The Arbiter of the New World and the Pope who didn’t want to be Pope

11 August 1492. Rodrigo de Borja (Italianised as Borgia) was elected Pope and took the name Alexander VI. He is remembered as one of the most controversial and criticised Popes in history due to a life characterised by debauchery – with mistresses and children both before and after his election – brazen nepotism and the amassing of wealth. He is known for his constant and detrimental favouritism towards some of his children, particularly Cesare (who was also a cardinal for a few years), Juan and Lucrezia; to favour them, he did not hesitate to make sudden changes to political alliances or to grant cardinal appointments in exchange for substantial sums of money. Neither his patronage of writers and artists, nor the launch of a reform of the religious orders, nor his effective role as arbiter in the dispute between Spain and Portugal over the division of spheres of influence in the New World – codified in the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 – are sufficient to mitigate this negative assessment. His harshest critic was the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola; when he was forbidden to preach and refused to comply, he was excommunicated. Recent studies have, however, shown that this measure was a forgery orchestrated by Cesare Borgia (the Pope’s son), who hired a forger to draw up a document in the Pope’s name via the Spanish cardinal Juan López. Alexander VI protested vehemently to that cardinal and sought to exonerate the friar, but his inability to act independently of his son prevented him from proceeding and denouncing the document as a forgery. Convicted in Florence of schism and heresy, Savonarola was hanged and burned at the stake, and his ashes scattered into the River Arno. Towards the end of the last century, Pope John Paul II, as part of initiatives to seek forgiveness for the errors committed by the Church in the past, promoted the friar’s rehabilitation by initiating the process for his possible beatification.

12 August 1689. Innocent XI, Benedetto Odescalchi of Como, died; during the conclave, he had refused the election, urging the cardinals to choose someone else. After a pause for reflection, a new vote was held, which confirmed his election. He immediately demonstrated his well-known administrative skills and his expertise in economic matters – knowledge he had acquired from his family (one of the wealthiest in Lombardy, involved in banking and commerce) – which were combined with a desire to reform the Church and society. He insisted, for example, that the coronation ceremony be very modest, donating the money saved to the poor and to the churches of Rome. In the same vein, he abolished the traditional regatta on the Tiber held on the feast of St Rocco, allocating the funds to an orphanage. Opposed to nepotism, he did not appoint any relatives to public office. On the international stage, he strongly supported and financed the coalition of Christian armies that defeated the Turks at Vienna in 1683, an event that marked the halt to Ottoman expansion in Europe.