Editing Pope Sixtus IV (section)

==Papacy==
{{Main|1471 papal conclave}}
Upon being elected [[Pope]], Della Rovere adopted the name Sixtus, which had not been used since the 5th century. One of his first acts was to declare a renewed [[crusade]] against the [[Ottoman Turks]] in [[Smyrna]]. However, after the conquest of Smyrna, the fleet disbanded.<ref name=Palazzo>[http://www.palazzo-medici.it/mediateca/en/Scheda_Sisto_IV,_papa_(1414-1484) "Sisto IV (1414–1484)", Palazzo-Medici Riccardi] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140810202309/http://www.palazzo-medici.it/mediateca/en/Scheda_Sisto_IV,_papa_(1414-1484) |date=10 August 2014 }}</ref> Some fruitless attempts were made towards unification with the [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Greek Church]]. For the remainder of his pontificate, Sixtus turned to temporal issues and dynastic considerations.

===Nepotism===
[[Image: Melozzo da Forlì 001.jpg|thumb|left|Pope Sixtus IV appoints Platina as Prefect of the Library, by [[Melozzo da Forlì]], accompanied by his relatives]]

Sixtus IV sought to strengthen his position by surrounding himself with relatives and friends. In the fresco by [[Melozzo da Forlì]], he is accompanied by his [[Della Rovere]] and [[Riario]] nephews, not all of whom were made cardinals; the [[protonotary apostolic]] [[Pietro Riario]] (on his right), the future Pope [[Julius II]]/ Giuliano Della Rovere standing before him; and [[Girolamo Riario]] and [[Giovanni della Rovere]], behind the kneeling [[Bartolomeo Platina|Platina]], author of the first [[Humanism|humanist]] history of the popes.<ref name=Morris/>

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 additional [[benefice]]s. Pietro became one of the richest men in [[Rome]] and was entrusted with Pope Sixtus&nbsp;IV's foreign policy, in addition to being given an unofficial post as the de facto ruler of Rome. He reportedly spent 200,000 [[Ducat|gold ducats]] on foodstuffs and festivities during two years in office.<ref>His most scandalous expenditures however occurred in relation to his reception of [[Eleanor of Naples, Duchess of Ferrara|Eleonora of Aragon]]. They reportedly involved expensive decorations, [[Gilding|gilded]] [[chamber pot]]s, a feast with many courses ending with [[capon]] sculptures made from [[marzipan]], three edible life-sized statues of [[Hercules]] below ones of [[Bacchus]] and [[Ariadne]] made from [[Candy|sweets]] being served with desert.</ref> Pietro died prematurely in 1474.<ref>His role passed to Giuliano Della Rovere</ref> 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.<ref>{{Citation |last=Pfisterer |first=Ulrich |title=Lysippus und seine Freunde |date=31 December 2009 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1524/9783050061337.1 |work= |pages=1–4 |trans-title=Lysippus and his Friends |trans-chapter=1st Death in Rome |chapter=1. Der Tod in Rom. |publisher=Akademie Verlag |doi=10.1524/9783050061337.1 |isbn=9783050043142 |language=de |access-date=14 January 2023}}</ref>

Criticisms of [[Pietro Riario|Pietro]]'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 historian [[Stefano Infessura]], ''Diary of the City of Rome'', Sixtus was a "lover of boys and a sodomite" ({{Langx|la|puerorum amator et sodomita}}) awarding benefices and bishoprics in return for sexual favours and nominating a number of young men as cardinals.<ref>Stefano Infessura, ''Diario Della città di Roma (1303–1494)'', Ist. St. Italiano, Tip. Forzani, Roma 1890, pp. 155–56</ref> Sexualised polemics, in truth concerned with politics and not the sexual lives of their victims, were not uncommon during this time; but as [[Ulrich Pfisterer (art historian)|Pfisterer]] (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.<ref>{{Citation |last=Pfisterer |first=Ulrich |title=Lysippus und seine Freunde |date=31 December 2009 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1524/9783050061337.1 |work= |pages=8–10 |trans-title=Lysippus and his Friends |trans-chapter=1st Death in Rome |chapter=1. Der Tod in Rom. |publisher=Akademie Verlag |doi=10.1524/9783050061337.1 |isbn=9783050043142 |language=de |access-date=14 January 2023}}</ref>

The secular fortunes of the Della Rovere family began when Sixtus invested his nephew [[Giovanni della Rovere|Giovanni]] with the lordship of [[Senigallia]] and arranged his marriage to the daughter of [[Federico III da Montefeltro]], duke of [[Urbino]]; from that union came a line of Della Rovere dukes of Urbino that lasted until the line expired, in 1631.<ref>On his premature death (1501), Giovanni entrusted his son [[Francesco Maria I della Rovere|Francesco Maria]] to Federico's successor [[Guidobaldo I da Montefeltro|Guidobaldo]] (Duke of Urbino 1482–1508), who, without an heir, devised the duchy on the boy.</ref> Six of the thirty-four cardinals that he created were his nephews.<ref>McBrien, ''Lives of the Popes'', p. 265.</ref>

