EUGENICS IV., Gabriel° Condulmero, a native of Venice, suc ceeded Martin V. in March 1431. His was a most stormy pontificate. He drove away the powerful family of Colonna, including the nephews of the late pope, from Rome, charging them with haviug enriched themselves at the expense of the papal treasury. Two hundred of their adherents were put to death, and the palaces of the Colonaa were plundered; but their party collected troops in the country and besieged Rome. Eugenius, through the assistance of Queen Joanna IL of Naples, defeated the Colonna, and obliged them to sne for peace and surrender several towns and castles they held iu the Roman state. He afterwards made war against the various lords of Romagna, who were supported by the Visconti of Milan ; and he appointed as his general the patriarch Vitelleachi, a militant prelate, who showed con siderable abilities and little scrupulousness in that protracted warfare, by which the pope ultimately recovered a considerable portion of territory. But as Vitellcachi iotended to keep Romagna for himself, the pope had him put to death. The famous condottiere Sforza figured in all these broils. But the greatest annoyance to Eugenics proceeded from the council of Basel, which had been convoked by his predecessor, and which protracted its sittings year after year, broaching doctrines very unfavourable to papal supremacy. After solemnly asserting the superiority of the council over the pope, it forbade the creation of new cardinals, prohibited appeals from the council to the pope, suppressed the annates, or payments of one year's income upon benefices, which were a great source of revenue to the papal treasury, and made other important reforms. Eugenius, who had been obliged to escape from Rome in disguise on account of a popular revolt, and had taken up his residence at Bologna in 1437, now issued a bull dissolving the council, recalling his nuncio who presided at it, and convoking another council at Ferrara. Most of the fathers assembled at Basel refused to submit, and summoned the pope himself to appear before them, to answer the charge of simouy, schism, and others; and after a time proceeded against him as contumacious, and deposed him. Eugeuius meanwhile had opened in person his new council at Ferrara, in February 1438, in which, after annulling all the obnoxious decrees of the council of Basel, he launched a Lull of excommunica tion against the bishops who remained in that assembly, which ho characterised as a conclave, which was spreading the abomina tion of desolation into the busorn of the church." The Catholic world was divided between the two councils; that of Basel proceeded to elect a new pope in the person of Amadeus VIII. of Savoy, who
assumed the name of Felix V., and was solemnly crowned at Basel. The council of Ferrara in the meantime afforded a novel eight. The Emperor John Paleologue IL came with Joseph, patriarch of Con stantinople, and more than twenty Greek bishops, attended by a numerous retinue, and took his seat in the assembly. The object was the reconciliation of the eastern and western churches, which Eugenius had greatly at heart, and to which Paleologus was also favourably inclined, as he wanted the assistance of the powers of western Europe 'against the Turks. The plague having broken out at Ferrara, the council was removed to Florence. After many theological disputations on the subject of the Holy Ghost, of the primacy of the pope, of purgatory, and other controverted points, the decree of reunion of the two churches was passed, and signed by both parties in July 1439. The emperor and patriarch returned to Constantinople highly pleased with Eugenics; but the Greeks took offence at the terms of the union, the schism broke out afresh, and the separation of the two churches has continued ever since.
A grave charge against Eugenius is, that he encouraged the Hungarians and Poles to break tho peace they had solemnly sworn with the Turks, under pretence that their oaths were not valid without the sanction of the pope ; he even sent Cardinal Julian as his nuncio to attend the Christian army. The result was the battle of Vacua, 1444, in which the Christians were completely defeated, and King Uladislaus of Poland and Cardinal Julian lost their lives.
Eugenius died at Rome in 1447, after a reign of sixteen years, and in the sixty-fourth year of his age. He left the church in a state of schism between him and his competitor Felix, his own states a prey to war, and all Christendom alarmed at the progress of the Turkish arms. In his last days he is said to have expressed himself weary of agitation, and to have regretted the loss of his former monastic tranquillity before his exaltation. He recommended peace and con ciliation to the cardinals assembled round him. He was succeeded by Nicholas V., in favour of whom Felix V. soon after abdicated. The pontificate of Eugenics forms a stirring and interesting though painful period in the history of Italy and of the church. L'Enfant and 'Dam Silvius, afterwards pope, have written the history of the council of BaseL See also the general collections of the councils and I3aluze's ' Miscellanies: