THE CHURCH DURING THE AGE OF RENAISSANCE

Historical Document: Letter of Pope Alexander VI to Fra Savonarola (1495)

Beloved son, greeting and apostolic blessing:
Granted that we have explained more fully through our other writings in the form
of a brief how much these disturbances, especially that of the Florentine
populace, have displeased us, and all the more in that they have had their origin
in your preachings, because, laying aside the extirpation of vices and the praises
of virtues, you have ventured to preach future events in public sermons and to
affirm that you knew those things by the Light of eternity and the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit; by means of these and similar things, simple people can often deviate
from the way of salvation and obedience to the Holy Roman Church. You ought
rather to have attended in your preachings to union and peace than to preach
such things as the vulgar call your prophecies and divinations; you ought also to
have considered that the conditions of the times are vehemently opposed to the
sort of doctrine which you put forward in public, a doctrine which would be
sufficient to create discord even where there is the greatest peace—how much
more so where such feuds and factions flourish! And so, the peril to many souls
and our desire for peace for that people [the Florentines]—and so that we might
satisfy our pastoral duties—have induced us to write to you. Nor, to be sure,
without mature counsel would we have decided to call you to us, so that you might
purge yourself from the charges against you, which, really, if they were true, ought
not to pass unpunished. However, when we learned recently from some of our
brothers, cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, and through your letters and
messages, that you were prepared on your own account in all your words and
deeds to submit yourself to the correction of the Holy Roman Church (which is
the duty of every good Christian and religious), we rejoiced exceedingly, and we
began to persuade ourselves that these things had been preached not in an evil
spirit but rather with a certain simplicity and zeal for being of service in the
vineyard of the Lord, although, indeed, experience might teach the contrary.
Indeed, lest we seem to neglect entirely such things which ought not to be
neglected in any way, we decided to write to you again. And responding to your
letters, we command you, by virtue of holy obedience, to abstain entirely from
any preaching, whether public or private, so that in ceasing from public sermons,
you might not be charged with resorting to conventicles. Fully maintain the
manner we desire until you are able safely, properly, and with that seemliness
which becomes a religious—not, as we understand, accompanied by troops—to
convey yourself into our presence (for we shall see you with a cheerful and
paternal spirit), or until we either decide in good time what manner you ought to
adhere to in future, or, if it pleases us, to appoint some suitable and upright man.
Because if you do as we hope, from that point we suspend the briefs and what is
contained in them, which we have written to you, and whatever clauses are
contained in them, so that you may be able to clear your con- science peacefully.
Dated at Rome at St. Peter’s, under the seal of the Fisherman, on the sixteenth
day of October 1495, in the fourth year of our pontificate.
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 30

I. Universal Characteristics of the Renaissance

The Renaissance is a typical movement of the modern age, hence it is characterized by the
new fundamental intellectual attitudes: nationalism, individualism, laicism, criticism.
A. Nationalism
The Renaissance is, first, a national Italian movement, a product of the Italian people and
its popular state, of national particularism (Cola di Rienzi, d. 1354). The Renaissance marks a
return to Roman antiquity. An awakening people turns spontaneously to the source of its being
and power. Confusion aided the movement and there arose the cry, typical of the entire age and
movement, "Back to the sources! In its origin every being bespeaks the creative will of God most
purely, and is most perfect!" The origins to which Italy was to turn lay in the overwhelming
greatness of that ancient Rome which had ruled the world.
The works of antiquity had not entirely disappeared from Italy. Family lineage, the
landscape, the ruins, the old buildings and statues were redolent of ancient greatness. Now, after
long repose all this became impressive and clear. The first vital contact with antiquity came to the
Italians through the medieval resurgence of the old Roman Law. Here was a thing which had not
felt the touch of age or decayed, but retained its vigor and vitality, a thing pre-eminent in content
and form, one of the supreme masterpieces of human thought. In the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries interest in this new discovery grew steadily; ardent enthusiasm and fanatic veneration
for antiquity were awakened; men dug up the soil for ancient treasures of art, made collections of
them, rediscovering the beauty and sweetness in the full, round form of this earth-bound art. They
read again the books of the ancients, searched the musty libraries for manuscripts, discovered new
texts, collected them, paid enormous prices for them.
Through the great fount of scholasticism, Aristotle, the bond with Grecian antiquity had
also been kept alive in the Middle Ages. Now from Sicily and south Italy new vitality was infused
into the existing knowledge of ancient philosophy, and finally Constantinople (1453) sent learned
men and manuscripts to the West transmitting the treasure of Grecian thought in the original
language.
The essential change in the attitude of this period toward antiquity lies in the fact that men
not only learn to know it but also gain an inner relationship with it. No longer do they extract grand
thoughts from the ancients in order to insert them into the Christian theological system; but they
try rather to read the texts so that they may understand and reconceive them in their own inner
meaning and with their own local color, just as they were written hundreds of years before. The
danger herein arises from the following two facts: (1) Untiring effort to reconstruct in one's own
mind an alien world of thought is indeed necessary for objectivity in the study of history and thus
basic to the scientific attitude, but it is also the basic attitude of relativism, of intellectual
indifference. This relativism is the cankerworm gnawing at the vitals of the Renaissance and of
the whole modern age. (2) This ancient culture was pagan Hence, men sought to read a heathen
speech. It is true, of course, that the splendor of Christian monotheism confronting the ridiculous
confusion of heathen polytheism was too exalted to allow of a relapse into pagan teaching. But
with ancient thought in classical literature and art came seductive forms and frivolous morals, thus
creating a pagan world of fancy and feeling upon which pagan indulgence and license soon
followed.
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 31

