The success of the political schemes of Sixtus demanded the overthrow of the Medici, and he consequently, at least, countenanced the Pazzi conspiracy, which resulted in the murder of Giuliano de’ Medici and the wounding of Lorenzo, who only saved himself by flight. Three weeks later the Pope, King Ferdinand of Naples, and the city of Siena formed a league whose avowed purpose was the expulsion of the Medici from Florence. Sixtus was a consummate politician, and Infessura speaks of the day on which he died as “that most blessed day upon which God delivered Christendom from the hands of a most impious and iniquitous king.”[6] He states that Sixtus had no affection for his people; that he was avaricious, vain, vicious; that he trafficked in offices and benefices, made a plaything of justice, and that he was cruel and vindictive. According to history Sixtus was an evil ruler in an evil age. All his acts were inspired by a love of power or an exaggerated affection for his kinsmen. He it was who first completely surrendered the Papacy and Rome to his relatives. He used all sorts of means to increase the Church revenues, only to hand them over to his nephews to use in extending the power of his family. He was, however, not wholly devoid of virtue, for he possessed great learning. Impatient of contradiction, he used any means to overcome opposition, and he soon showed that he was born to rule. Sixtus IV. had none of the priestly characteristics which the Supreme Pontiff is supposed to possess; in him the priest was lost in the prince. From that time forth St. Peter’s successors were temporal sovereigns who happened to be Popes; the members of their families were everywhere treated as princes. Many of their putative nephews were in reality their own illegitimate sons. There was a saying current in Europe during the reign of Sixtus that there were as many popes in Rome as he had nephews. With every change in the Papacy a new swarm came into power, only to fall with their creator’s decease. The Papacy having become a temporal power, the Pope’s kinsmen were his chief support; at the same time, the Sacred Office was the greatest political instrument an ambitious and powerful family could secure to aid its advancement. The papal nephews terrorised the domain of the Church and endeavoured to obtain possession of rival states and cities. Nepotism became a system, and, as hereditary succession was denied the Pope, it furnished him the only means by which he could hope to perpetuate his power, but as we have seen the means were inadequate. The Italians promptly discovered that the same hopes and fears, the same ambitions and passions prevailed in St. Peter’s Chair as ruled elsewhere, and also that the Pope was a very human sovereign and one who enjoyed the advantage of being unhampered by any feudal institutions.