ONORIO IV, POPE. — Giacomo Savelli, cardinal
deacon of the title of S. Maria in Cosmedin, pope
from 1285 to 1287. He was elected unanimously, only four
days after the death of Martino IV, on 2 April 1285, or-
dained a priest on 19 May, and crowned the following
day. The nephew of Onorio III and brother of one of the
two Savelli senators, he enjoyed the friendship of the Romans and
resided peacefully in the Vatican, and thereafter on the Aven-
tine. His knowledge of Italian affairs
(Urbano IV had appointed him prefect in Tuscany
and captain of his army) enabled him to obtain
from Florence and Bologna the abolition of the laws against
the clergy; he lifted the interdict imposed by Martino IV
against Venice, which was hostile to Carlo I d'Angiò.
By temperament and also because of his precarious health
(he suffered from gout), he was a conciliatory type. If on the
one hand he annulled the renunciation of Sicily, signed by Carlo II
d'Angiò while in prison, as contrary to the rights of the Holy See,
and encouraged the war against the Aragonese; on the other hand
he gave the Sicilians a constitution milder than the Angevin
regime, and accepted the mediation of Edoardo I in favor
of Alfonso d'Aragona.
Reserved in his relations with the Empire,
he postponed indefinitely the coronation of Rodolfo d'Asburgo.
He confirmed the privileges of the Mendicant Orders,
despite the hostility of the secular clergy,
assembled in a national Council at Paris; the University
took no position. The Pope, grateful to his former
teachers, promoted the creation of chairs of Oriental
languages, to facilitate the union of the Eastern Churches and
the conversion of the infidels. Thus he continued the work of
Gregorio X, whom he had accompanied at the Council
of Lyon.