Pope from August 29, 1484 - July 25, 1492
Lived: 1432 - July 25, 1492
Birth name: Giovanni Battista Cibo
Who was this guy before he was pope?
Giovanni Battista Cibo was born in Genoa around the year 1432 but spent much of his early life at court in Naples. His father was a Roman senator, so young Giovanni pursued much of his education in the Eternal City and at Padua. Giovanni was made a bishop in 1467, then a cardinal in 1473. His red hat from Pope Sixtus IV was thanks to support from Giuliano Della Rovere, the man who would later become Pope Julius II. Prior to his entry into the priesthood, Giovanni fathered two illegitimate children ... but that was more common than you'd think in those days.
Okay, give me the scoop on Innocent VIII.
In a conclave that made daytime TV look tame, Cardinal Cibo became Pope Innocent VIII when the two leading candidates, Cardinal Borgia and Cardinal Barbo, couldn’t wrangle enough votes for themselves.
Innocent was unable to accomplish much in his papacy, but early on he obtained a crucial bargaining chip in the Church’s perennial tussle with the (Islamic) Ottoman Empire. When Cem, one of the two brothers fighting to be sultan, sought refuge from the Church to avoid being killed, Innocent was able to keep the peace in Christendom by threatening to release Cem. Sultan Bayezid II, who actually paid the Church to keep his brother captive, was dissuaded from attacking Christian nations in the Balkans as a result.
Innocent lived to witness the defeat of the Moors at Granada in 1491, which reestablished Spain for Christendom and garnered the title “Catholic Majesty” on King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Innocent died on July 25, 1492, a month shy of his eighth anniversary as pope.
What was he known for?
Innocent VIII is known for leading the dignity of the papal office straight into the toilet, being severely lacking in the awareness or intellectual ability to serve well. His nepotism was apparent, particularly in the arranged marriage of his bastard son, Franceschetto, to Maddalena de Medici, daughter of Florence’s leader, Lorenzo, and sister of another Giovanni – the man who would later become the notorious Pope Leo X. His alliance with Florence kickstarted young Giovanni’s ecclesiastical career to boot (which was a major bummer), when he was made cardinal at age 17.
Innocent was also indirectly responsible for the creation and sale of waaaay too many papal offices, leading one to wonder why he didn’t just choose “Pope Simon” as his name. It was a rough time for the papacy, and wouldn’t get better anytime soon.
Fun Fact...
In late 1484, Innocent VIII released the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus (“Desiring with supreme ardor”) that gave privileges to certain German inquisitors in their efforts to root out witchcraft and heresy. The bull, naturally, has made Innocent and the wider Church a target for such an effort, but the document wasn’t anything new, and definitely didn’t encourage the abuses that arose in some parts of Europe. In fact, a controversial book released three years later, Malleus Maleficarum, which included the bull in an appendix and which caused much of the uproar in those days, was not endorsed or approved by Innocent or the Church.
What else was going on in the world at the time?
Sometime in the late 1480s, Leonardo da Vinci completed his immortal work, the Vitruvian Man.
Coming Monday....Pope Alexander VI (bad pope alert...)