profited by this sweeping grant, but attached no religious value to it, for they soon after agreed with Portugal to shift the line of partition which the Pope had drawn across the earth.
Alexander VI. employed the terrors of excommunication with a sparing hand. The risk was great and the weapon blunted. His censures against the King of France were effectually suppressed by Cardinal Julian. The Sorbonne declared that his threats might be disregarded with a safe conscience. They were of no avail when unsupported by material force. But in Italy, where they were backed by carnal weapons, men thought of them with awe, and the Venetians dreaded them even when unjust.[1] Accordingly, the Pope used excommunication as a way of declaring war on those whom he was about to attack. The rebellious vassals were assailed with spiritual arms on account of their impiety as a prelude to the arrival of Cæsar's army.[2]
It was by squandering ecclesiastical privileges, by the profusion of graces and dispensations, that he disarmed enemies, made friends, and got money. The Venetians accused him of abetting the Turks against them,[3] and they dreaded extremely the progress of Cæsar Borgia in Romagna. Yet they feared to oppose him, for they required the Pope's aid in taxing the clergy, and in raising money from the people. They gained 120,000 ducats by the Jubilee in 1501.
Marriage dispensations became, by careful manage-
- ↑ Perchè giusta vale, ingiusta timenda est. … Con veritade il favor d' un Papa è più grande di quello che cadauno può considerare. … Perchè 1' auttorità sua vale assai, edico grandemente apud Deum et homines (Priuli, May 25, June 10, Aug. 23, 1501).
- ↑ Alexander to the Magistrates of Bologna, Jan. 28, 1501, in Gozzadini, Memorie di Bentivoglio, Doc. 75.
- ↑ Se la stessa Santità Vostra persuade altrui ci si lasci punire e battere dagli infedeli, convien pur dire si voglia e si desideri che prima noi, e poco dopo 1' universa religione cristiana vada in ruina (Council of Ten to the Pope, June 30, 1500; De Leva, i. 69).
in omni terrarum orbe, pertinetque etiam ad imperia civilia et omne genus, si hoc religionis moderandae vel propagandae ratio postulare videatur. … Belli parandi classisque mitendae gravissimus auctor fuit Alexander VI. Pontifex Max. cujus Pontificis auctoritas ea est ut ejus legibus atque decretis publice factis obsistere vel contradicere nefas sit, et sacrorum interdicto haereticorumque poenis sancitum (Sepulveda, Opera, iv. 334, 335, 340; iii. 12, 15).
