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Her firstborn was baptized with great pomp November 11th in the Sistine Chapel not the chapel now known by that name, but the one which Sixtus IV had built in S. Peter's. Giovanni Cervillon held the child in his arms, and near by were the Governor of Rome and a representative of the Emperor Maximilian.
For the "Huguenot pope," Sixtus V., had died at the end of August, having never bestowed on the League any of his vast accumulated treasures to help it in its utmost need. It was not surprising that Philip was indignant, and had resorted to menace of various kinds against the holy father, when he found him swaying so perceptibly in the direction of the hated Bearnese.
In it he passed eleven years, and it was not until 1480 that he was let out, at the solicitation of Pope Sixtus IV., to whom Louis XI., being old and ill, thought he could not possibly refuse this favor.
He had served the house of Sforza as secretary and in a diplomatic capacity, and to his eloquence Lucretia's husband, Costanzo's bastard, owed his investiture of the fief of Pesaro by Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII. Collenuccio, however, fell under his displeasure and was cast into prison in 1488 and subsequently banished, when he went to Ferrara, where he devoted his services to the reigning family.
The Sienese announced, in 1477, the alliance between Ferrante and Sixtus IV, with which they themselves were associated, by driving a chariot round the city, with 'one clad as the goddess of peace standing on a hauberk and other arms. At the Venetian festivals the processions, not on land but on water, were marvelous in their fantastic splendor.
It was again reserved for Sixtus and Alexander to undo the work of their predecessors and to secure the independence of the Holy See by the coercion of these towering nobles. In the States of the Church the temporal power of the Popes, founded upon false donations, confirmed by tradition, and contested by rival despots, was an anomaly.
Felice Peretti, monk and Cardinal of Montalto, and still nominally one of the so-called 'poor cardinals' who received from the Pope a daily allowance known as 'the Dish, had nevertheless accumulated a good deal of property before he became Pope under the name of Sixtus the Fifth, and had brought some of his relatives to Rome.
In the latter State he was planning with Duke Galeazzo Maria that the latter should become King of Lombardy, and then assist him with money and troops to master Rome and ascend the Papal Throne which, it appears, Sixtus was quite willing to yield to him thus putting the Papacy on a hereditary basis like any other secular State.
Here again we have a papal attempt to found a family dynasty, and an attempt that might have been carried further under circumstances more propitious and had not Death come to check their schemes. The only one of the four "nephews" of Sixtus and to this one was imputed no nearer kinship who was destined to make any lasting mark in history was Giuliano della Rovere.
The Prince of Bearne heretic, son of heretics, great chieftain of heretics was supposed capable of becoming orthodox whenever the Pope would accept his conversion. Against this possibility Philip struggled with all his strength. Since Pope Sixtus V., who had a weakness for Henry, there had been several popes. Urban VII., his immediate successor, had reigned but thirteen days.
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