Thus, amid all this confusion, ended the reign of a Pope who had thought he could govern the policy of Italy, and, in a certain sense, did control it better than anyone who had preceded him. He brought together the finest library of his time, carried out legal reforms for the benefit of the Roman Municipium, did more than anyone else to transform Rome from a mediæval city into one more suited to modern requirements, and enriched it with churches, palaces, bridges, and beneficent establishments. Innocent VIII. was far from possessing the striking qualities of his predecessor, but he was free from the latter’s immoderate self-confidence. He sprang from a Genoese family believed to be of Levantine origin and connected with the Tomacelli, relatives of Boniface IX.[256] But the first Cybò known to history is the Pope’s father Arano, who married into a Genoese patrician house—that of the Mari—held important offices in Naples under René of Anjou, and later on, though still leaning towards the Angevin party, under Alfonso of Aragon, and in 1455 was a senator of Rome. Giovan Battista Cybò studied in Padua and Rome, was appointed Bishop of Savona by Paul II., and afterwards translated to Molfetta, from whence he took his usual appellation after being created a cardinal in May 1473. In the Pope’s absence, during the plague in the summer of 1476, he acted as his representative. He was in his fifty-second year. ‘The disposition of the new Pope,’ wrote Guid’Antonio Vespucci to Lorenzo immediately after the election, ‘was, during his cardinalate, benevolent and kind, and he was far more affable in society than he whom you wot of. He is not versed in either matters of state or of learning, but he is not wholly ignorant. He belonged completely to the party of San Pietro in Vincola (Giuliano della Rovere), who procured him his hat, and of whom it may be said that he is now practically Pope, and will have far more power than under Sixtus if he only knows how to manage his successor cleverly. The latter, as a cardinal, was on bad terms with the count (Riario). He is of middle height, strongly built, full in the face, has a brother and several grown-up natural children, at any rate a son and a married daughter. He gives one the impression of one who will let himself be counselled by others rather than rule by himself.’[257] Luigi Lotti wrote: ‘If he governs and proceeds according to his own judgment and not by that of others, I think he will be a good quiet Pope, and keep clear of all strife of arms. His court will resemble him, as the general opinion is that he will show a gracious disposition.’