PIUS. 
himfelf to (how contrition for his pad conduit, and 
foiicit with all humility the forgivenefs and favour of his 
holinefs. Eugenius met his willies, but did not live long 
enough to bellow any fubftantial mark of his regard on 
our imperial trimming envoy. By his fucceffor, how¬ 
ever, pope’Nicholas V. ./Eneas was preferred to the vacant 
fee of Triede, in Iftria j and, upon his return to 
Germany with the epifcopal character, was made one of 
the council to whom w'as entruded the management of 
the mod important concerns of the empire. Four 
years afterwards he was tranflated to the vacant lee of 
Sienna. In the year 1451, he accompanied Frederic to 
Rome, when he went thither to be crowned by the pope ; 
and, when he returned to Germany, our prelate was 
inveded with the legantine power over Bohemia, and 
the whole of the Audrian dominions. About the year 
1456, being fent by the emperor into Italy, in order to 
confult with pope Callixtus III. and other princes, on 
the fubjeft of oppofing an effeflual barrier to the 
conqueds of the Turks, his holinefs promoted him to 
the dignity of cardinal. One dep only was now wanting 
to raife him to the highed dation at which his ambition 
aimed 5 and no long time intervened before his wifnes 
were gratified : for, upon the death of Callixtus in 
1458, the fuffrages of the conclave were unanimous in 
favour of Cardinal Piccolomini, who, at his coronation, 
affumed the name of Pius II. 
On the exaltation of Pius to the pontifical throne, 
very high expeflations were entertained of the benefits 
which would refult to the church, founded on the zeal 
which he had formerly diown in fetting forth the cor¬ 
ruptions that had been introduced into it. He, 
however, foon convinced his friends, and the friends to a 
better order of things, what they had to hope for 
now he was elevated to the highed dation in the world. 
His ambition was gratified ; and what formerly had been 
deemed corrupt principles and pra&ice, he found means 
tojullify, or at lead overlook. (See the article Pitt, 
p. 551.) One of the fird meafures of his government was 
an attempt to unite the Chridian princes againd the 
Turks: for this purpofe he appointed a council to meet 
at Mantua, in 1459, at which he invited all thofe princes 
to attend, either in perfon or by their ambaffadors, for 
the purpofe of deliberating on the mod effe< 5 lual methods 
of delivering Chridendom from the bondage with which 
they were threatened by thofe formidable enemies. At 
this council, Pius himfelf prefided, and the attendance 
of princes or their reprefentatives was very numerous ; 
but their various and oppofing intereds rendered all the 
endeavours of the pope to unite them quite ineffeftual, 
and the council broke up without concurring in any re- 
folution to oppofe the progrefs of the common enemy. 
He next declared the kingdom of Naples devolved as a 
fief of the church to the apodolic fee, and confirmed the 
bull cf king Ferdinand’s legitimation, upon his re- 
doring to the church fome places that had been captured 
by his father. He alfo granted Ferdinand the invediture, 
and lent a cardinal to perform the ceremony of his 
coronation. The king, on his part, engaged to aflid the 
pope againd his enemies with the whole iirength of his 
kingdom. To fecure the throne of Naples to Ferdinand, 
Pius ordered all the clergy and barons, under pain of 
excommunication, to acknowledge him, and no other, 
for their lawful fovereign ; and fent a body of troops to 
his nffidance when John of Anjou invaded the kingdom. 
