In the mean time, each of the cardinals who happened to be at Rome, at the time of the death of Innocent VII. took a solemn oath, that if in the ensuing election of a sovereign pontiff, the choice of the conclave should happen to fall upon himself, he would resign the pontificate, provided Benedict would follow his example. This arrangement was proposed in order to appease the mutual jealousy of the French and Italian cardinals, as neither of these subdivisions of the ecclesiastical senate would consent to sacrifice their representative without the concurrence of their antagonists in a similar measure. These preliminaries being adjusted, on the 30th of November, the conclave proceeded to fill the vacant chair, by the election of Angelo Corraro, cardinal of St. Mark, who on his advancement to the pontifical dignity, adopted the name of Gregory XII.[42] Though the new pontiff had, immediately after his election, subscribed a ratification of the oath which bound him to abdicate his newly acquired honours, yet upon frivolous pretexts, he from time to time deferred the fulfilment of this sacred engagement. Benedict his competitor, having repaired to Savona, and afterwards to Porto Venere, with a view, as he asserted, of settling the peace of the church, by an amicable conference with Gregory; the latter insisted upon it, that they should meet in some inland town, where they might jointly comply with the requisition of the cardinals. Benedict on the contrary asserting, that he could not deem himself safe in the interior of Italy, demanded that Gregory should for that purpose, meet him in some sea-port. With this proposal, Gregory, on pretence of apprehended danger to his person, refused to comply. Thus as Leonardo Aretino humorously observes, “The one, like an aquatic animal, was afraid of trusting himself on dry land; and the other, like a terrestrial animal, had an equal dread of the water.”[43] Scandalized by the duplicity of the rival pontiffs, and alarmed by the violence of Gregory, the cardinals quitted Lucca, to which city they had accompanied him in hopes that he would adopt the requisite steps to put an end to the schism, and assembled at Pisa. Here, constituting themselves a council of the church, they deposed both Gregory and Benedict, substituting in their place, Pietro Filardo, a native of Candia, who assumed the appellation of Alexander V.[44]