In Rome itself the pontificate of Sixtus IV. had been as turbulent as his foreign relations. The great families, and especially the Colonnas, had opposed the advancement of the Pope’s nephews, and had thus drawn on themselves the wrath of Sixtus. A long civil war ensued, [Sidenote: Disorders in Rome.] in which the barons allied themselves with the foreign enemies of the Pope, at one time with Florence, at another with Naples or with Venice. In this war Sixtus displayed all his cold-blooded cruelty and treachery. The stronghold of his enemies was the castle of Marino, which was surrendered by Lorenzo Colonna on condition that he should be restored to his family. Sixtus fulfilled his promise by sending them his corpse. The mother appeared at the papal court, and producing her son’s head, exclaimed, ‘See how a Pope keeps faith!’ It was a graphic picture of the terrible degradation of Rome by the Pope’s abandonment of spiritual aims for temporal ambition. Directly the Pope’s death was known, the Colonnas headed a rising which sacked the palaces of the Riarios and drove their adherents from Rome. The character of Innocent VIII. has been painted by some historians in blacker colours than it deserves. It is true that [Sidenote: Innocent VIII., 1484-92.] he was the first Pope who recognised his own children, but they seem to have been born before he took orders, and his devotion to them did not involve him in such scandals as disgrace his predecessor and his successor. The principality of Anguillara was purchased for his son, Franceschetto Cibo, but the latter was more interested in gaining money than power, and his first act after his father’s death was to sell his territories to Virginio Orsino. Innocent himself had little capacity and little interest in politics. He spent great part of his time in a state of lethargy, which not infrequently gave the appearance of death. Among those who exercised a dominant influence over the feeble Pope was Lorenzo de’ Medici, who married his daughter Maddalena to Franceschetto Cibo, and as a part of the bargain, obtained the cardinal’s hat for his second son, Giovanni, at the age of fourteen. It was under Innocent VIII. that the Medici obtained that position at the papal court which enabled them to produce two almost successive popes, Leo X. and Clement VII., and enabled these popes to use the power of the Church to suppress the liberties of their native city.