Pope Paul II

Conflict[edit]

A sore point was his abuse of the practice of creating cardinals in pectore, without publishing their names. Eager to raise new cardinals to increase the number who were devoted to his interests, but restricted by the terms of the capitulation, which gave the college a voice in the creation of new members, in the winter of 1464–65 Paul created two secret cardinals both of whom died before their names could be published. In his fourth year as Pope, he created eight new cardinals on 18 September 1467. Five were candidates pressed by kings, placating respectively James II of Cyprus, Edward IV of England, Louis XI of France, Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and Ferdinand I of Naples; one was the able administrator of the Franciscans; and the last two elevated his old tutor and a first cardinal-nephew.^[11] Two further cardinal-nephews were added on 21 November 1468.^[12] In a sign of his increasing secretiveness and paranoia, he added two more cardinals secretly at the same consistory, and four more at the beginning of 1471, expecting to reveal them only in his testament.


Tensions came to the fore when in attempting to eliminate redundant offices, Paul II proceeded to annul the College of Abbreviators, whose function it was to formulate papal documents; a storm of indignation arose, inasmuch as rhetoricians and poets with humanist training, had long been accustomed to benefiting from employment in such positions. Paul proceeded as well against the Roman Academy. Bartolomeo Platina was a member of both and found his papal employment abruptly curtailed.^[13] He wrote a pamphlet insolently demanding the pope recall his restrictions, and was imprisoned in the winter of 1464, but released four months later.


In February 1468, when Rome was rife with political intrigue fomented by the Roman barons and the neighboring princes, Paul II arrested Platina and other members of the Academy on charges of irreligion, immorality, and an alleged conspiracy to assassinate the Pope. The prisoners were interrogated under torture^[13] and eventually released.^[14]


After his release on 7 July 1469, Platina expected to be again in the employ of Paul II, who, however, declined his services. Platina threatened vengeance and executed his threat, when at the suggestion of Pope Sixtus IV he later wrote his Vitæ Pontificum Platinæ historici liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum qui hactenus ducenti fuere et XX (1479). Not unaccountably, Platina set forth an unfavorable delineation of the character of Paul II.


Among other things, Platina reported that Pius II suggested Barbo should have been called Maria Pietissima, as "when he could not obtain what he aimed at by praying, entreating, and requesting, he would join tears to his petitions to make them the sooner believed."^[15] Some historians have suggested the nickname may also have been a possible allusion to a perceived lack of masculinity, reflecting possible homosexuality.^[16] Platina also paints his enemy as cruel, and an archenemy of science. For centuries it influenced historical opinions until critical research proved otherwise.


Though Platina's writing after the conflict would tarnish the legacy of Paul II, the conflict would prove to have a greater effect on the intellectual environment of Rome. Peter Partner explains, "Probably its most important result was to convince men of letters that cultural conformity would be enforced in Rome." More tangibly, after the crackdown of Paul II, the Roman Academy took on a more religious flavour, turning in part to theology as a means of legitimizing its pursuits.^[17]