Halfway down the Danube

Pope Watch 1458, part 2: the conclave

The story so far: Pope Calixtus III (Alfonso Borgia) is dead in Rome, and all the cardinals in the immediate area are reacting to the news. The suppressed parts are, as before, in boldface.

Filippo, cardinal of Bologna, was spending the hot days of summer at Bagnoregio when he heard the news. He went to Viterbo and from there traveled with Aeneas to Rome for the election of the next pope. As they approached the city together, they found the entire Curia and most of the populace waiting to meet them outside the walls. All agreed that one of them would be elected pope. Every other cardinal within a hundred miles of Rome also returned, making nineteen in the city. In the course of the funeral ceremonies, however, the cardinal of Fermo came down with a slow fever. He had aspired passionately, excessively even, to follow Calixtus, and so he did -- to the grave. This was a man who could have been a model of virtue, had he not let ambition and a violent temper master him. His life was pure, his learning and experience great, but he was too fierce a partisan of the Ghibellines.

Ten days after Calixtus's death the other eighteen cardinals entered the conclave. The whole city awaited in suspense for the outcome; but it was common talk that Aeneas of Siena would be pope. No one was held in higher esteem.

On the conclave met in the apostolic palace at St. Peter's, where two halls and two chapels were cordoned off for the purpose. In the larger chapel they constructed cells where the cardinals would eat and sleep; the smaller, called the chapel of St. Nicholas, was reserved for deliberations and voting. The halls were places where all might walk about freely.

The day they entered, they did nothing about the election. The next day they issued certain capitulations which all agreed should be observed by the new pope. Each swore that he would abide by them should the lot fall to him. On the third day, after mass, they took a vote and found that Filippo of Bologna and Aeneas of Siena had received an equal number of votes, five apiece. No one else had more than three. On this ballot, whether from strategy or dislike, no one voted for Guillaume, the cardinal of Rouen.

We will see more of this Guillaume d'Estouteville, Cardinal of Rouen, in the next installment. The magic number of votes is twelve.