B. Individualism
The Renaissance, in the second place, was an age of eminent personalities. The political
confusion, the absence of strong central authority, the rapid progress of events in all fields made
this a most favorable time for strong, ruthless personalities. And in fact, they sprang up in
abundance. The Middle Ages also had been replete with dominant personalities.
But the essential, and for future ages the fundamental, difference between the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance must again be placed in the altered point of view and sense of value. In the
Middle Ages the individual personality was subordinated to the superior order, the individual was
fitted into the totality of state, Church, Christian truth. In the Renaissance, however, the individual
gradually frees himself from norm and bond. The ego becomes its own norm and standard of
values. And this ego, conscious of its fullness and its individuality,' formulates the theory
corresponding to its attitude: individuality leads to individualism.
These various aspects reveal an evident departure from the ideals of medieval ecclesiastical
culture. In place of humility there is self-consciousness; instead of renunciation, contemplation,
and prayer, there is action and power; indulgence takes the place of mortification; in a word, the
unworldly is replaced by the mundane and its beauty, the Kingdom of Heaven by the permanence
of one's own name and fame. Men dwell more and more on the beauty of the world, seek it in
journeys, or in a new and ravishing study of nature as may be seen in the humanist Petrarch with
his love for country life and the mountains.
C. Laicism
In the third place, the Renaissance, as is evident from all the foregoing, is essentially a lay
movement. Many clerics, monks, popes, and bishops had a share in it but the tendency itself,
whether hidden or apparent, is laic and secular, not clerical and churchly. The reasons are obvious:
(a) the fundamental progressive impulse came from the citizenry of the cities; (b) the newly
rediscovered ancient world, which met with such far-flung inner approval at this time, was heathen,
purely human, uninfluenced by supernatural ideas. Renaissance culture springs from the lay
movement of the Middle Ages, and laymen especially lead it to victory.
Most characteristic of this aspect of the movement and of the very greatest importance for
modern Church history is the new doctrine of statecraft. The idea which originated in the times of
Frederick II and Philip IV is now set forth in all its boldness and without any qualification: the
state is not bound either by the Church or by morality. The concept of Augustine is forsaken for
one which sees the state as a thing entirely apart; it is pure force and is itself the norm of things.
The politics of the Renaissance and the absolutism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
followed this theory of Machiavelli in practice even when condemning the doctrine itself.
The politics of the lords of the papal state also leaned heavily in this direction. For the
popes at that time to follow the system of political alliances was essential to the maintenance of
the ecclesiastical states, but the all too frequent shifting of sides in these alliances places upon it
the stigma of violation of promise. That Alexander VI, for example, opponent of Savonarola, allies
himself with the enemy of Christendom for the sake of material advantage, or that Leo X, from
political considerations, delays even for a time the energetic prosecution of Luther, or that Clement
VII turns from Catholic emperor to the French allies of the Protestants and thereby, so to say, saves
Protestantism, must be considered, from the viewpoint of Church history, as among the most
shameful and tragic paradoxes of the age.
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 32

Naturally trade also is governed by this individualistic, worldly spirit. The question of a
just return is blithely ignored in the daily transaction of business. The medieval prohibition of
interest is practically, and in part theoretically, brushed aside. The ceaseless exploitation of the
possibilities of gain becomes the ideal; and in the successful pursuit of pure banking and monetary
enterprise men availed themselves of the possibilities of gain with equal unconcern, whether it
flowed from war or from promulgation of indulgences.
D. Criticism
The love of nature and of history produces a realism which manifests itself in an accurate
observation of nature and leads to experimental research. There are new inventions and voyages
of discovery. A strong desire to wrest nature's secrets from her dominates the age. In addition to
science, magic and astronomy are made to serve the same purpose. The result is that extraordinary
expansion of the mental horizon which has already been noted.

II. Renaissance: A Culture of Expression

Expression, a New Ideal. Renaissance is finally a culture of expression: It is artistic and
aesthetic. It possesses the sense of beauty and the capacity of expression in overwhelming richness.
Hence there arose a new ideal of life.1 The movement which produced it stood in sharpest
antithesis to the immediate past and its motive forces, i.e., in contradiction to the Middle Ages, to
scholasticism, to all “reactionary” elements and evils in Scholasticism, state, and Church. Men
pictured this past as dull and oppressive; they desired a freer, more beautiful and harmonious
humanity. The idea of freedom and of human rights which in one form or other (although often
placed in the background) accompanies the development of humanity in modern times is clearly
evident at the beginning of the age.
Humanism. The term “humanism” designates that part of the Renaissance movement
which was especially concerned with the field of literary culture, of speech, education, and science.
The name itself has deep significance: period of humanism – period of man, of humanity, of
interest in the “humanities.”
A. The Northern Renaissance
In northern Europe, civilization was not as advanced as in the south. Cities were very small
and isolated and did not dominate as they did in Italy. If a student wanted to study classical
languages, law, or medicine, he would most likely have gone to Italy. Northern universities were
only lesser imitations of their formidable southern counterparts. But in the north the industrial arts
flourished, especially printing. At first this might not seem to be important, since only works
copied by monks (usually scriptures) were being reproduced in print. But as a result, the principal
topics of discussion in the north focused on religion. While the south sought to return to classical
antiquity, the north sought to return to Christian antiquity. In the south were found Alberti,
Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael; in the north were found Thomas More, Erasmus, and
Martin Luther.

