Editing Pope Julius II (section)

===War with Naples===

[[Sixtus IV]] died on 12 August 1484 and was succeeded by [[Innocent VIII]]. After the ceremonies of the election of Pope Innocent were completed, the cardinals were dismissed to their own homes, but Cardinal della Rovere accompanied the new Pope to the [[Vatican Palace]] and was the only one to remain with him. Ludwig Pastor quotes the Florentine ambassador as remarking, "[Pope Innocent] gives the impression of a man who is guided rather by the advice of others than by his own lights." The ambassador of [[Duchy of Ferrara|Ferrara]] stated, "While with his uncle [Della Rovere] had not the slightest influence, he now obtains whatever he likes from the new Pope."{{sfn|Pastor|1902|loc=V, p. 242}} Della Rovere was one of the five cardinals named to the committee to make the arrangements for the Coronation.{{sfn|Burchard|1883|loc=I, p. 75}}

In 1485 Pope Innocent and Cardinal della Rovere (as the Pope's new principal advisor) decided to involve themselves in the political affairs of the Kingdom of Naples, in what was called the ''[[Conspiracy of the Barons]]''.{{sfn|Gregorovius|1900|loc=VII.1, pp. 291–302}} On Palm Sunday, 20 March, Cardinal della Rovere, concealing his activities from his principal rival, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia (later [[Pope Alexander VI]]), rode out of Rome and departed by sea from [[Ostia (Rome)|Ostia]], intending to head for Genoa and Avignon to prepare to wage war between the Church and the King of Naples, [[Ferdinand I of Naples|Ferdinand I]] (Ferrante).{{sfn|Burchard|1883|loc=I, p. 183. A note in the ''Acta Cameralia'' records that della Rovere returned to Rome on 12 September 1486: {{harvnb|Eubel|1914|loc=p. 49 n. 521}}}} On 28 June the Pope sent back to Naples the token gift of a [[palfrey]] which symbolized the King of Naples' submission and demanded the full feudal submission of the Kingdom of Naples to the Roman Church according to [[Chinea|long-standing tradition]]. In a second attempt to overthrow the Aragonese monarchy, the [[Prince of Salerno]] Antonello II di Sanseverino, on the advice of [[Antonello Petrucci]] and Francesco Coppola, gathered together several feudal families belonging to the Guelph faction and supporting the [[Capetian House of Anjou|Angevin]] claim to Naples. Antonello de Sanseverino was the brother-in-law of Cardinal della Rovere's brother Giovanni, who was a noble of Naples because of his fief of Sora. The principal complaints of the barons were the heavy taxation imposed by Ferdinand to finance his war against the Ottomans, who had [[Ottoman conquest of Otranto|occupied Bari]] in 1480; and the vigorous efforts of Ferrante to centralize the administrative apparatus of the kingdom, moving it away from a feudal to a bureaucratic system. The barons seized [[L'Aquila]] and appealed to the Pope for assistance as their feudal overlord. Genoa and Venice supported the Papacy, while Florence and Milan opted for Naples. In Rome, the [[Orsini family]] allied themselves with Ferrante's son [[Alfonso II of Naples|Alfonso]], and therefore their rivals the [[Colonna family]] supported the Pope in the street fighting that ensued.{{sfn|Gregorovius|1900|loc=VII.1, p. 293}} Ferrante reacted by seizing the fiefs of the barons, and, when the two parties met to negotiate a settlement, Ferrante had them arrested, and eventually executed. The prestige of the della Rovere family was seriously damaged, and in an attempt to exculpate himself Pope Innocent began to withdraw his support for them. Peace was restored in 1487, but Innocent VIII's papacy was discredited.{{sfn|Creighton|1903|loc=IV, pp. 140–145}}