nevertheless esta lished a rule eveu m this department of his government, which if it has not been adhered to invariably, has yet much affected the subsequent practice; he limited, namely, the number of cardinals to seventy. "As Moses,' he remarks, "chose seventy elders from among the whole nation, to take counsel with them."

This pontiff has also received the credit of having abolished nepotism; but, considering the question more closely, we find that this was not done by him. The habit of unduly exalting the pontifical house had greatly declined under Pius IV., Pius V., and Gregory XIII.; the favours bestowed on the papal nephews had sunk to insignificance. Pius V. more especially deserves commendation in this particular, since he forbade the alienation of church property by an express law The earlier forms of nepotism were then extinct before the times of Sixtus V., but among the popes of the succeeding century it re-appeared under a different form. There were

always two favoured nephews or kinsmen, of whom one, raised to the cardinalate, acquired the supreme administration of affairs, ecclesiastical and political; the other, remaining in a secular station, was married into some illustrious family, was endowed with lands and "luoghi di monte," established a majorat, and became the founder of a princely house. If we now ask by whom this mode of nepotism was introduced, we shall find that though its rise was gradual, yet it grew to maturity under Sixtus V. Cardinal Montalto, whom the pope loved so tenderly that he even put a restraint on the impetuosity of his temper in his favour, gained admission to the consulta, and a share at least in the administration of foreign affairs: his brother Michele became a marquis, and founded a wealthy house.

We are yet not to conclude that Sixtus thus introduced a system of governing by nepotism. The marquis possessed no influence whatever, the cardinal none over essential in

with regard to this, in one of his sermons, that a ruler sinned who bestowed a public office as reward for private services: [not because a man is a good carver or cup-bearer can we prudently commit to him the charge of a bishopric or a cardinalate.] It was precisely a cock that Cardina. Gallo had been. (Memorie della Vita di Sisto V.)

terests. To have allowed them any, would have been wnolly at variance with the pontiff's mode of thinking. There was something cordial and confiding in the favours he bestowed, and they procured him the good-will not of individuals only, but of the public also. The helm of government was, however, in no case resigned to another hand, he was himself sole ruler. He appeared to regard the "congregations" with very high consideration, and pressed the members to give their free unfettered opinions; but whenever any one of them did so, he became irritated and impatient.+ Obstinately did he persist in the execution of his own will. “With him,” says

Cardinal Gritti, 66 no man has a voice, even in counsel,—how much less then in decision." His personal and provincial at tachments were never permitted to interfere with his general government, which was invariably rigid, thorough-going, and above all arbitrary.

These characteristics were exhibited in no department more strikingly than in that of finance.

§ 7. Finances.

The Chigi family in Rome are in possession of a small memorandum-book, kept by Sixtus in his own handwriting while yet but a poor monk.§ With the utmost interest does the reader turn over the leaves of this document, wherein he has noted all the important interests of his life: the places he preached in during Lent, the commissions he received and executed, the books that he possessed, in what manner they

* Bentivoglio, Memorie, p. 90: [There was scarcely a single person who had any participation in the government.]

+ Gualterius: [Although he referred affairs to the congregations and others, he yet always had cognizance of all himself, and took part in the execution. With great zeal did he investigate the proceedings of all inagistrates, whether in the city or the provinces, likewise the conduct of all others who had rule, throughout the apostolic see.]

Gritti, Relatione: [Not only is there no one who decides for him, hut there is scarcely any one whom he will even consult ] § Memorie autografe di Papa Sisto V..

were bound, whether singly or together, are here noted down; finally, all the details of his small monkish house-keeping are given with the utmost exactitude. We read in these pages how Fra Felice bought twelve sheep of his brother-in-law Baptista; how he paid first twelve florins, and afterwards two florins and twenty bolognins for these sheep, so that they became his own property; how the brother-in-law kept them, receiving half the profits, as was the custom of Montalto, with many other matters of like character. We perceive with how close an economy he guarded his small savings, how minutely he kept account of them, and how at length they amounted to some hundred florins; all these details one follows with interest and sympathy, remarking throughout, the same economical exactitude which this Franciscan afterwards brought to bear on the governinent of the papal states. His frugality is a quality for which he gives himself due praise in every bull that affords him opportunity for introducing the subject; and even in many of his inscriptions; it is certain that no pope, either before or after him, administered the revenues of the church with so good an effect.