1 There also arose a new social life. Its main characteristic is the “emancipation” of women, one of
the marks distinguishing the modern age from medieval times. A direct result of this emancipation can be
noted in the history of the Church in sisterhoods. the much greater freedom of movement permitted the
modern
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 33

B. The Southern Renaissance

Italy was a disorganized collection of city-states—Florence, Venice, Genoa, Naples,
Rome, etc.—states that were eagerly engaged in commerce and were prospering by it. Each had
its own colonies with which it traded and which had ready markets for its goods. Each formed
alliances with certain other city-states when convenience or war dictated, then broke them when
conditions changed. The city-states were always wary about the prospects even of their allies, and
nervously watched for any shift in fortune. They were also reluctant to help each other in time of
crisis. When the Turks threatened the Balkan Peninsula, where Venice had its colonies and
markets, few cities were interested in coining to the aid of the Venetians, who called frantically
for help. Such rivalry made it extremely difficult to fight the Turks effectively, and the 1400s was
a century of frustration on the part of the popes, who continually and with only modest success
called on these city-states to put aside their differences and come to the aid of Christianity. Only
one pope, Sixtus IV (1471-84) was able to organize successful crusades, one a naval victory off
the coast of Asia Minor and the other a successful siege of the Italian town of Otranto, which had
been occupied by the Turks. Otranto, on the heel of the boot of Italy, was a little too close for
comfort, and so an allied navy was formed by Naples, Venice, and the Papal States and, led by
Cardinal Carafa, laid siege to the town. The Turks, who had reportedly captured the aged
archbishop and mayor and had them sawed in half, and put to death 12,000 of the 22,000 people
of the town (the remainder being sent into slavery), were soundly defeated. But even here, the
allied navy would go no further, as the pope encouraged them to do, because of their bickering.
The Venetian navy was the first to return, followed shortly by the Neapolitan navy. But popes
would try again, and the great sea battle of Lepanto was fought against the Turkish navy in 1571
with ships from Spain, Genoa, Venice, and the Papal States taking part. Still, as spectacular as
these victories could be, they did little else than prevent the Turks from advancing further into
Europe. They did nothing to recover the lands lost to the Muslims in the Middle Ages.

III. The Renaissance Church before Luther’s Revolt

As we said in the general scenario, the Protestant revolutionaries saw themselves as re-
forming the pure Church of early Christian times. One would think that for these people a "re-
birth" of culture such as the Renaissance would have great appeal, because both the Protestant
revolutionaries and the Renaissance humanists (a term we will define shortly) saw themselves as
going back to a classical golden age and reviving it. Despite identical intentions, however, the
advocates of religious revolution arrived at conclusions about the past which differed radically
from those of the humanists. In order to understand this, let's discuss two main features of the
Renaissance — its humanism and its morality —to see how they affected the Protestant
revolutionaries.
A. Renaissance Humanism
The underlying mind-set of the Renaissance was known as humanism. Beginning in the
14th century with Italians like Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), Renaissance scholars began to
study the Greek and Roman classics in order to bring classical wisdom to bear on contemporary
culture. The writings which these scholars studied were known collectively as studio humanitatis,
or "humanities" — hence, the words humanism and humanist. Petrarch summarized the goal of
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 34

humanism as putting an end to what he called "this slumber of forgetfulness" so that people could
now "walk forward in the pure radiance of the past."
Humanism as a scholarly method or procedure became very popular. Going back to the
ancient past rather than relying on recent opinion came to be thought of as the only sound means
of education, and many Protestant reformers such as Luther and especially Calvin were heavily
indebted to humanism in this sense. Yet a distinction must be made between humanism as a
procedure for finding knowledge and humanism as a substantive body of knowledge in itself.
Renaissance humanists did not simply republish the ancients; they entered into a dialogue with
them, developing their own Renaissance humanistic philosophy in the process.

1. Italian Humanism
In the 15th century, humanists in Italy founded their own academies, considering
themselves to be following in the footsteps of such classical educators as Plato and Aristotle. In
these academies the humanists developed a distinctly Renaissance conception of humanity.
They tended to view human beings in much the same way as Ockham had — that is, as
volitional rather than rational creatures. For the humanists, one's emotions and passions were seen
as locked in a struggle with one's reason. Most humanists thus believed that it was the human will
and not reason which guided humanity's destiny. Petrarch expressed this dichotomy between will
and reason by saying, "It is better to will the good than to know the truth."
This viewpoint, of course, differed both from Thomas Aquinas's belief in the supremacy
of the intellect and from the entire Scholastic conception of human beings as rational animals who
can know the truth and control their passions accordingly. Whereas the Scholastics had put God,
intellect and moral order at the top of their hierarchy of values, the humanists gave first place to
human beings, freedom and human creative potential. And, whereas the Scholastics had been
primarily religious in their orientation, the humanists were primarily secular.
Yet many humanists were Christians who often supplemented the pagan classics with the
teachings of Augustine and the other Fathers. Thus began the tradition of "Christian humanism."
Pico della Mirandola (1463-1491), for example, stressed in his Oration humanity's creative
freedom, but placed that freedom within Christian parameters by reminding his readers,
You will have the power to sink to the lower forms of life, which are brutish. You will
have the power, through your own judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, which
are divine.

