Pope Innocent VIII

Pope Innocent VIII (1432 – 25 July 1492), born Giovanni Battista Cybo (or Cibo), was Pope from 1484 until his death.

Early years

Giovanni Battista Cybo (or Cibo) was born at Genoa of Greek ancestry,^{[1][2][3][4] [5]} the son of Arano Cybo or Cibo (c. 1375-c. 1455) and his wife Teodorina de Mari (c. 1380-). His paternal grandparents were Maurizio Cybo and his wife Saeacina Marocelli. Arano Cybo was a senator in Rome under Pope Calixtus III (1455-58). Giovanni Battista's early years were spent at the Neapolitan court, and subsequently he went to Padua and Rome for his education.

Career

In Rome he became a priest in the retinue of cardinal Calandnini, half-brother to Pope Nicholas V (1447–55). The influence of his friends procured for him, from Pope Paul II (1464–71), the bishopric of Savona, and in 1473, with the support of Giuliano Della Rovere, later Pope Julius II, he was made cardinal by Pope Sixtus IV, whom he succeeded on 29 August 1484 as Pope Innocent VIII.

The papal conclave of 1484 was riven with faction, while gangs rioted in the streets. Cardinal Giuliano did not have sufficient votes at the conclave to be elected, so he turned his energies towards the election of Cybo, whom he was confident that he could control.

Shortly after his coronation Innocent VIII 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 estimated from the fact that in 1489, in consideration of a yearly stipend of 40,000 ducats and a gift of the Holy Lance, he consented to favor Bayazid II by detaining the Sultan's fugitive brother Cem in close confinement in the Vatican.

Against witchcraft

During what is known as the Little Ice Age, Innocent VIII, in his papal bull Summis desiderantes (5 December 1484) instigated severe measures against magicians and witches in Germany. The grip of freezing weather, failing of crops, rising crime, and mass starvation was blamed on witches. He issued the bull to inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacobus Sprenger to systemize the persecution of witches.^[6][7]

"It has recently come to our ears, not without great pain to us, that in some parts of upper Germany, [...] Mainz, Koin, 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; that they afflict and torture with dire pains and anguish, both internal and external, these men, women, cattle, flocks, herds, and animals, and hinder men from begetting [...]"^[8]

Kramer and Sprenger would later write the polemic Malleus Maleficarum in 1486, which stated that witchcraft was to blame for bad weather. These remarks are included in Part 2, Chapter XV, which is entitled: "How they Raise and Stir up Hailstorms and Tempests, and Cause Lightning to Blast both Men and Beasts":^[9]

"Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that, just as easily as they raise hailstorms, so can they cause lightning and storms at sea; and so no doubt at all remains on these points."

Also see: Witch trials in Early Modern Europe

Other events

In 1487, Innocent confirmed Tomas de Torquemada as 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 became convinced that 13 of the 900 theses of Pico Mirandola were heretical and the book was interdicted.^[10]

In Rome he built for summer use the Belvedere of the Vatican, on an unarticulated slope above the Vatican Palace, which his successor would turn into the Cortile del Belvedere. In season, he hunted at Castello della Magliana, which he enlarged. Invariably short of money, he institutionalized simony at the papal court, creating new titles of offices that were discreetly auctioned.

After a shaky peace of 1486 with King Ferdinand I of Naples failed and Ferdinand repeatedly refused to pay the tariff for his investiture, Innocent excommunicated him 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.

An important event that coincided with Innocent's pontificate was the fall of Granada in January 1492, which was celebrated in the Vatican with great rejoicings. Innocent granted Ferdinand II of Aragon the epithet "Catholic Majesty."

Slavery

Minnich (2005) notes that the position of Renaissance popes towards slavery, a common institution in contemporary cultures, varied. Minnich states that those who allowed the slave trade did so in the hope of gaining converts to Christianity.^[11] In the case of Innocent he permitted trade with Barbary merchants in which foodstuffs would be given in exchange for slaves who could then be converted to Christianity.^[11]

King Ferdinand of Aragon gave Innocent 100 Moorish slaves who shared them out with favoured Cardinals.^[12] The slaves of Innocent were called "moro", meaning "dark-skinned man", in contrast to negro slaves who were called "moro nero".^[13]

Family

Innocent VIII died on 25 July 1492 leaving behind him two illegitimate children born before he entered the clergy.^[14] Another source says "sixteen", the remaining fourteen of which were presented as nephews.^[15] The title Padre della patria (= Father of the Fatherland) was suggested for him, precisely with reference to these sixteen children of his.^[16] In 1487 he married his elder son Franceschetto Cybo (d. 1519) to Maddalena de' Medici (1473–1528), the natural daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, who in return obtained the cardinal's hat for his thirteen-year-old son Giovanni, later Pope Leo X. His daughter Teodorina Cybo married Gerardo Usodimare and had a daughter. Savonarola chastised him for his worldly ambitions. The unsympathetic Roman chronicler Stefano Infessura provides many lively details, among them the apparent attempt to revive Innocent VIII on his deathbed by blood transfusions from three young male children (who died as well in the process).^[17]

References

• "Black Africans in Renaissance Europe", N. H Minnich, Thomas Foster Earle, K. J. P. Lowe, Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN 0521815827
• "For the glory of God: how monotheism led to reformations, science, witch-hunts, and the end of slavery", Rodney Stark, p. 330, Princeton University Press, 2003, ISBN 0691114366
• "The problem of slavery in Western culture", David Brion Davis, Oxford University Press US, 1988, ISBN 0195056396 [1]

Notes

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