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By Root 1047 0

the reform with ourselves and so proceed through all levels of the Church till the whole work is accomplished.” He at once appointed a commission of several of the most respected cardinals to draw up a program, but, except for a provision to reduce plural benefices, it hardly went to the heart of the matter. Beginning with the cardinals, it required reduction of incomes, which had evidently climbed, to 6000 ducats each; reduction of households to no more than eighty (of whom at least twelve should be in holy orders) and of mounted escorts to thirty; greater restraint at table with only one boiled and one roast meat per meal and with entertainment by musicians and actors to be replaced by reading of Holy Scriptures. Cardinals were no longer to take part in tournaments or carnivals or attend secular theatricals or employ miscellaneous “youths” as body servants. A provision that all concubines were to be dismissed within ten days of publication of the Bull embodying the reforms may have modified the Holy Father’s interest in the program. A further provision calling for a Council to enact the reforms was enough to bring him back to normal. The proposed Bull, In apostolicae sedis specula, was never issued and the subject of reform was dropped.

In 1499, the French under a new King, Louis XII, returned, now claiming through the Orléans line the succession to Milan. Another churchman, the Archbishop of Rouen, as the King’s chief adviser, was the mover behind this effort. He was himself moved by ambition to be Pope and believed he could make a great thrust in the papal stakes through French control of Milan. Alexander’s role in the new invasion, doubtless affected by his experience in the last, was entirely cynical. Louis had applied for an annulment of his marriage to his sad, crippled wife, Jeanne, sister of Charles VIII, in order to marry the much coveted Anne of Brittany, widow of Charles VIII, for the sake of finally attaching her duchy to the French Crown.

Although Louis’ plea for annulment was furiously condemned by Oliver Maillard, the late King’s Franciscan confessor, and resented by the French people, who warmly sympathized with the discarded Queen, Alexander was indifferent to public opinion. He saw a means toward gold for his coffers and advancement for Cesare, who, having renounced his ecclesiastical career, had ambitions to marry the daughter of Alfonso of Naples, a ward and resident of the French court. Cesare’s unprecedented resignation of the red hat, antagonizing many of the cardinals, evoked from a Venetian diarist of events a sigh that summarized the Renaissance Papacy. “Thus now in God’s Church tutto va al contrario” (everything is upside-down). In return for 30,000 ducats and support for Cesare’s project, the Pope granted Louis’ annulment plus a dispensation to marry Anne of Brittany and threw in a red hat for the Archbishop of Rouen, who became Cardinal d’Amboise.

In this second scandalous annulment and its consequences, folly was compounded. In ducal splendor, Cesare bearing the dispensation journeyed to France, where he discussed with the King the projected campaign for Milan on the basis of papal support. Alexander’s partnership with France, arranged for the sake of his maligned son, whom he now described as more dear to him than anything else on earth, angered a field of opponents—the Sforzas, the Colonnas, the rulers of Naples and, of course, Spain. Acting for Spain, Portuguese envoys visited the Pope to reprimand him for his nepotism, simony and French policy, which they said endangered the peace of Italy and indeed of all Christendom. They, too, raised the threat of a Council unless he changed course. He did not. Sterner Spanish envoys followed on the same mission, ostensibly for the welfare of the Church although their motive—to frustrate France—was as political as Alexander’s. Conferences were heated; reform by Council was again used as a threat. A wrathful envoy told Alexander to his face that his election was invalid, his title as Pope void. In return, Alexander threatened to have him thrown into