ncubina domum replevit, et quasi sterquilinium facta
est sedes Barionis.' See Gregorovius, _Stadt Rom_, vol. vii. p.
215, for the latter quotation.

Paul did not live as long as his comparative youth led people to
anticipate. He died of apoplexy in 1471, alone and suddenly, after
supping on two huge watermelons, _duos praegrandes pepones_. His
successor was a man of base extraction, named Francesco della Rovere,
born near the town of Savona on the Genoese Riviera. It was his whim to
be thought noble; so he bought the goodwill of the ancient house of
Rovere of Turin by giving them two cardinals' hats, and proclaimed
himself their kinsman. Theirs is the golden oak-tree on an azure ground
which Michael Angelo painted on the roof of the Sistine Chapel in
compliment to Sixtus and his nephew Julius. Having bribed the most venal
members of the Sacred College, Francesco della Rovere was elected Pope,
and assumed the name of Sixtus IV. He began his career with a lie; for
though he succeeded to the avaricious Paul who had spent his time in
amassing money which he did not use, he declared that he had only found
5,000 florins in the Papal treasury. This assertion was proved false by
the prodigality with which he lavished wealth immediately upon his
nephews. It is difficult even to hint at the horrible suspicions which
were cast upon the birth of two of the Pope's nephews and upon the
nature of his weakness for them. Yet the private life of Sixtus rendered
the most monstrous stories plausible, while his public treatment of
these men recalled to mind the partiality of Nero for Doryphorus.[1] We
may, however, dwell upon the principal features of his nepotism; for
Sixtus was the first Pontiff who deliberately organized a system for
pillaging the Church in order to exalt his family to principalities. The
weakness of this policy has already been exposed[2]: its justification,
if there is any, lies in the exigencies of a dynasty which had no
legitimate or hereditary succession. The names of the Pope's nephews
were Lionardo, Giuliano, and Giovanni della Rovere, the three sons of
his brother Raffaello; Pietro and Girolamo Riario, the two sons of his
sister Jolanda; and Girolamo, the son of another sister married to
Giovanni Basso. With the notable exception of Giuliano della Rovere,[3]
these young men had no claim to distinction beyond good looks and a
certain martial spirit which ill suited with the ecclesiastical
dignities thrust