On the death of Eugenius IV. the situation was menacing enough, but, to the surprise and joy of all, Tomaso Parentucelli, cardinal of Bologna, was elected without disturbance, as Pope I Nicholas V. 0447-1450. With him the Christian Renaissanceascended the papal throne. He was the son of a physician from Sarzana, who was not too well endowed with the gifts of fortune: and the boy, with all his talents, could only prosecute his studies at great personal sacrifices. He was possessed of a deep-seated enthusiasm for science and art, of a sincerely pious and idealistic temperament, and of an ardent love for the Church. After his or dination, his great learning and stainless life led him to office after office in the Church, each higher and more influential than the last. Not only did he love the studies of the humanist, but he himself was a Christian humanist. Yet among all his far reaching plans for the encouragement of art and science, Nicholas V. had always the well-being of the Church primarily in view; and the highest goal of his pontificate, which inaugurated the Maecenatian era of the popedom, was to ennoble that Church by the works of intellect and art. It is astonishing to contemplate how much he achieved, during his brief reign, in the cause of the Renaissance in both art and literature. True, his designs were even greater, but his term of government was too short to allow of their actual execution. A gigantic plan was drawn out, with the of the celebrated Alberti, for the reconstruction of the Leonine city, the Vatican and St. Peter's. The rebuilding of the last-named was rendered advisable by the precarious condi tion of the structure, but stopped short in the early stages. In the Vatican, however, Fiesole completed the noble frescoes, from the lives of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence, which are still preserved to us. Nicholas, again, lent the protection and encouragement of his powerful arm to science as well as art.
The long-hoped cessation of civil war within the Church bad now come, and Nicholas considered that the event could not better be celebrated than by the proclamation of a universal jubilee—an announcement which evoked a thrill of joy in the whole of Christendom.
It was the wish of the pope that the jubilee should be followed by a revival of religious life in all Christian countries. To put this project into execution, the Church opened her "treasuries of grace," connected with the jubilee dispensation, for the peculiar benefit of those nations that had suffered most from the turmoils of the last few decades, or were prevented from visiting the Eternal City. Nicholas of Cusa was nominated legate for Ger many, and began the work of reformation by travelling through every province in Germany dispensing blessings. It was under Nicholas V. that the last imperial coronation was solemnized at Rome. There is a touch of tragedy in the fact that, in the follow ing year, the pope saw his temporal sovereignty—even his life— threatened by a conspiracy hatched among the adherents of the pseudo-humanism. The prime mover in the plot, Stefano Porcaro, was executed. Nicholas had scarcely recovered from the shock, when news came of the capture of Constantinople by the Turks; and his efforts to unite the Christian Powers against the Muslims failed. This darkened the evening of his life, and he died in the
night of March 24-25, 1455. From the universal standpoint of history the significance of Nicholas's pontificate lies in the f act that he put himself at the head of the artistic and literary Renais sance. By this means he introduced a new epoch in the history of the papacy and of civilization : Rome, the centre of ecclesiastical life, was now to become the centre of literature and art.
When Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini was elected pope as Pius II. (1458-1464), the papal throne was ascended by a man whose name was famous as poet, historian, humanist and statesman, and whose far-seeing eye and exact knowledge of affairs seemed pe culiarly to fit him for his position. On the other hand, the troubled and not impeccable past of the new pontiff was bound to excite some misgiving; while, at the same time, severe bodily suffering had brought old age on a man of but 53 years. In spite of his infirmity and the brief duration of his reign, Pius II. ac complished much for the restoration of the prestige and authority of the Holy See. His indefatigable activity on behalf of Western civilization, now threatened with extinction by the Ottomans, excites admiration and adds an undying lustre to his memory. If we except the Eastern question, Pius II. was principally exer cised by the opposition to papal authority which was gaining ground in Germany and France. In the former country the move ment was headed by the worldly archbishop-elector Diether (q.v.) of Mainz; in the latter by Louis XI., who played the autocrat in ecclesiastical matters. In full consciousness of his high-priestly dignity he set his face against these and all similar attempts; and his zeal and firmness in defending the authority and rights of the Holy See against the attacks of the conciliar and national parties within the Church deserve double recognition, in view of the emi nently difficult circumstances of that period. Nor did he shrink from excursions in the direction of reform, now become an im perative necessity. His attempt to reunite Bohemia with the Church was destined to failure ; but the one great aim of the pope during his whole reign was the organization of a gigantic crusade—a project which showed a correct appreciation of the danger with which the Church and the West in general were menaced by the Crescent. Recurring time after time, with all his intellect and energy, to the realization of his scheme, he finally adopted the high-hearted resolve of placing himself at the head of the crusade. Tortured by bodily, and still more by mental suf fering, the old pope reached Ancona. There he was struck down by fever; and on Aug. 15, 1464, death had released him from all his afflictions—a tragic close which has thrown a halo round his memory.
The humanist Pius II. was succeeded by a splendour-loving Venetian, Pietro Barbo, the nephew of Eugenius IV., who is known as Pope Paul II. (1464-1471). With his accession the situation altered ; for he no longer made the Turkish war the centre of his whole activity, as both his immediate predecessors had done. Nevertheless, he was far from indifferent to the Otto man danger. Paul took energetic measures against the principle of the absolute supremacy of the State as maintained by the Venetians and by Louis XI. of France; while in Bohemia he ordered the deposition of George Podebrad (Dec. 1466). The widely diffused view that this pope was an enemy of science and culture is unfounded. It may be traced back to Platina, who, re senting his arrest, avenged himself by a biographical caricature. What the pope actually sought to combat by his dissolution of the Roman academy was simply the non-Christian tendency of the Renaissance, standing as it did on a purely pagan basis—"the stench of heathendom," as Dante described it. In other respects Paul II. encouraged men of learning and the art of printing, and built the magnificent palace of San Marco, in which he established a noble collection of artistic treasures.