By and large, however, the Italian humanists, while professing to be Christian, advanced
frankly non-Christian themes in their writings. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) in The Prince,
for instance, openly praised deception, deceit, trickery and any other vice that would serve his ideal
prince's interests. As he put it, "When the very safety of the country is at stake there should be no
question of justice or injustice, of mercy or cruelty, of honor or disgrace." The Prince was a
shocking but realistic testimony to the humanist belief in the ability of human willpower and
initiative to master the forces of fate and nature. The artists, sculptors and scientists of the Italian
Renaissance likewise demonstrated in their works this belief in an invincible human potential.
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 35

2. Desiderius Erasmus
The greatest Christian humanist, and the greatest scholar of his age, was born not in Italy
but in Holland. Desiderius Erasmus (1469-1536) had received both a contemplative and a classical
education, having studied in his youth with the Brethren of the Common Life and then at the
Universities of Paris and Oxford, where he became a master of classical Greek. Throughout his
life Erasmus was to maintain (perhaps better than anyone since Augustine) a unique balance
between classical learning and Christian faith.
Erasmus developed in his writings what came to be called "the philosophy of Christ." In
this philosophy Erasmus criticized late medieval Ockhamism as a sterile and inflexible system of
thought which had stripped Christianity of its mystery and passion. Erasmus placed the Bible at
the center of Christian thought, declaring that the laity was sufficiently independent and intelligent
to understand Scripture through their own reading.
For Erasmus, the core of Christianity was the love of Christ. He thus considered many
devotional practices which had arisen during the Middle Ages, such as indulgences and relic
worship, ridiculous distortions of the true gospel. In his most famous book. The Praise of Folly,
Erasmus excoriated such practices: "What can be said bad enough," he asked, of those who "by
the fumbling over their beads" pretend "they shall procure riches, honors, pleasure, long life, and
lusty old age, indeed, even after death a seat at the right hand of the Savior?" He condemned the
popes for "their riches, honors. dispensations, indulgences, excommunications and interdicts." And
he wrote of the prostitute who counted "swill-bellied monks" as her best customers.
Yet in the heat of his fury Erasmus still managed to display his reverence for the Catholic
tradition which, he asserted, he was only trying to save from ruin. "What would Jerome say," he
wrote, "could he see the Virgin's milk exhibited for money..." and "the portions of the true cross,
enough, if collected, to freight a large ship?"" The overriding theme of Erasmus's critique was the
institutional Church's perversion of true Christianity. Commenting on Matthew 11:30, he wrote,
"Truly the yoke of Christ would be sweet, and his burden light, if petty human institutions added
nothing to what he himself imposed."
3. Humanism's Effect on the Reformers
Luther and the other reformers did admire Erasmus and the northern humanists greatly. In
sampling Erasmus, we can well appreciate the adage, "Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched."
Erasmus, for his part, while at first approving of Luther's revolt, eventually broke with Luther,
expressing his reasons in a letter he wrote to a cardinal in Rome: "1 would rather see things left as
they are than see a revolution that may lead to one knows not what...."
With respect to Italian humanism, the Protestant reformers regarded its philosophy as a
perverse belief in the perfectibility of human nature. Thus, while humanism as a method was
something they could accept, they rejected humanism as a substantive body of knowledge — or at
least they rejected the Italian form of that body of knowledge. In place of the Italian humanists'
belief in unlimited human potential, the Protestant reformers posited the utter depravity of human
nature. And in place of the Italians' worship of human freedom, the reformers imprisoned humanity
in the pit of predestination.
Since the worst of humanism, in the reformers' opinion, emanated from Italy and was
fostered by the popes, the reformers eventually came to regard the entire achievement of the Italian
Renaissance — its art, literature and science — as inimical to their ends. Consequently, the
Protestants quickly came to have a negative view of all secular learning. One of Luther's
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 36

lieutenants, Philip Melancthon (1497-1560), himself an educated humanist, bemoaned the

correlation between the spread of Luther's revolution and the deterioration of learning.

B. Renaissance Morality
The Renaissance belief in human potential and creativity ran contrary to the somber
assessment of human nature that one finds in Paul's Epistles and in the writings of Augustine.
Augustine's view on free will and grace was the dominant moral theology of the Middle Ages. In
a sense, what the humanists accomplished (or attempted to accomplish) was the liberation of
Catholicism from Augustine's theology. The Protestant reformers, on the other hand, relied greatly
on Augustine and reinterpreted his theology for their own purposes.
The problem with the humanists' emphasis on human freedom was that they had no moral
theology of their own to replace Augustine. As a result, at the same time that learning and culture
reached new peaks, morality reached perhaps the lowest point in all of Christian history.
The ideal of Renaissance humanism was not morality, but power and achievement. Had
this ideal been reflected only in the lives of lay humanists, it would have perhaps not been so bad.
What actually happened, however, was that much of the clergy also eagerly embraced the humanist
ideal. That is one reason why the Renaissance may be thought of as a "cause" of the Reformation.

