Of course, he doomed himself. One by one, the cardinals left Rome and assembled at Agnani; a fated and fateful city for the papacy. The same college of cardinals which, had just elected Prigano now met and voted the election null and void on the ground that they had been coerced into electing him in fear of the violence of the Roman mob.
It seems hard to believe but they elected in his place a brute named Robert, Cardinal of Geneva – he who was called. the Butcher of Cesena because he had ordered his troops to put 3000 women and children to the sword when they objected to the rape of sixty women by his transient soldiers. The Butcher took the name of Clement VII, whereupon Urban VI excommunicated him, then he excommunicated Urban, and the great schism of the Church had begun. There were two popes; who ruled Christendom simultaneously: – Urban in Rome, Clement at Avignon. The Cossa family's advocate, Piero Tomacelli, succeeded Urban as Boniface IX. To restore the weakened Church Boniface undertook the sale of
offices and benefices. As I have said before, much money was needed. The ordinary income, such as Peter's Pence, was grossly insufficient. Papal expenses' were higher than they had ever been. In addition to a pope's usual duties-fixing points of doctrine and discipline, granting dispensations, confirming, benefices and maintaining manifold external relations with foreign courts Boniface had an immense amount of work to do as the ultimate spiritual and temporal court of appeal.
In 1350, the period between Jubilees – the times at which special indulgences were granted and pilgrims flocked to Rome – had been reduced from one hundred to fifty years by Clement VI. The period was reduced still-further; to thirty-three years, the length of the life of Christ, by Urban VI, who appointed 1390 to be a Jubilee year. Boniface XI reduced the period to ten years; he reaped enormous wealth from the Jubilees of 1390 and 1400. He never flinched from prostituting the spiritual to the temporal.
Under his rule, simony reached its great climax. He multiplied the sale of indulgences. It was useless for a poor man to appear before a papal court of law. Income for the Church was sought from cacti and every source. Everything, even a signature, had to be paid for: if one man had bought a place on the ladder of influence and a second man made a better offer, the second offer was accepted also, the grant was antedated and the first man lost; his place. Although gorged with money, to his dying day Boniface was never filled. He piled tax upon tax, graft upon graft, simony upon simony. He taxed the papal states, demanded fees for appointments and annual dues from those ordained to political office. He appropriated the entire income from benefices and brought all benefices under papal patronage. He appropriated the property left in the vast estates of cardinals and bishops when they died.There were special taxes for alienation from holy orders, for the creation of new orders and congregations; for personal honours and promotion, and for any other privilege.
Boniface's fiscal policies were typical of his country at the tithe. Italy was sunk in vice and violence. The common man cast about frantically to achieve his own destruction. There was little devotion in the Church. Money was the deity. The laity; had no faith, no piety, no modesty and no moral discipline. Men cursed their neighbours. Most people's hope had failed them because of the sins they saw in high places.
In the ninth year of Cossa's studies at Bologna, when he was twenty-two years old, something happened which changed our lives for ever
We had received as letter from Cossa's father with news of everyone – at Procida, which always elated Cossa (and me), so we had had a little party, drinking wine and reading the letter again and again, with Cossa remembering two stories for every name which his father mentioned in the letter. Therefore, I was sleeping well (however alertly) in the hall outside Cossa's door – my preferred place of rest – when Bernaba sent one of her girls, Enrichetta, a luscious thing with a body like a pasta statue, to tell me to come at once to Castelleto Street. Enrichetta and I went out into the black night, moving through alleys to avoid patrols, and, on the way – I will never forget it – we did it standing up in an arcade. I am still convinced that Emrichetta was in love with me during the time it took her to turn the trick.
Bernaba took me into her room and locked the door. She seemed awestruck a condition which I had thought to be unattainable by this dear woman. `Franco, listen to me,' she said, almost piteously eager to shift whatever, she knew to somebody else, `I have a papal agent drunk in there, Giovanni Brisoni, a papal pawnbroker. In wine, the truth – right? Well, he told me that a shipment of gold has left the Vatican. It will pass through Bologna in three days' time on the way to Venice.'
I didn't understand what she, was implying. I didn't make the connection.
`Franco! For Christ's' sake! A mule train carrying sacks of gold made to look as if they were sacks of grain. The soldiers are dressed like farmers. They are so sure the ruse will work that the escort is even smaller than it should be.'
`How much money?'
`Two hundred thousand gold florins. What do you think I wet my pants for?'
'Where does the pope get that kind of money?'
'You can have fifty guesses. Why are you still standing there? Run and tell Cossa!'
`He's asleep.'
`Are you an idiot? Have you forgotten Cossa's family profession?'
I made the connection. I am slow but I am thorough. I questioned her about the strength of the escort, the routing of, the shipment, the number of mules in the train, its route and departure time from Rome. Bernaba had all the answers. I left through a window into an alley and went back to Cossa's house by the shortest way. Cossa was quite interested when I awoke, him and gave him the information, – which was not startling considering the amount of money involved.
`Twelve men, is a lot of protection,' he, said – 'But I'll have surprise and night on my side.'
`Our side,' I told him.
`Round up ten of Palo's regime,' he said. `Tell them nothing except where they are to meet me.'
'Where?'
`One mile south on the road out of the west gate. One hour from now.'
`Only ten men?'
`With me it's eleven,' he said. `And I make it twelve.'
`You're not coming, Franco Ellera. And Palo isn't coming. Some of our lads won't survive tomorrow night. They will take the gold to a hiding place but after that I'm going to have to kill them all because there will be a gigantic reward out from the pope. So you stay out of it.'
‘You mean you would have to kill me?'
For argument's sake, isn't it logical? Listen to me, the pope will go half crazy with rage about this. He may order the torture of everyone in the papal states to find out who stole his gold: Who can hold out against an expert?'
'Cossa, you don't need that money.'
'Two hundred thousand gold florins?'
'You'll have to wait until he is dead before you can bank it or spend it. They will keep looking, for that money as long as Boniface lives.'
`Franco Ellara – I am surprised at you,' he said to me tenderly. 'Where would my family be if they had taken this attitude? Of course, money is important for its own sake, but what puts one set of people above all the others is in their boldness in taking the money. As you point out, we have two going businesses here but we have them only because of our bold approach. You want me to be a bishop, right? Do you think we have enough money to give to Boniface to make me a bishop? Not yet, we haven't. So I've got to think like a bishop. I've got to grasp my chances with courage and… really, Franco Ellera, even a philosophy student would reckon two hundred thousand gold florins worth a big risk.'