n children, and to call them sons and
daughters.[1] Avarice, venality, sloth, and the ascendency of base
favorites made his reign loathsome without the blaze and splendor of the
scandals of his fiery predecessor. In corruption he advanced a step
even beyond Sixtus, by establishing a Bank at Rome for the sale of
pardons.[2] Each sin had its price, which might be paid at the
convenience of the criminal: 150 ducats of the tax were poured into the
Papal coffers; the surplus fell to Franceschetto, the Pope's son. This
insignificant princeling, for whom the county of Anguillara was
purchased, showed no ability or ambition for aught but getting and
spending money. He was small of stature and tame-spirited: yet the
destinies of an important house of Europe depended on him; for his
father married him to Maddalena, the daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, in
1487. This led to Giovanni de' Medici receiving a Cardinal's hat at the
age of thirteen, and thus the Medicean interest in Rome was founded; in
the course of a few years the Medici gave two Popes to the Holy See, and
by their ecclesiastical influence riveted the chains of Florence
fast.[3] The traffic which Innocent and Franceschetto carried on in
theft and murder filled the Campagna with brigands and assassins.[4]
Travelers and pilgrims and ambassadors were stripped and murdered on
their way to Rome; and in the city itself more than two hundred people
were publicly assassinated with impunity during the last months of the
Pope's life. He was gradually dozing off into his last long sleep, and
Franceschetto was planning how to carry off his ducats. While the Holy
Father still hovered between life and death, a Jewish doctor proposed to
reinvigorate him by the transfusion of young blood into his torpid
veins. Three boys throbbing with the elixir of early youth were
sacrificed in vain. Each boy, says Infessura, received one ducat. He
adds, not without grim humor: 'Et paulo post mortui sunt; Judaeus quidem
aufugit, et Papa non sanatus est.' The epitaph of this poor old Pope
reads like a rather clever but blasphemous witticism: 'Ego autem in
Innocentia mea ingressus sum.'

[1] 'Primus pontificum filios filiasque palam ostentavit,
primus eorum apertas fecit nuptias, primus domesticos hymenaeos
celebravit.' Egidius of Viterbo, quoted by Greg. _Stadt Rom_,
vol. vii. p. 274, note.

[2] Infessura says he heard the Vice-chancellor, when asked why
criminals were allowe