Note 208 — BOOK THE SEVENTH.

Gian Battista Cibo, Cardinal of Melfi, was elected Pope on the 29th of August, 1484, and assumed the title of Innocent VIII. At the time of his elevation to the supremacy he was about fifty-five years of age, and had several natural children. He was quite as corrupt as his predecessor, Sixtus IV., but endued with far less talent and energy. He married his son, Franceschetto Cibo, to a daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici; and this alliance afterwards procured to his posterity the duchy of Massa-Carrara. In 1489 he gave a cardinal’s hat to Giovanni de’ Medici, afterwards Leo X. By venality in the distribution of justice, by monopoly, and by the ignorance and carelessness of his administration, he brought Rome into a state of poverty and humiliation previously unexampled. He died on the 25th of July, 1492, the most despised, but not the most detested, of the Popes who had yet filled the chair of St. Peter.