1. Clerical Corruption
When Luther visited Renaissance Rome in 1510, he was scandalized by the behavior of his
fellow priests, several of whom frankly admitted to their serious German visitor that they didn't
believe a word of Catholic doctrine and remained in their offices only because of the wealth and
privilege these offices brought them. It is little wonder, then, that Luther went back to Germany
fuming over the corruption which the Renaissance had brought to the Church. And it is also little
wonder that he and other reformers took a very dim view of the art, culture and learning which
came out of Italy.
Other Renaissance writings, too, illustrate how immoral much of the clergy had become.
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), for example, had written a century before Luther of "the lewd
and filthy life of the clergy."" And the satirist Pietro Aretino (1492-1556), demonstrating that
conditions had not improved by Luther's time, wrote, "truly it would be easier to find Rome sober
and chaste than a correct book." And the historian Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540) described
the papal court as "an example of all that is most vile and shameful in the world."
Lest one doubt the testimony of these non-saintly observers, the words of St. Catherine of
Siena (1347-1380), a Doctor of the Catholic Church, would seem to substantiate the general report:
On whatever side you turn — whether to the secular clergy of priests and bishops, or
to the religious orders, or to prelates small or great, old or young, you see nothing
but offenses; and all stink in my nostrils with a stench of mortal sin. Narrow, greedy,
and avaricious, they have abandoned the care of souls. Making a god of their belly,
eating and drinking in disorderly feast, they fall thence forthwith into filth, living in
lasciviousness, feeding their children with the substance of the poor. They flee from
choir service as from prison."
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 37

2. The Renaissance Popes

The humanistic spirit of the Renaissance was introduced into the papacy by Pope Nicholas
V. At the same time, he attended well to the spiritual needs of the Church. Such an affirmation
cannot be made of his immediate successors who lived like more Renaissance humanistic princes
rather than spiritual leaders of the Catholic Church. The Church, even at its highest spiritual
authority on earth, had to pay a very heavy moral price for the glory and magnificence of the
Renaissance. Some of the Renaissance popes had come from a background that was immoral,
corrupt, overwhelmingly secular, and devoid of spirituality. This sad state of affairs at the highest
level in the Catholic Church had not been seen since the turbulent tenth century AD.

2.1 Nicholas V
Like the other great cities of Renaissance Italy, Rome was beset by factional rivalries
between great noble families. The Colonna and Orsini families controlled Rome and often made
life miserable for the popes. A great part of the popes' energy was spent trying to gain security for
the Papal States in an age when secular princes had ousted ecclesiastical lords as the great powers
of Italy.
Into this maelstrom came Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455), a man determined to restore the
papacy to its greatness — and to do so by capturing Renaissance culture for the Church. Nicholas
reasoned that, since this culture was the greatest force of his day, the Church should not resist the
Renaissance but embrace it — and, he hoped, co-opt it.
As a result, Nicholas spent the resources of his papacy to achieve this end. "All the scholars
of the world," a contemporary observer noted, "came to Rome in the time of Pope Nicholas, partly
of their own accord, partly at his request." Nicholas spent a fortune on books, initiating a project
that would culminate in the world-famous Vatican Library. He offered enormous rewards to any
scholar who could best translate both the pagan classics and the Fathers of the Church into modern
Latin and the vernacular. So grandiose was Nicholas's undertaking that one observer remarked,
"Greece has not perished, but has migrated to Italy!"
Looking around at Rome's shabby architecture, Nicholas resolved to beautify the city and
to turn it into a showpiece befitting the "capital of the Renaissance," as he hoped the world would
soon characterize Rome. Thus, Nicholas began to build, as he put it, "noble edifices combining
taste and beauty with noble proportions [that] would immensely conduce to the exaltation of the
chair of St. Peter."
So began the greatest refurbishing of Rome since imperial days — an undertaking so
enormously expensive that Nicholas used the Jubilee Year of 1450 to entice the thousands of
pilgrims coming to Rome to part with their money for indulgences, blessings, Masses and artifacts.
One historian has discovered that in just one bank Nicholas deposited the 1986 equivalent of $25
million. As for other banks and for his own treasury. no one knows how much Nicholas earned for
his beloved beautification project.
As we look at the magnificent Eternal City today, we may think that whatever amount
Nicholas accumulated was well spent. Yet in those days Christians beyond the Alps had their
doubts. They questioned the huge sums being spent — not just on churches, but on purely civic
restoration projects as well. Particularly in Luther's Germany, the land with the greatest resources
in Europe, good Catholics deeply resented the drain of wealth to support the pope's expenditures.
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 38

