MARTINO IV, POPE. — Simone de Bric (or de Brion), of French origin, died at Perugia on 28 March 1285. He studied at the University of Paris; subsequently he was canon and treasurer of the diocese of Tours, chancellor of France (1260), and cardinal (1261) of the title of S. Cecilia; Urban IV entrusted him with important assignments, among which the legation in France was particularly significant, concluding with the appointment of Charles of Anjou as king of the Two Sicilies (1264).
He preached the crusade against the last Hohenstaufen and in favor of the Holy Land, successfully concerning himself with the reform of the Church of France. On 22 February 1281, after a six-month conclave at Viterbo, Simone was elected to succeed Nicholas III under the name of M. IV, through the influence of Charles of Anjou, and was consecrated at Orvieto on 23 March of the same year. Since his election was not welcomed by the Romans, M. IV was forced to spend almost his entire pontificate away from Rome, living successively at Orvieto, Montefiascone, Città della Pieve, and Perugia.
M. IV was very benevolent toward King Rudolf of Germany, who renounced every claim to Romagna, which the Pope took possession of with the help of the French. To please Charles of Anjou, to whom, despite the strong opposition of the Romans, he had conferred the dignity of senator of Rome, M. IV excommunicated the emperor Michael Palaeologus, who was acting with little sincerity in the matter of the union of the Greek Church with the Latin Church, and provided Charles with aid for the planned enterprise against the Byzantine Empire. But Charles was diverted from that enterprise by the uprising of Sicily, which placed itself under the Aragonese on the occasion of the Sicilian Vespers (March 1282). M. IV refused the homage of subjection offered to him by the Sicilians and excommunicated Peter III of Aragon, against whom he proclaimed a crusade; this failed miserably because of the valor of the Aragonese king, who defeated the fleet of Charles of Anjou and repelled the army of Philip III the Bold, who had invaded Aragon. With the Romans, who had rebelled against Charles of Anjou, the Pope was reconciled by appointing two other senators and distributing generous subsidies on the occasion of a severe famine.
Although irreproachable in his private life, M. IV, who was a man of great charity, is reproached for having excessively favored the French, often imprudently using ecclesiastical penalties for political reasons. Dante places M. IV among the gluttons (Purg., XXVI, 20-24); Villani (Cronica, VII, 58) calls him «magnanimous and great-hearted in the affairs of the Church».
BIBLI: Les Registres de M. IV, in Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome, Paris 1891 ff. (only up to 1284); Lib. Pont., II, pp. 459-65; Potthast, II, Berlin 1875, pp. 1756-95; E. Choulier, Recherches sur la vie de M. IV, in Revue de Champagne, 4 (1878), pp. 15-30; F. Gregorovius, Storia della città di Roma nel medio evo, IX, Rome 1942, pp. 251-264; J. Gay, Notes sur le second royaume français de Sicile et la papauté d'Urbain IV à Boniface VIII (1261-1302), in Mélanges Inges, Paris 1933, Francesco Pascolini