Pope Sixtus IV

Francesco della Rovere reigned as Sixtus IV from 1471 to 1484, and left Rome both its greatest chapel and its worst reputation for nepotism. He was born near Savona to a poor family, joined the Franciscans, and made his name as a theologian and preacher at Padua and Bologna before becoming minister general of the order. As pope he was a builder on a scale Rome had not seen for centuries: he paved and widened streets, built the Ponte Sisto across the Tiber to carry pilgrim traffic, restored the aqueduct that fed the city's fountains, and founded the hospital of Santo Spirito. He established the Vatican Library on a formal footing and appointed the humanist Platina its first librarian. Above all he built the Sistine Chapel, which carries his name, and summoned Botticelli, Perugino, Ghirlandaio and Rosselli to fresco its walls a generation before Michelangelo painted the ceiling. The other half of the record is harder. He appointed six of his nephews cardinals, one of whom became Julius II, and used papal resources openly to enrich and advance his family. In 1478 he issued Exigit Sinceræ Devotionis, the bull authorising Ferdinand and Isabella to establish the Spanish Inquisition under royal rather than papal control, and later protested at its severity without being able to restrain it. That same year he was implicated in the Pazzi conspiracy, the plot that killed Giuliano de' Medici during Mass in Florence Cathedral and wounded Lorenzo. He had approved the removal of the Medici while professing to forbid bloodshed. When the plot failed he excommunicated Lorenzo, placed Florence under interdict and went to war with the city. He also annulled the decrees of the Council of Constance, which had asserted that a general council stood above the pope.

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