2.2 Calixtus III

Pope Calixtus III (1455-1458) succeeded Nicholas. He reigned for only three years, during
which time he initiated a scandalous practice that would soon become a papal tradition: nepotism.
A member of the Spanish Borgia family. Calixtus raised his unscrupulous nephews to high
positions in the papal court. His nephew Rodrigo would become Pope Alexander VI.
2.3 Pius II
The Italians hated Calixtus and his Spanish entourage. They celebrated lavishly when he
was succeeded by a refined and educated Italian humanist, Enea Silviode' Piccolomini, who took
the name Pius II (1458-1464).
Before becoming pope, Pius had been a man of his times. Much like Augustine, he had
resisted a Church career because of his preference for sexual promiscuity. Also, like Augustine,
he eventually turned from the promiscuous life and became a priest; he did not, however, relinquish
his love for scholarship and the classics. Yet Pius did not imitate Nicholas V. Instead of spending
like a profligate, Pius lived simply and spent little. Morally, he was above reproach. He even made
public repentance for his earlier sins.
Pius's significance for the Reformation lies in his failure — despite his high degree of
intelligence — to read the signs of the times. Princes, nobles and in many cases native bishops
continually called for a reform of the papacy and Curia. When German bishops, sensing their
flocks' restlessness, demanded another reform council, Pius sternly prohibited it. The popes still
did not appreciate the force that nationalism exerted on Churches beyond the Alps.
Yet Pius himself constantly pleaded for reform. He was well aware of the tragic
consequences in store for a Church plagued by corruption. In 1463, sensing that death was near,
Pius sketched his own picture of the papal court:
People say that we live for pleasure, accumulate wealth, bear ourselves arrogantly,
ride on fat mules, trail the fringes of our cloaks after us, and show round plump faces
beneath the red hat and white hood, keep hounds for the chase, spend much on actors
and parasites, and nothing in defense of the Faith. And there is some truth in their
words: ‘many among the Cardinals and other officials of our court do lead this kind
of life, If the truth be confessed, the luxury and pomp at our court is too great. And
this is why we are so detested by the people that they will not listen to us, even when
we say what is just and reasonable.’

It would be the later papacy's great anguish to look back on Pius's words as a prophecy that
had not been heeded.
2.4 Paul II
Pius's reign represented the best which the pre-Luther Renaissance papacy had to offer. In
1464 Cardinal Pietro Barbo became pope. Before he took the name Paul 1I, he proposed that he
be called Formosus, "the good-looking one," thereby indicating the depth of his narcissism. With
Paul 11(1464-1471) the expensive tastes of Nicholas V returned to the papal throne. For example,
he raised the cardinals' yearly income to roughly the equivalent of $1 million and adorned himself
with a tiara that cost a fortune. Yet Paul did make an attempt at reform by regulating the sale of
indulgences.
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 39

2.5 Sixtus IV
Paul II was succeeded in 1471 by Cardinal Francesco della Rovere, who became Pope
Sixtus IV (1471-1484). A scholarly humanist like Pius II and a nepotist like Calixtus III, Sixtus
sought to aggrandize both his own family's interests and the interests of Renaissance Rome. Sixtus
made his decadent 25-year-old nephew a cardinal and gave him $1.5 million yearly to spend on
his mistresses and other frivolous pursuits. A second nephew, Giuliano della Revere, would
become Pope Julius II.
Sixtus became a warrior pope, dedicating most of his energies to restore the weakened
Papal States to their medieval power. As a result, Sixtus led all of Italy into a prolonged war that
nearly lost the Italian peninsula to the Turks. Sixtus's wars and his many art projects (for example,
the Sistine Chapel — named for him) nearly bankrupted the papal treasury. When Sixtus died, the
papal court owed debts of $37.5 million (in today's equivalent).
The pope's military ventures, his practice of nepotism and simony, the flaunted immorality
of his relatives, the restoration of the Papal States as a secular power — all these nearly destroyed
respect for the papacy outside of Italy and contributed greatly to making the Reformation more
and more inescapable.

2.6 Innocent VIII

Upon Sixtus's death mobs ruled Rome, running wild through the Vatican offices and
stealing everything in sight. The conclave of cardinals which met in this hostile atmosphere to
elect a new pope chose the placid and dignified cardinal-bishop of Genoa. Giovanni Battista Cibo,
who became Pope Innocent VIII (1484-1492).
Innocent was a good father and family man although he had never bothered to marry. The
kindly old "grandfather pope" spent his papacy doting on his children and grandchildren, arranging
their marriages and celebrating their weddings in lavish parties at the Vatican, generously spending
the Church's resources on wedding presents and honeymoons. In 1487 when he arranged for his
son Franceschetto to marry Maddalena de' Medici (daughter of the powerful magnate Lorenzo de'
Medici of Florence). Innocent at the same time concluded an alliance in which Lorenzo the
Magnificent became the arbiter of papal policy. Until Innocent's death in 1492. the papacy's
interests became those of the house of Medici.
It is little wonder that during Innocent's reign the papal court became the joke of Europe.
To raise revenue the pope sold meaningless Vatican jobs to Roman social climbers, such as the 52
papal appointees who did nothing more than seal papal documents. Two of these "dedicated
Church servants" revealed that during their two years in office they had forged over 50 official
papal decrees.
Papal justice became a mockery. The Curia once sold a verdict of acquittal for the
equivalent price of $2 million to a man who had raped and murdered his own daughters. Cardinal
Rodrigo Borgia, who supervised the case, explained the travesty by intoning. "God desires not the
death of a sinner, but rather that he should pay and live."" On that note of pious hypocrisy
Innocent's pontificate ended and the saddest chapter in papal history began.
2.7 Alexander VI
The conclave of cardinals which met to elect Innocent's successor succumbed to the bribes
of the Spanish Borgia family. They elected that family's champion, Rodrigo. He chose the name,
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 40

