the first scrutiny, as the new Pope failed not to tell the princes and prelates in the letters announcing his election. It is true that the Savoyard Cardinal must have been strongly recommended to his colleagues by a truly unparalleled feat, which he had, as we are assured, shortly before performed. At the second Council of Lyons, the Cardinal Saint Bonaventura died, and Pietro di Tarantasia was appointed to preach his funeral sermon, in the presence of the Pope, the whole of the members of the Sacred College, two patriarchs, five hundred bishops, sixty abbots, the ambassadors of many foreign princes, and above a thousand priests, from the eyes of every one of which illustrious assembly his discourse drew tears, as is clearly set forth in the introduction to the last edition of the works of S. Bonaventura, a success which he followed up by baptizing a Turkish ambassador and two of his suite. Clearly the man for St. Peter's successor !

Adrian V., Fieschi, a Genoese, the successor of the above Innocent, was elected at Viterbo, on the 10th July, 1296. He had been somewhat of a pluralist, holding contemporaneously archdeaconries in the churches of Canterbury, Rheims, and Parma, and a canonry in that of Piacenza. St. Filippo Benizzi, the Servite Saint, to whom Cardinal Fieschi had been sent by the Sacred College to offer the papacy on the death of Clement IV., 1269, refusing that elevation for himself, foretold to the ambassador that he himself should rise to that dignity, but should not enjoy it long. Adrian, firmly believing the prophecy, said to those who came to congratulate him on his elevation, "Would to Heaven

you had come to congratulate a cardinal in health, instead of a moribund Pope!" and died at the end of a reign of one month and nine days. He had found time, however, to do at least one important act. He suspended the constitutions of Gregory, regulating the papal elections. What his motive for this step was, I do not find recorded; but it must be presumed to have been on some ground or other a cogent one, for his successor, John XXI., revoked the constitutions entirely. And the next three Popes, Nicholas III., elected in 1277, Martin IV., elected in 1281, and Honorius IV., elected in 1285, were accordingly elected without any Conclave. A Conclave, however, assembled for the election of the successor of the last of these, and chose Nicholas IV.; but his successor, St. Celestine V., was again elected without any Conclave.*

Respecting this Conclave of Nicholas IV., some curious particulars have been preserved. The repeal of the Gregorian constitutions did not prohibit the holding of a Conclave, and, as we have seen, that mode of election had been in use before the time of Gregory. The decree by John XXI. only made it no longer imperative to assemble a Conclave.

The Conclave that ultimately elected Nicholas was held in the then papal palace at Santa Sabina; and it assembled immediately after the death of Honorius, which happened in the middle of the hottest season of the year. Their eminences, unable to agree in an election, remained till six of their number died of malaria fever, and many of the survivors were very ill. * Cancellieri, p. 8.

They still would not come to an election; but they left the Conclave and Rome, all except the Cardinal Girolamo Masci de Alessiano, sometimes called d'Aseoli, Bishop of Palestrina. He, "keeping fires burning continually, to purify the air," remained alone in Conclave at Santa Sabina over ten months. At the end of that time, the pestilence having ceased, the other cardinals returned and elected him Pope, by the name of Nicholas IV.;-as surely he well deserved!

It is singular enough that Cancellieri, who relates this story, opens his work by declaring that "although many Conclaves have chanced to take place in the hottest months, yet no example is found of any epidemic sickness having happened during the continuance of them; it being the case that almost always those who have journeyed to Rome in the dog-days for this purpose, and have entered into Conclave, have come out thence without suffering in any wise in their health." The worthy old gossip evidently means to give the reader to understand that a special protection is accorded by Providence to those engaged in the holy work of making a Pope. The truth, however, of the matter is rather remarkably the reverse of his statement; and he himself has proceeded but a few pages, before he contradicts himself in the above remarkable

manner.

On the same page with the above-cited passage, Cancellieri has an amusing note on the well-known superstition (now destroyed for good and all!) to the effect that no Pope could reach the length of Papacy said to have been enjoyed by St. Peter. "Among all the two hundred and

fifty-four Popes," says he, writing in 1823, immediately after the death of Pius VII., a number now to be increased by four more, "Pius VII. had been exceeded in the length of his papacy only by Adrian I. (ob. 795), who ruled the Church twenty-three years, ten months, and seven days, and Pius VI., who held the papacy twenty-four years, six months, and fourteen days. Only the Antipope Benedict XIII. reigned more than twenty-eight years, of whom St. Antonine, in his Chronicle, remarks that, 'He exceeded the duration of the pontificate of St. Peter, to the heaping up of his own damnation; and no wonder, since he was in reality not in Peter's seat.'" The good saint's idea that the wicked Antipope, damned already for being an Antipope, is extra-damned for living so long, is amusing enough. "Hence," continues Cancellieri, "one may say with Bzovius, in his history of the Roman pontiffs, 'Sint licet assumpti juvenes ad Pontificatum-Petri annos potuit nemo videret tamen!" Cancellieri rambles on with his pleasant gossip to an anecdote (which Tiraboschi also tells in his history of Italian literature) of the papal physician, Matthew Corte, who professed to have discovered the means of prolonging life to a hundred and twenty years, and wrote a book specially on that subject. He used to present a copy of this work to each new Pope, taking the precaution, however, to substitute on every occasion a new titlepage, with the assurance to each new patron, "Videbis

• "Transivit annos Petri ad cumulum suæ damnationis; nec mirum, quia non in sede Petri."-St. Antonin. Chron. p. 3. tit. 22.

"Although young men have been raised to the Pontificate, yet no onehas been able to see the years of Peter."

dies Petri et ultra."* Tiraboschi says that he has seen copies that had been thus presented to Julius III., Pius IV., and Paul IV.

This Conclave, in which Nicholas IV. was elected, was the first that was guarded-custodito-by a Savelli. The privilege of holding this office was granted to the head of the Savelli family "for ever" by Gregory IX. Prince Chigi is now the hereditary "custode" of the Conclaves.

Celestine V., the successor of this Nicholas IV., elected in 1294, abdicated the papacy after a reign of five months and eight days; but found time to re-enact the Gregorian constitutions, which were further confirmed and established by his successor, Boniface VIII. And since that time these constitutions have without intermission ruled the papal Conclaves, save when Pius VI. (ob. 1799) dispensed the cardinals from the observation of them by reason of the bondage in which the Church was held by Napoleon Buonaparte. There is also the ever-memorable and all-important case of Pope Martin V., elected by the authority of the Council of Constance, which has already been referred to in the fourth chapter of Book I. The Gregorian constitutions have with these exceptions formed the rule of the Conclaves in all essential matters uninterruptedly for the last six hundred years; but they have been frequently modified as to points held not to be essential by various Popes, mostly in the sense of mitigating the rigour of them as regards the personal comfort of the cardinals during their seclusion. These modifications will be

* "You shall see the days of Peter and more."