INNOCENZO VII, POPE. — Cosimo Gentile de' Migliorati, born at Sulmona around 1336, died in Rome on 6 November 1406. He entered the Curia, where he became a cleric of the Holy College, papal chaplain, and apostolic collector in England. Archbishop of Ravenna from 4 November 1387, he transferred to Bologna on 18 June 1389 and was created cardinal of S. Croce by Boniface IX on 18 December 1389. On 9 March 1390 he went as legate to Lombardy and Tuscany to make peace between Galeazzo Visconti and the communes of Florence and Bologna. On 17 October 1404 he was elected pope by the eight cardinals of Boniface IX’s obedience who were present in Rome, binding himself to resign if Benedict XIII, his Avignonese adversary, did the same; he nevertheless refused to meet him.
During his government he had to endure the overbearing power of Ladislao di Durazzo, king of Naples, and the violence of the Roman commune. His nephew Ludovico Migliorati, a ferocious condottiero, sought revenge for this; when the people’s representatives, leaving the Vatican where they had dealt harshly with I., passed near S. Spirito, he seized them and killed eleven of them (16 August 1405). When the people rose up, I. was forced to flee precipitously toward Viterbo, but he soon returned, recalled by the Romans (16 March 1406), whom he pardoned, punishing only the principal culprits, but not his nephew.
I. deserves credit for having provided for the University of Rome by establishing new chairs for the teaching of Greek, medicine, rhetoric, and philosophy.