choice of this location for the university derived from the fact that thearchbishopric of Uppsala had been one of the most importantsees inSweden proper since Christianity first spread to this region in the ninth century, as well as Uppsala being long-standing hub for regional trade. Uppsala's bull, which granted the university its corporate rights, established a number of provisions. Among the most important of these was that the university was officially given the same freedoms and privileges as theUniversity of Bologna. This included the right to establish the four traditional faculties oftheology, law (Canon Law andRoman law), medicine, and philosophy, and to award the bachelor's, master's, licentiate, and doctoral degrees. The archbishop of Uppsala was also named as the university'sChancellor, and was charged with maintaining the rights and privileges of the university and its members.[32] This act of Sixtus IV had a profound long-term effect on the society and culture of Sweden, an effect which continues up to the present.[clarification needed]
Sixtus IV became ill on 8 August 1484; this illness worsened on 10 August while the pope was attending an event in Rome. He felt unwell that evening and was forced to cancel a meeting he was to hold with his cardinals the following morning. The Pope grew weaker during the night of 11 August and he was unable to sleep. Sixtus IV died the following evening – 12 August.[33]
The envoy of the Medici family summed up Sixtus' reign in the announcement to his master, "Today at 5 o'clock His Holiness Sixtus IV departed this life – may God forgive him!"[34]
Pope Sixtus's tomb was destroyed in theSack of Rome in 1527. Today, his remains, along with the remains of his nephew Pope Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere), are interred in St. Peter's Basilica, in the floor in front of the monument to Pope Clement X. A marble tombstone marks the site.
His bronze funerary monument, now in the basement Treasury ofSt. Peter's Basilica, made like a giant casket of goldsmith's work, is byAntonio del Pollaiuolo; it was completed by 1493. The top of the casket is a lifelike depiction of the Pope lying in state. Around the sides arebas-relief panels depicting allegorical female figures representing Grammar, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Painting, Astronomy, Philosophy, and Theology—the classicalliberal arts, with the addition of painting and theology. Each figure incorporates the oak tree ("rovere" in Italian), symbol of Sixtus IV. The overall program of the panels, their beauty, complex symbolism, classical references and their relative arrangement are compelling and comprehensive illustrations of the Renaissance worldview. None of them actually states how he died.
Sixtus created an unusually large number of cardinals during his pontificate (23) who were drawn from the roster of the princely houses of Italy, France and Spain, thus ensuring that many of his policies continued after his death:
^Filip Malesevic,Inventing the Council inside the Apostolic Library: The Organization of Curial Erudition in Late Cinquecento Rome (De Gruyter Saur, 2021), pp. 465–466.
^Lee, Egmont (1978).Sixtus IV and Men of Letters. Edizioni di storia e letteratura. pp. 12, 14.
^His most scandalous expenditures however occurred in relation to his reception ofEleonora of Aragon. They reportedly involved expensive decorations,gildedchamber pots, a feast with many courses ending withcapon sculptures made frommarzipan, three edible life-sized statues ofHercules below ones ofBacchus andAriadne made fromsweets being served with desert.
^On his premature death (1501), Giovanni entrusted his sonFrancesco Maria to Federico's successorGuidobaldo (Duke of Urbino 1482–1508), who, without an heir, devised the duchy on the boy.
^Egmont Lee,Sixtus IV and Men of Letters, Rome, 1978
^Giovanni Lydus,Analecta in labrum Nicolai de Clemangiis, De Corrupto Ecclesiae state. In class a: Nicolas de Clemanges, Opera Omnia, Elzevirius & Laurentius, Lugduni Batavorum 1593, p. 9)
^Ludwig Pastor,History of the Popes [1889], vol. II, Desclée, Roma 1911, pp. 608–611
Costigan, Lúcia Helena (2010). Schmidt, Benjamin; Klooster, Wim (eds.).Through Cracks in the Wall: Modern Inquisitions and New Christian 'Letrados' in the Iberian Atlantic World. Vol. 19. Brill.
Kamen, Henry (1997).The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision. Yale University Press.
Vincenzo Pacifici,Un carme biografico di Sisto IV del 1477, Società Tiburtina di Storia e d'Arte, Tivoli, 1921[1](in Italian)
"The Historical Encyclopedia of World slavery", Editor Junius P. Rodriguez, ABC-CLIO, 1997,ISBN0-87436-885-5
"Black Africans in Renaissance Europe", Thomas Foster Earle, K. J. P. Lowe, Cambridge University Press, 2005,ISBN0-521-81582-7
"Christopher Columbus and the enslavement of the Amerindians in the Caribbean. (Columbus and the New World Order 1492–1992).", Sued-Badillo, Jalil, Monthly Review. Monthly Review Foundation, Inc. 1992.
"Castile, Portugal, and the Canary Islands: Claims and Counterclaims, 1344–1479", Joseph F. O'Callaghan, 1993, pp. 287–310, Viator, Volume 24
"Variations of Popery", Samuel Edgar D.D. Internet Archive, Ebooks and Texts.
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