In his territorial aggrandizement of the [[Papal States]], his niece's son, Cardinal [[Raffaele Riario]] (for whom the [[Palazzo della Cancelleria]] was constructed)<ref>{{Cite web |date=12 January 2019 |title=Palazzo della Cancelleria |url=https://turismoroma.it/en/places/palazzo-della-cancelleria |access-date=9 May 2023 |website=Turismo Roma |language=en}}</ref> was suspected of colluding in the failed [[Pazzi conspiracy]] of 1478 to assassinate both [[Lorenzo de' Medici]] and his brother [[Giuliano di Piero de' Medici|Giuliano]] and replace them in [[Florence]] with Sixtus IV's other nephew, [[Riario|Girolamo Riario]]. [[Francesco Salviati (archbishop)|Francesco Salviati]], [[Archbishop of Pisa]] and a main organizer of the plot, was hanged on the walls of the Florentine [[Palazzo della Signoria]]. Sixtus&nbsp;IV replied with an [[Interdict (Catholic canon law)|interdict]] and two years of war with Florence.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sixtus IV {{!}} pope {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sixtus-IV |access-date=9 May 2023 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>

However, Infessura had partisan allegiances to the [[Colonna family|Colonna]] and so is not considered to be always reliable or impartial.<ref>Egmont Lee, ''Sixtus IV and Men of Letters'', Rome, 1978</ref> The English churchman and [[Protestant]] polemicist [[John Bale]], writing a century later, attributed to Sixtus "the authorisation to practice [[sodomy]] during periods of warm weather" to the "Cardinal of Santa Lucia".<ref>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)</ref> This prompted the noted historian of the Catholic Church, [[Ludwig von Pastor]], to issue a firm rebuttal.<ref>Ludwig Pastor, ''History of the Popes'' [1889], vol. II, Desclée, Roma 1911, pp. 608–611</ref>

===Foreign policy===
Sixtus continued a dispute with King [[Louis XI of France]], who upheld the [[Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges]] (1438), which held that papal decrees needed royal assent before they could be promulgated in France.<ref name=Butler/> That was a cornerstone of the privileges claimed for the [[Catholic Church in France|Gallican Church]] and could never be shifted as long as Louis&nbsp;XI manoeuvred to replace King [[Ferdinand 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 the [[papal bull]] ''Exigit Sincerae Devotionis Affectus'' through which the [[Spanish Inquisition]] was established in the [[Kingdom of Castile]].{{sfn|Costigan|2010|p=15}} Sixtus consented under political pressure from [[Ferdinand II of Aragon|Ferdinand of Aragon]],{{sfn|Costigan|2010|p=15}} who threatened to withhold military support from his kingdom of [[Sicily]]. 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.{{sfn|Kamen|1997|p=49}}

As a temporal prince who constructed stout fortresses in the [[Papal States]], he encouraged the [[Republic of Venice|Venetians]] to [[War of Ferrara (1482–1484)|attack Ferrara]], which he wished to obtain for another nephew. [[Ercole I d'Este]], [[Duke of Ferrara]], was allied with the [[Sforza]]s of [[Milan]], the [[Medici]]s of [[Florence]] along with the [[King of Naples]], normally a hereditary ally and champion of the papacy. The angered Italian princes allied to force Sixtus IV to make peace to his great annoyance.<ref name=Butler/>

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 the [[Marche]], Sixtus placed Venice under [[interdict]] in 1483. He also lined the coffers of the state by unscrupulously selling high offices and privileges.<ref name=Palazzo/>

In ecclesiastical affairs, Sixtus promoted the dogma of the [[Immaculate Conception of Mary|Immaculate Conception]], which had been confirmed at the [[Council of Basle]] in 1439,<ref name=Palazzo/> and he designated 8 December as its feastday. In 1476, he issued the apostolic constitution ''Cum Praeexcelsa'', establishing a Mass and Office for the feast. He formally annulled the decrees of the [[Council of Constance]] in 1478.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Sixtus IV|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sixtus-IV|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|date=8 August 2023 }}</ref>

===Slavery===
The two papal bulls issued by [[Pope Nicholas&nbsp;V]], ''[[Dum Diversas]]'' of 1452 and ''[[Romanus 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.<ref>Raiswell, p. 469; see also "Black Africans in Renaissance Europe", p. 281</ref> Arguably the "ideology of conquest" expounded in those texts became the means by which commerce and conversion were facilitated.<ref>Traboulay 1994, pp. 78–79.</ref>