as he put it, of the "Invincible Alexander." Thus began a pontificate (1492-1503) appropriately
dedicated not to the memory of the Christian saints but to the greatest warlord of antiquity.
Alexander's perversion of his papal calling became proverbial. He was known throughout
Europe as the perpetrator of the most fiendish evils, and he appointed his own corrupt relatives
and in-laws to positions of curial power. A contemporary witness said that "10 papacies would not
have sufficed for all of Alexander's cousins."
Alexander also had no scruples about making deals with the Church's enemies. A letter to
Alexander from the Turkish sultan promised the pope the equivalent sum of nearly $40 million,
"with which Your Highness may buy some dominions for your children." One of the most popular
jingles of the day, sung throughout Italy, contained these words:
The keys, the altars, Alexander sells, and Christ; with right, since he has paid for
them.
Further examples of Alexander's foul reputation are superfluous. It is enough to say that
his papacy was but the culmination of a long process of papal decline. Yet toward the end of his
reign Alexander had a change of heart. When his son Giovanni was murdered, Alexander
interpreted the deed as God's chastisement. He openly confessed himself to be a fornicator, a
power-hungry militarist and a simonist.
His remorse ran so deep that he even pledged to begin Church reform, telling a meeting of
cardinals:
We on our part are resolved to amend our life, and to reform the Church.... Henceforth
benefices [Episcopal sees) shall be given only to deserving persons, and in
accordance with the votes of the cardinals. We renounce all nepotism. We will begin
the reform with ourselves, and so proceed through all ranks of the Church till the
whole work is accomplished.
It was a noble gesture which Alexander quickly forgot once the memory of his slain son
grew faint.

Borgia Pope: A New Look

With Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) we reach what has been widely regarded as the low
point of the papacy, at least in the sphere of morality. Even so, the most serious charges against
Alexander VI must be taken with a grain of salt. Immediately upon election to the papacy,
Alexander was accused of having bought the election. Von Pastor's History of the Popes is explicit
in charging Alexander VI and the preceding pope with simony. The conclaves of 1484 and 1492,
writes von Pastor, "are among the most deplorable in the annals of church history.”
Twenty-three cardinals met in 1492 and Rodrigo Borgia was running fourth in the polling.
The third-place prospect (Ascanio Sforza) perceived he could not win and swung his votes to
Borgia, who promised him several rich benefices. Other cardinals received other offers, leading
one contemporary commentator to remark, "Judas sold Christ for thirty denarii; this man would
sell him for twenty-nine." Did he buy the election? Probably not. Michael Mallett, in a critical
study of the Borgias, points out several factors which temper the charge of simony:
(1) Borgia was a very good choice to be pope—at least in the political domain. He was a
popular and experienced diplomat and was known for compromise and patience. In fact, many
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 41

votes came to Borgia because the cardinals did not want to elect Julian della Rovere, who was
known as, and would prove to be, intolerant and a militant.
(2) His supposed simony was practiced on men hardly in need of money. All of the
cardinals were independently wealthy and quite capable of offering similar rewards to their
supporters.
(3) Borgia, or any pope, had benefices in his possession which he had to relinquish on
becoming pope—so why not at least give them to his friends?
Mallett maintains convincingly that Borgia was not as bad a pope as history paints him. He
was a very capable administrator. Even his notorious penchant for lavish spending must be
tempered by the fact that he, like his uncle Callistus III, kept a frugal table—so much so that
Bocaccio, the great humanist and ambassador to the Vatican from Ferrara, reported that the
cardinals avoided Borgia's table because they could fare better elsewhere.
But this is not to excuse Alexander VI. He was excessive in his ambition to advance his
family, and seemed oblivious to the scandal of sexual sins. While these would not have excited
much comment in a secular ruler, it was shocking in a pope — especially to the more scrupulous
northern Europeans. He had an acknowledged mistress (his second) and had fathered eight or nine
children between them. It would be the focal point of criticism of the papacy in years to come.
2.8 Julius II
Guiliano della Rovere followed Alexander VI, adopting the name of another ancient
warlord by calling himself Julius II (1503-1513). Julius was not so much a pope as a general. For
10 years he rode about Italy clad in armor, defending the interests of his Papal States.
At the same time, he was a great patron of Renaissance art. Thanks to Julius we have
Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. It was Julius who destroyed old St. Peter's and began the
one that stands today. And, as we shall soon see, Julius's scheme for financing the construction of
the great basilica — by granting indulgences to those who contributed to its cost — would, under
his successor, provide the spark that ignited Luther's revolution.
While Julius was occupied in warfare, several cardinals were trying desperately to convene
a reform council. When Julius got wind of the plan, he deposed the cardinals who had signed the
document calling for a council. Yet some 27 cardinals and bishops met anyway, first at Pisa and
then at Milan (1511). Undaunted, Julius convened a rival council in his palace, the Fifth Lateran
Council, which he encouraged to dawdle along so as to accomplish nothing.
2.9 Leo X
The pope when Luther began his religious revolution in 1517 was Giovanni de' Medici,
called Leo X (1513-1521). It was Leo who uttered those infamous words, so full of significance
for Luther's revolt: "Let us enjoy the papacy, since God has given it to us."
Leo epitomized all that was wrong with the Church on the eve of revolution. At age eight
he had become an abbot. By the age of 13 he had been absentee bishop or abbot of 16 benefices.
At 14 he was made a cardinal, and at age 37, still un-ordained, he was elected pope. He then
proceeded to spend the equivalent of $25 million on his papal inauguration. The motto of Leo's
papacy became, "I will think the matter over and see how I can satisfy everybody."
Leo's papacy provides a study in contrast to Luther's religious sensibilities. Fulfilling the
dream of Nicholas V. Leo turned Rome into the capital of the Renaissance world. The art and
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 42

