To the cardinals Innocent made all sorts of promises which he never kept--promises made by the man might be broken by the Pope. He was the first of Christ’s Vicars publicly to acknowledge his children, of whom he had seven. He was a loathsome individual, avaricious, vicious, and venal, and completely under the control of his favourites. At Rome he established an office for the sale of pardons whose revenues went to himself and his son Franceschetto. During his reign crime held high carnival throughout the Campagna. Innocent continued and extended the evil practices of his predecessors. The traffic in offices was conducted on a scale hitherto unknown, for he constantly created new ones solely for the profit to be derived from their sale. He sold the right to collect the customs to certain individuals and bankrupted the State. Rome was a sink of crime and corruption, a market where all the world might purchase indulgences. Innocent’s nepotism was different from that of some of the other Popes. With him it was based on no political idea or purpose, but simply upon avarice and vulgar greed. He founded no principalities for his sons because he himself was entirely devoid of force and political acumen, and they had neither the ambition nor the ability to make themselves powerful in the State. The county of Cervetri and Anguillara had been given to Franceschetto, but on the death of his father he sold it to Virginio Orsini, and wisely, because he could not have held it. Infessura tells us that when the wretched Innocent VIII. was on his death-bed his Jewish leech sought to prolong his life with the blood of three young boys who were purchased for a ducat apiece, and who promptly died, whereupon the physician fled and the Pope expired, July 25, 1492. The conclave for the election of his successor began in the Sistine chapel, August 6th. Twenty-five cardinals were present. The Sacred College was dominated by Ascanio Sforza, Lorenzo Cibo, Raffaele Riario, Giuliano della Rovere, and Rodrigo Borgia. It is said that the King of France contributed 200,000 ducats and Genoa 100,000 to secure the election of Della Rovere, whose most dangerous rival was Ascanio Sforza, for whom Rodrigo Borgia cast his vote, knowing that he could not be elected.