This task was undertaken by the terrible Sixtus IV.He was the first Pope who had Rome and the neighbourhood thoroughly under his control, especially after his successful attack on the House of Colonna, and consequently, both in his Italian policy and in the internal affairs of the Church, he could venture to act with a defiant audacity, and to set at nought the complaints and threats to summon a council which arose from all parts of Europe.He supplied himself with the necessary funds by simony, which suddenly grew to unheard-of proportions, and which extended from the appointment of cardinals down to the granting of the smallest favours.Sixtus himself had not obtained the papal dignity without recourse to the same means.
第33章 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART(33)（3 / 3）