culture of antiquity was truly reborn under the pope's tutelage — all at a frightful price both
economically as well as spiritually. It cost the papacy whatever spiritual credibility still remained.

Sources:
Gilles, Anthony. The People of Anguish. The Story Behind the Reformation. Cincinnati, Ohio: St. Anthony
Messenger, 1987.

Spiteri, Laurence J., JCD, PhD. At Your Finger Tips. A History of the Roman Catholic Church until the
Council of Trent. New York: St. Pauls, 2008.

IV. The Fifth Lateran Council (1512-1517)

When elected pope, Julius II promised under oath that he would soon convoke a general
council. Time passed, however, and this promise was not fulfilled. Consequently, certain
dissatisfied cardinals, urged, also, by Emperor Maximilian and Louis XII, convoked a council
at Pisa and fixed September 1, 1511, for its opening. This event was delayed until October 1. Four
cardinals then met at Pisa provided with proxies from three absent cardinals. Several bishops and
abbots were also there, as well as ambassadors from the King of France. Seven or eight sessions
were held, in the last of which Pope Julius II was suspended, whereupon the prelates withdrew to
Lyons. The pope hastened to oppose to this conciliabulum a more numerously attended council,
which he convoked, by the Bull of July 18, 1511, to assemble April 19, 1512, in the church of St.
John Lateran. The Bull was at once a canonical and a polemical document. In it the pope refuted
in detail the reasons alleged by the cardinals for their Pisa conciliabulum. He declared that his
conduct before his elevation to the pontificate was a pledge of his sincere desire for the celebration
of the council; that since his elevation he had always sought opportunities for assembling it; that
for this reason he had sought to reestablish peace among Christian princes; that the wars which
had arisen against his will had no other object than the reestablishment of pontifical authority in
the States of the Church. He then reproached the rebel cardinals with the irregularity of their
conduct and the unseemliness of convoking the Universal Church independently of its head. He
pointed out to them that the three months accorded by them for the assembly of all bishops
at Pisa was too short, and that said city presented none of the advantages requisite for an assembly
of such importance. Finally, he declared that no one should attach any significance to the act of
the cardinals. The Bull was signed by twenty-one cardinals. The French victory of Ravenna (April
11, 1512) hindered the opening of the council before May 3, on which day the fathers met in the
Lateran Basilica. There were present 15 cardinals, the Latin Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch,
ten archbishops, 56 bishops, some abbots and generals of religious orders, the ambassadors of
King Ferdinand, and those of Venice and of Florence.
Convoked by Julius II, the assembly survived him, was continued by Leo X, and held its
twelfth, and last, session on March 16, 1517. In the third session Matthew Lang, who had
represented Maximilian at the Council of Tours, read an act by which that emperor repudiated all
that had been done at Tours and at Pisa. In the fourth session the advocate of the council demanded
the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. In the eighth (December 17, 1513), an act of
King Louis XII was read, disavowing the Council of Pisa and adhering to the Lateran Council. In
the next session (March 5, 1514) the French bishops made their submission, and Leo X granted
them absolution from the censures pronounced against them by Julius II. In the tenth session (May
4, 1515) the pope published four decrees; the first of these sanctions the institution of montes
 The Church During the Age of Renaissance 43

pietatis, or pawn shops, under strict ecclesiastical supervision, for the purpose of aiding the
necessitous poor on the most favorable terms; the second relates to ecclesiastical liberty and the
episcopal dignity, and condemns certain abusive exemptions; the third forbids, under pain of
excommunication, the printing of books without the permission of the ordinary of the diocese; the
fourth orders a peremptory citation against the French in regard to the Pragmatic Sanction. The
latter was solemnly revoked and condemned, and the concordat with Francis I approved, in the
eleventh session (December 19, 1516). Finally, the council promulgated a decree prescribing war
against the Turks and ordered the levying of tithes of all the benefices in Christendom for three
years (Catholic Answers, s.v. “Fifth Lateran Council”).
The Fifth Lateran Council came in a time when people were calling for radical changes. It
came after many church leaders had given up hope on Pope Julius II to convoke a council as he
had promised. It all ended in condemnations that could have been avoided. It intensified a climate
that would in the end result into a big and sad change in the Church: the Protestant Reformation.
Indeed, by the time the year 1517 ended, the same year during which the Fifth Lateran Council
had been concluded, Martin Luther had started a movement that would not only split the church,
but also strengthen the divisions among Christian nations (Rev. Fr. Gustave Ineza, OP) .