Innocent VII, Pope

INNOCENT VII, Pope. - Cosimo Gentile de' Migliorati, b. at Sulmona around 1336, d. at Rome on 6 Nov. 1406. He entered the Curia, where he became a cleric of the Sacred College, papal chaplain, and apostolic collector in England. Archbishop of Ravenna on 4 Nov. 1387, he was transferred on 18 June 1389 to Bologna and was created cardinal of S. Croce on 18 Dec. 1389 by Boniface IX. 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 Oct. 1404 he was created pope by the 8 cardinals of Boniface IX's obedience present in Rome, binding himself to renounce the office should Benedict XIII, his adversary at Avignon, do likewise; he refused, however, to meet with him.

In his government he had to endure the overbearing conduct of Ladislaus of Durazzo, king of Naples, and the violence of the commune of Rome. His nephew Ludovico Migliorati, a ferocious condottiere, wished to avenge this, and when the parliamentarians of the people, leaving the Vatican where they had dealt harshly with I., passed near S. Spirito, he seized them and killed eleven of them (16 Aug. 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 chief culprits, but not his nephew.

I. has the merit of having provided for the University of Rome by establishing there new chairs for the teaching of Greek, medicine, rhetoric and philosophy.