In 1460 Pius gave a mod decided proof of his bad faith,by 
publifliing a bull, condemning the'doflrine, which he had 
formerly defended, of the fuperiority of a general council 
to the pope, and forbidding all appeals to fuch a council 
under the fevered penalties. He alfo attempted to 
obtain from Charles VII. king of France, the revocation 
of the Pragmatic SanBion, (fee that article,) which he 
pronounced to be an edi< 5 l highly derogatory to the 
honour and dignity of the holy lee. This edift had been 
dfawn up by Charles, or at lead by the prelates of his 
Vol. XX. No. 1391. r 
561 
kingdom; and it avas thought neceffary, in order to 
deliver the French clergy from the vexations which they 
differed from the encroachments of the popes, ever fince 
the latter had fixed their refidence at Avignon. It had 
been drawn up in concert with the fathers of the council 
at Bafil, and the articles of which it confided were taken 
from the decrees of that council. In anfwer to Pius’s 
requed, the French king replied, that the edi< 5 t confided 
of the very decrees of the council of Bafil which Pius 
himfelf had approved, had penned, and probably had 
fuggelled, when fecretary to that affembly, and which 
had been received with one confent, and obferved for the 
fpace of twenty-five years by the whole French nation. 
Upon the death of Charles, the pontiff renewed his ap¬ 
plication to his fucceffor Louis XI. who confented to 
aboiifii the edi£t by a folemn declaration, for which he 
and his fucceffors w’ere rewarded by the title of “ Mod 
Chridian,” a title which defcended uninterruptedly to 
Louis XVI. and w'as only fufpended with the fufpenfion 
of the monarchy. Though the king thus degraded him¬ 
felf by becoming a tool to the pope’s ambition, his 
council better confulted the dignity of their fovereign, 
and their own reputation, by refiding, to a man, the 
pope’s demand; and the full execution of Louis’s de¬ 
claration was prevented by the noble Hand made by the 
univerfity of Paris, and the parliament, in favour of the 
Pragmatic Sanction. 
During the years 1462-3, Pius again, but unfucceff- 
fully, employed all his talents and eloquence in endea¬ 
vouring to unite the Chridian princes againd the Turks, 
who had, at that time, made themfelves maders of almod 
all Greece. Finding his efforts of no avail, he equipped 
a fleet at Ancona, avowing his determination, notwith- 
ftanding his age and bodily infirmities, to face the incon¬ 
veniences and dangers of war, imagining that, with fuch 
an example, the Chridian princes would be alhamed of 
remaining quiet and ina£tive at home. While, however, 
he was thus bufily employed, he fell lick, and was ad- 
vifed by his phyficians to pay a vifit to Sienna, for the 
benefit of his native air. Before he .left Rome, he ex¬ 
hibited to the world what Molheim, in terms not too 
fevere, calls a mod egregious indance of impudence and 
perfidy, by publilhing a folemn retradlation of all that he 
had written in favour of the Council of Bafil ; and de- 
-claring, without either fhame or hefitation, that, “as 
Aineas Sylvius, he was a damnable heretic; but, as Pius 
II. he was an orthodox pontiff.” After a fhort day at 
Sienna, he returned to Rome; and, being there informed 
that the Turks were upon the point of laying fiege to 
Ragufa, in Dalmatia, he fet out without delay for 
Ancona, though fo much indifpofed as to be obliged to 
travel in a litter. By the fatigue of this journey his 
drength was exhauded; and a continual fever, with 
which he had been long affii£led, was increafed to fuch a 
height, that it carried him off in the fummer of 1464, 
when he was about fifty-nine years of age. Had he lived 
a few days longer, he would have completed the fixth 
year of his pontificate. Platina has honoured his memory 
with a long panegyric, in which he reprefents him as 
endowed, to the highed degree, with every virtue that 
became his exalted date ; but the conduft of the pope 
certainly militated againd the excellent qualities which 
he had difplayed previoully to his advancement to that 
high dignity. No man ever laboured harder, and 
perhaps few more fuccefsfully, than AJneas Sylvius, to 
redrain the power of the pope within the boundaries ad¬ 
mitted by the canons; and no pope ever drove more than 
Pius II. to extend that power beyond all the bounds of 
reafon and law. To effect his purpofes, he fpareri 
neither kings, dukes, nor people, when he affumed that 
they invaded the rights of the church, or entrenched 
upon the emoluments of the clergy. When young he 
indulged his paflion for the fex without redraint, and in 
his more mature years he feems to have thought tranf- 
greflions againd the rules of chadity to be very venial 
7 D fins, 
