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A glance at this list will show that a small defalcation must be made from the average time of each Pope's reign on account of the time lost in the various interregnums, some of which, as the list shows, have been prolonged to a considerable duration.

G

CHAPTER II.

Election of Innocent V.-Anecdote of his Achievements as a Preacher.Election of Adrian V.-Popes in the Thirteenth Century elected without Conclave.-Conclave in which Nicholas IV. was elected.Mortality of Cardinals in Conclave.-Strange Inconsistency of the Anecdotist Cancellieri.-Superstition respecting the Duration of St. Peter's Reign.-Anecdote of the papal Physician Matthew Corte.Election of Celestine V.-Modern Exception to the Rule requiring a Conclave to be held.-Modifications of the early Conclave Rules.Boniface VIII.-Benedict IX.-Anecdote respecting his Death.Conclave held at Perugia.-Grossly Simoniacal Election.-Monstrous Assertion of the Historian Spondanus.-Morone, Gregory XIV.'s Barber. The Babylonish Captivity of the Church.-Conclave at Avignon, in 1334.-And again in 1342.-And in 1352.-And in 1362.-Division between the Gascon Cardinals Subjects of England, and those subject to France.-Election of Urban V. not a Member of the College.-Tentatives for restoring the Papacy to Rome.— Petrarch.-St. Bridget.-Conclave in 1370, the last at Avignon.Gregory XI.-Difficulties of the Restoration of the See to Rome.Return of Gregory XI. to Rome.-His Death in 1378.

INNOCENT V., a Savoyard, the successor of Gregory X., was elected according to the rules laid down by his predecessor, with a regularity and celerity which seem to argue strongly in favour of the judiciousness of the Gregorian constitutions. Gregory died in the episcopal palace of Arezzo; and there the Cardinals entered into Conclave, and elected Pietro di Tarantasia*—as he was called, from the name of his native province-Pope by the name of Innocent V., on the 22nd January, 1276, the day after the cardinals went into Conclave, and in

His family name was de' Champagni.

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

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