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|date=October 2021}} Sixtus's earlier threats to excommunicate all captains or pirates who enslaved Christians in the bull ''Regimini Gregis'' of 1476 could have been intended to emphasise the need to convert the natives of the [[Canary Islands]] and [[Guinea]] and establish a clear difference in status between those who had converted and those who resisted.<ref>Sued-Badillo (2007), see also O'Callaghan,  pp. 287–310</ref> The ecclesiastical penalties were directed towards those who were enslaving the recent converts.<ref>"''Slavery and the Catholic Church"'', John Francis Maxwell, p. 52, Barry Rose Publishers, 1975</ref>

===Princely patronage===
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 by [[Melozzo da Forlì]] in the [[Vatican Palace]] records: "You gave your city temples, streets, squares, fortifications, bridges and restored the [[Acqua Vergine]] as far as the [[Trevi Fountain|Trevi]]..."

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 as [[San Vitale, Rome|San Vitale]] (1475) and [[Santa Maria del Popolo]], and he added seven new ones. The [[Sistine Chapel]] was sponsored by Sixtus IV, as was the ''Ponte Sisto'',<ref name=Morris>{{cite news| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/arts/11iht-conway11.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0| title = Morris, Roderick Conway. "When Sixtus IV Needed a Painter", ''New York Times'', May 10, 2011| work = The New York Times| date = 10 May 2011| last1 = Morris| first1 = Roderick Conway}}</ref> the [[Sistine Bridge]] (the first new bridge across the [[Tiber]] since Antiquity), and the building of ''Via Sistina'' (later named ''Borgo Sant'Angelo''), a road leading from [[Castel Sant'Angelo]] to Saint Peter.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}

All of that was done to facilitate the integration of the [[Vatican Hill]] and [[borgo (rione of Rome)|Borgo]] with the heart of Old Rome. That was part of a broader scheme of [[urbanization]] carried out under Sixtus IV, who swept the long-established markets from the [[Capitoline Hill|Campidoglio]] 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|date=October 2021}}
[[Image:Ponte Sisto and Dome od St. Peter at night.jpg|thumb|[[Ponte Sisto]], the first bridge built at Rome since the [[Roman Empire]]]]
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 the [[Capitoline Museums]]. He also refounded, enriched and enlarged the [[Vatican Library]].<ref name=Morris/> He had [[Regiomontanus]] attempt the first sanctioned reorganisation of the [[Julian calendar]]<ref>{{cite CE1913|wstitle= Johann Müller (Regiomontanus) |volume= 10 |page= |last= Hagen |first= Johann Georg |author-link= Johann Georg Hagen |year=1913|short=1}}</ref> and increased the size and prestige of the papal chapel choir, bringing singers and some prominent composers ([[Gaspar van Weerbeke]], [[Marbrianus de Orto]] and [[Bertrandus Vaqueras]]) to Rome from the north.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}

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 cosmopolitan [[University of Padua]], which maintained considerable independence from the Church and had a very international character.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Pope Sixtus IV |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399301/obo-9780195399301-0413.xml |access-date=27 June 2022 |website=obo |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Pope Sixtus IV |url=https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/pope-sixtus-iv |access-date=13 July 2024 |website=Catholic Answers}}</ref>

As Pope, he issued a [[papal 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 anatomist [[Vesalius]], along with [[Titian]]'s pupil [[Jan Van Calcar|Jan Stephen van Calcar]], to complete the revolutionary medical/anatomical text ''[[De humani corporis fabrica]]''.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}

===Other activities===
====Consistories====
{{main|Cardinals created by Sixtus IV}}
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.

====Canonizations and beatifications====
Sixtus IV named seven new saints, with the most notable being [[Bonaventure]] (1482); he also beatified one person, John Buoni (1483).

====Uppsala University====
In 1477, Sixtus IV issued a [[papal bull]] authorizing the creation of [[Uppsala University]] – the first university in [[Sweden]] and in the whole of [[Scandinavia]]. The choice of this location for the university derived from the fact that the [[Archbishop of Uppsala|archbishopric of Uppsala]] had been one of the most important [[Episcopal See|sees]] in [[Sweden 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 the [[University of Bologna]]. This included the right to establish the four traditional faculties of [[theology]], law ([[Canon law (Catholic Church)|Canon Law]] and [[Roman 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's [[Chancellor (education)|Chancellor]], and was charged with maintaining the rights and privileges of the university and its members.<ref>Sten Lindroth. A History of Uppsala University: 1477–1977. Almqvist & Wiksell International (1976)</ref> 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.