But Rome
not only displayed at times a specific anti-papal radicalism, but in
the most serious plots which were then contrived, gave proof of the
working of unseen hands from without. It was so in the case of the
conspiracy of Stefano Porcari against Nicholas V (1453), the very Pope
who had done most for the prosperity of the city. Porcari aimed at the
complete overthrow of the papal authority, and had distinguished
accomplices, who, though their names are not handed down to us, are
certainly to be looked for among the Italian governments of the time.
Under the pontificate of the same man, Lorenzo Valla concluded his
famous declamation against the gift of Constantine with the wish for
the speedy secularization of the States of the Church.
The Catilinarian gang with which Pius II had to (1460) avowed with
equal frankness their resolution to overthrow the government of the
priests, and its leader, Tiburzio, threw the blame on the soothsayers,
who had fixed the accom- plishment of his wishes for this very year.
Several of the chief men of Rome, the Prince of Taranto, and the
Condottiere Jacopo Piccinino, were accomplices and supporters of
Tiburzio. Indeed, when we think of the booty which was accumulated in
the palaces of wealthy prelates--the conspirators had the Car- dinal of
Aquileia especially in view--we are surprised that, in an almost
unguarded city, such attempts were not more frequent and more
successful.
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