The treasury was utterly exhausted when Sixtus V. ascended the papal chair, and he complains bitterly of Pope Gregory, whom he accuses of having spent the treasures of his predecessor and his successor, as well as his own ;* he conceived so bad an opinion of this pontiff, that he ordered masses to be said for his soul, having seen him in a dream enduring the torments of the other world. The revenues of the state were found to be anticipated up to the following October.

All the more earnestly did he set himself to the task of replenishing the public coffers, and in this he succeeded beyond his expectations. In April, 1586, at the close of the first year of his pontificate, he had already gathered a million of scudi in gold. To this he added a second million in November of 1587, and in the April following a third. Thus an

*Vita e Successi del Cardinal di Santaseverina. MS. Bibl. Alb.: [When I spoke to him of the colleges of the neophytes and Armenians, both needing aid, he replied angrily, that there was no money in the castle and no revenue, for the last pope had squandered his income as well as that left by Pius V.; he bewailed aloud that evil state whe ein he had found the apostolic see.]

amount of more than four millions and a half of silver scudi was laid up by the early part of 1588. When Sixtus had got together one millior, he deposited it in the castle of St. Angelo, dedicating it, as he says, "to the Holy Virgin, the mother of God, and to the holy apostles Peter and Paul." In this bull he tells us that he "not only surveyed the billows on which the little bark of St. Peter was now sometimes tossing, but also the storms that are threatening from the distance. Implacable is the hatred of the heretics; the faithful are menaced by the power of the Turk, Assur, the scourge of God's wrath." The Almighty, in whom he trusted, had taught him that "even by night also shall the father of the family be watchful, and shall follow that example given by the patriarchs of the Old Testament, who had ever large treasures stored in the temple of the Lord.”

He decided, as is well known, on what contingencies those were, that would make it lawful to have recourse to this fund. They were the following a war undertaken for the conquest of the Holy Land, or for a general campaign against the Turks; the occurrence of famine or pestilence; manifest danger of losing any province of Catholic Christendom; hostile invasion of the ecclesiastical states; or the attempt to recover a city belonging to the papal see. He bound his successors, as they would shun the wrath of Almighty God, and of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, to confine themselves within the limits thus assigned them.*

The merit of this arrangement we leave for the moment unquestioned, to inquire by what means the pontiff contrived to amass a treasure, so astonishing for the times he lived in.

The direct revenues of the papal see could not account for it; these, as Sixtus himself informs us, were not in their net product more than two hundred thousand scudi a year.†

The savings of the pope were considerable, but not equal to this amount. His retrenchments were certainly very close,

* Ad Clavum ; 21 April, 1586: Cocq. iv. iv. 206.

+ Dispaccio Gritti, 7 Giugno, 1586. The pope blames Henry III., because, with an income of three millions, he saves nothing. [Bringing forward his own example, who has no more than 200,000 scudi, when the interest on debts contracted by earlier popes, and other incidental expenses arc paid.]

the expenses of his table being reduced to six pauls a day (nearly three shillings of our present money). He abolished many useless offices of the court, and disbanded a part of the troops. But we have the authority of the Venetian Delfino for the fact, that all this did not lessen the expenditure of the camera by more than one hundred and fifty thousand scudi; and we learn, besides, from Sixtus himself, that his reduction of expense was to the amount of one hundred and forty-six thousand scudi only.*

We find then, that with all his economy and by his own shewing, the net revenue was increased to 350,000 scudi, and no more. This would scarcely suffice for the buildings he was engaged in; what then would it do towards the amassing of so enormous a treasure?

The extraordinary system of finance established in the States of the Church has been already considered; we have seen the continued increase of imposts and burthens of all sorts, without any corresponding increase of the real income; we have observed the multiplicity of loans by the sale of offices and by monti, with the ever- augmenting incumbrances laid on the state for the necessities of the church. The many evils inseparable from this system are manifest, and, hearing the eulogies so liberally bestowed on Sixtus V., we at once infer that he found means to remedy those evils. What then is our amazement, when we find that he pursued the same course in a manner the most reckless; nay, that he even gave to this system so fixed a character as to render all future control or remedy impossible!

In the sale of offices it was that Sixtus found one chief source of his treasures. He raised in the first instance the prices of many that had been obtained by purchase only from periods long before his own. Thus the office of treasurer to the camera, of which the price till now had been 15,000 scudi, he sold for 50,000 to one of the Giustiniani family; and, having raised him to the college of cardinals, he sold it again to a Pepoli for 72,000 scudi. This second purchaser being also invested with the purple, Sixtus appropriated one half the income of the office, namely 5,000 scudi, to a