SIXTUS, the name of five popes, of whom two call for particular notice, Sixtus IV. and Sixtus V. The former (originally named Francesco della Rovere), b. July 22, 1414, was a native of a small village near Savona, and a member of a very humble family. He was a scholar of the celebrated cardinal Bessariou, and became a member of the Fran ciscan order, in which capacity he obtained the highest reputation throughout Italy as a preacher. On the. death of Paul II. in 1471, Rovere was elected to the Roman see. The domestic government of Sixtus has been strongly condemned. His inordinate partiality to his relatives exhausted the papal treasury, and led to many questionable exactions, and to gross abuses in the dispensation of church patronage. His excessive facility, too, in dispensing favors, led to his not unfrequently conferring the same benefice on more thau one individual. But the worst imputation upon the memory of his pontificate arises in connection with the political affairs of Florence, and especially with the con spiracy against the Medici family, known in history as thePazzi conspiracy. In the last act of this nefarious plot, the murder of Giuliano in the church at Flmence, Sixtus's nephew, Riasio, was present, and when, after its failure, the leaders, including the arch bishop of Pisa, were executed, Sixtus excommunicated the duke Lorenzo and all the magistrates'of the city. Although this censure was passed professedly for the violation of the immunities of the church in putting an ecclesiastic to death, yet it has drawn upon Sixtus the suspicion of complicity, or at least of connivance after the fact; and has led to much controversy among historians. The necessities of defense against the Turkish invasion embarrassed still further the finances of the pope, and even the Catholic historians deplore the lengths to which ecclesiastical exactions and the simoniacal 'distribution of benefices were carried iu the latter years of Sixtus. In many respects, nevertheless, his administration was liberal and public spirited. He did much to foster learning and to encourage art. Under him, the Vatican library continued to in crease, and he contributed notably to the improvement and decoration of the city. In 1482 he entered into an alliance with the Veuetians against the duke of Ferrara, which led to a general Italian war, and ended iu a dissolution of the Venetian alliance, so mortifying to the pope, that his death is said to have been caused by chagrin and mor tification, Aug. 13, 14S4.—Six us V., in many respects, one of the most remarkabld of modern occupants of the Roman see, originally named Felice Peretti, was born (Dec. 1521) near Montalto, of parents so poor that his boyhood was spent in the humble occupation of a swineherd. While thus engaged, the boy attracted the notice of a con ventual Franciscan father, who procurred his admission into the order. He was ordained priest in 1545, and became professor of theology at Siena. His reputation as a preacher led to his being transferred to Rome, where he rose to its first dignities. He accompanied cardinal Buoncompagno as theologian in his legative mission to Spain (1565); and on the accession of Pins V. to the pontificate, was named cardinal (1570). On the accession of his former p Won. Btioncompagno, under the name of Gregory XIII., cardinal Montalto might have exercised the highest influence, but he lived it re
tired and mortified life, and was believed to have fallen almost into the decrepitude of age and infirmity. This appearance was afterward ascribed by his enemies to the design of concealing his ambitious views; and there is a well-known but apocryphal story of his having, when elected pope on the death of Gregory in 15S5 (April 24), flung aside his crutch, and revealed himself to the astonished cardinals in the full vigor of his physical strength and his moral character. this pontificate, however, was a most active and energetic one, and was marked by vigorous measures of improvement in every department of administration, ecclesiastical as well as civil. Ills first care wets to repress the prevailing license and disorder of the city of Rome, and of the papal states generally, by effectuallY breaking up and exterminating the lawless bands of outlaws by which both were infested. His administration, both in this matter and in the repre& sion of immorality, wits rigorous perhaps to the extreme of cruelty; but the evil was one which seemed to van for extreme remedies. lie reformed the administration of the law, and the disposal of public patronage; and he entered upon numerous and most comprehensive projects for the moral and material improvement of Roine. Many of his peat works are SIM re(WIlizable at Nome under his name, and are popularly remem bered as his; among which are the library of the Vatican. A distinguishing characteristic of his administration, too, was its disinterestedness. He steadfastly re fused to use his position for the purpose of advancing any of hisrelatives, or to bestow upon them property or money derived from the public; and by judicious retrenchment Le secured within the first years of his short pontificate a surplus of above 5,000,000 of crowns. It is of course impossible to enter into the details of his foreign policy; it will be enough to say that its great aim was, in the strollgv:q sense of the words, to advance the cause of the Roman Catholic church in every portion of Christendom, against the Huguenots in France. against the Lutherans in Germany, and against queen Elizabeth in At the same time, he :I deep jealousy and apprehension of the designs of Spain; gad lie resisted the excessively rigorous measures of the Spanish inquisition as organized under Philip H. His church administration was equally vigorous and energetic. He fixed the number of the sacred college of cardi nals at 70; and it was under him that the present organization of separate congrega tions of cardinals for the several departments received some of its most important developments. He published a new edition of the Septuagint, and an edition of the Vulgate, which has become famous from the multiplicity of its errors, subsequently corrected in the edition of Clement VIII. Many of the popular stories regarding him are derived from Gregorio Lete's Vita di Slate V. (2 vols., Lausanne, 1069), a work of authority. See also Tempesti, Storia della Vita e Gesti de Slate V. (3 vols., Rome, 1754; Lorentz, Sixtus V. 'end seine Zeit (Mainz, 1852); Ranke, Fiirste and Volker von Stid-EU7'010,' and Von Hubner, Sixtus Y. (1874).