[7] 1st.  Fior, lib. i. vol. i. p. 38.

Sixtus, however, while thus providing for his family, could not enjoy life without some youthful protege about his person.  Accordingly in 1463 he made his valet, a lad of no education and of base birth, Cardinal and Bishop of Parma at the age of twenty.  His merit was the beauty of a young Olympian.  With this divine gift he luckily combined a harmless though stupid character.

With all these favorites to plant out in life, the Pope was naturally short of money.  He relied on two principal methods for replenishing his coffers.  One was the public sale of places about the Court at Rome, each of which had its well-known price.[1] Benefices were disposed of with rather more reserve and privacy, for simony had not yet come to be considered venial.  Yet it was notorious that Sixtus held no privilege within his pontifical control on which he was not willing to raise money:  ’Our churches, priests, altars, sacred rites, our prayers, our heaven, our very God, are purchasable!’ exclaims a scholar of the time; while the Holy Father himself was wont to say, ’A pope needs only pen and ink to get what sum he wants.’[2] The second great financial expedient was the monopoly of corn throughout the Papal States.  Fictitious dearths were created; the value of wheat was raised to famine prices; good grain was sold out of the kingdom, and bad imported in exchange; while Sixtus forced his subjects to purchase from his stores, and made a profit by the hunger and disease of his emaciated provinces.  Ferdinand, the King of Naples, practiced the same system in the south.  It is worth while to hear what this bread was like from one of the men condemned to eat it:  ’The bread made from the corn of which I have spoken was black, stinking, and abominable; one was obliged to consume it, and from this cause sickness frequently took hold upon the State.’[3]

[1] The greatest ingenuity was displayed in promoting this
market.  Infessura writes:  ’Multa et inexcogitata in Curia
Romana officia adinvenit et vendidit,’ p. 1183.

[2] Baptista Mantuanus, de Calamitatibus Temporum, lib. iii.

                   Venalia nobis
      Templa, sacerdotes, altaria, sacra, coronae,
      Ignes, thura, preces, coelum est venale, Deusque.

Soriano, the Venetian ambassador, ap.  Alberi ii. 3, p. 330, writes:  ’Conviene ricordarsi quello che soleva dire Sisto IV., che al papa bastava solo la mano con la penna e l’inchiostro, per avere quella somma che vuole.’  Cp.  Aen.  Sylv.  Picc. Ep. i. 66:  ’Nihil est quod absque argento Romana Curia dedat; nam et ipsae manus impositiones et Spiritus Sancti dona venduntur, nec peccatorum venia nisi nummatis impenditur.’

[3] Infessura, Eccardus, vol. ii. p. 1941:  ’Panis vero qui ex dicto frumento fiebat, erat ater, foetidus, et abominabilis; e ex necessitate comedebatur, ex quo saepenumero