Pope Martin V (Colonna) died of an apoplectic stroke on 20 February 1431. The
conclave to elect his successor was held at the church and convent of
Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and began on 1 March 1431. Fourteen cardinals, led by
Giordano Orsini, Bishop of Albano, participated. Condulmer was unanimously elected on 3 March, and was crowned as Eugenius IV on 11 March 1431, on the steps of
St. Peter's Basilica by Cardinal Alfonso Carrillo de Albornoz. By a written agreement made before his election, and ratified on 12 March 1431 as pope, Eugene pledged to distribute to the cardinals one-half of all the revenues of the Church and promised to consult with them on all questions of importance, both spiritual and temporal. Pope Eugene made his first appointments of cardinals on 19 September 1431. They were his nephew, the Venetian
Francesco Condulmer, who was granted the
titular church of
San Clemente; and the Roman Angelotto Fusco, the bishop of Cava and longtime friend of Eugene, who was granted the title of
San Marco. He was described as tall, thin, with a winning countenance, although many of his troubles were owing to his own want of tact, which tended to alienate others. Upon assuming the papal chair, Eugene IV took violent measures against the numerous
Colonna relatives of his predecessor Martin V (who had rewarded them with castles and lands). This at once involved him in a serious contest with the powerful house of Colonna that nominally supported the local rights of
Rome against the interests of the Papacy. On 23 July 1431, his legate
Giuliano Cesarini opened the council, which had been convoked by Martin V. Canon Beaupère of Besançon, Distrustful of its purposes and emboldened by the small attendance, the Pope issued a bull on 18 December 1431 that dissolved the council and called a new one to meet in eighteen months at
Bologna. He gave as his reason that it would be easier for the delegates from the eastern churches to assemble there with the European prelates. The council resisted this expression of papal prerogative. Eugene IV's action gave some weight to the contention that the
Curia was opposed to any authentic measures of reform. The council refused to dissolve; instead they renewed the resolutions by which the
Council of Constance had declared a council superior to the Pope and ordered Eugene IV to appear at Basel. A compromise was arranged by the
Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, who had been crowned emperor at Rome on 31 May 1433. The first version of Eugene's recognition of the legitimacy of the council was signed on 1 August 1433, and subscribed by three cardinals. By its terms, the Pope recalled his
bull of dissolution, and, reserving all the rights of the
Holy See, acknowledged the council as
ecumenical. In the amended version, signed on 15 December 1433, he withheld his approval of the initial decrees of the Council which had contained
canons exalting conciliar authority above that of the pope. On 4 June 1434, disguised in the robes of a
Benedictine monk, Eugene was rowed down the center of the
Tiber, pelted by stones from either bank, to a
Florentine vessel waiting to receive him at
Ostia.
Ferdinand Gregorovius remarks that Eugene IV, "having lost the authority of the State by his own ineptitude, resolved[,] like so many of his predecessors, on flight." On 12 June, his ship reached Pisa, and in October he reached Florence. The city of Rome was restored to obedience by
Giovanni Vitelleschi, the militant
Bishop of Recanati, in October 1434. In August 1435 a peace treaty was signed at Ferrara by the various belligerents. Pope Eugenius made Vitelleschi archbishop of Florence on 12 October 1435. Vitelleschi held the post until Eugenius made him a cardinal on 9 August 1437. The people of Rome sent a delegation to Florence in January 1436, begging the pope and the curia to return to Rome, and promising obedience and quiet. The Pope, however, rejected their overture. On 25 March 1436, Pope Eugenius consecrated the
cathedral of Florence, and then, in April 1436, moved to Bologna, which had recently been conquered for the papacy. His condottieri
Francesco I Sforza and Vitelleschi in the meantime reconquered much of the Papal States with extreme violence and destructive force. Traditional Papal enemies such as the
Prefetti di Vico were destroyed, while the Colonna were reduced to obedience after the destruction of their stronghold in
Palestrina in 1437. The massive fortress was preserved, however, until Lorenzo Colonna attempted to return in 1438, when it too was destroyed on orders from Vitelleschi.
Poggio Bracciolini, the Tuscan humanist, wrote: "Seldom has the rule of any other pope produced equal devastation in the provinces of the Roman Church. The country scourged by war, the depopulated and ruined towns, the devastated fields, the roads infested by robbers, more than fifty places partly destroyed, partly sacked by soldiery, have suffered from every species of revenge."
Recovery of power and of Rome Meanwhile, the struggle with the council sitting at Basel broke out anew. Eugene IV convened a rival council at
Ferrara on 8 January 1438, through his legate Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, Bishop of Bologna, with forty prelates in attendance. The pope also
excommunicated the
prelates assembled at Basel. On 15 February 1438, he issued the bull "Cum In Sacro", declaring the council at Ferrara an ecumenical council, and commanding the prelates at Basel to appear at Ferrara within a month. King
Charles VII of France had forbidden members of the clergy in his kingdom from attending the council in Ferrara, and introduced the decrees of the Council of Basel, with slight changes, into France through the
Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (7 July 1438). The King of England and the Duke of Burgundy, who felt that the council was partial to France, decided not to recognize the council at Basel. Castile, Aragon, Milan, and Bavaria withdrew support. The Council of Basel, in its Session XXXI, suspended Pope Eugene on 24 January 1438. There were 16 bishops present at this session. Of the 16, nine were Savoyards, six Aragonese, and one Frenchman. Several secular powers, seeing the advantage to their own interests in having a weak pope and an unsteady council at odds with each other, wrote to the council, advising them to go no further in their efforts to depose Eugene. Mandell Creighton remarks, "The quarrel of the Pope and the Council now ceased to attract the attention of Europe; it had degenerated into a squabble in which both parties were regarded with something approaching contempt." The conclave began on 30 October 1439. On 5 November, the council elected the ambitious Duke
Amadeus VIII of Savoy, The council of Ferrara was transferred to Florence on 10 January 1439, as a result of an outbreak of the plague. A union with the
Eastern Orthodox Church was effected on 6 July 1439, with the bull "Laetentur caeli", which, as the result of political necessities, proved but a temporary bolster to the papacy's prestige. and with a part of the
Jacobites of Syria in 1443, and in 1445 he received some of the
Nestorians and the
Maronites. Pope Eugene decreed on 26 April 1441 that his Council was to be transferred from Florence to Rome. His protests against the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges were ineffectual, but by means of the
Concordat of the Princes, negotiated by
Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, the secretary of Frederick III, with the electors in February 1447, the whole of
Germany declared against the antipope. Acting on a complaint by Fernando Calvetos, bishop of the islands, Pope Eugene IV issued a papal bull, "
Creator Omnium", on 17 December 1434, annulling previous permission granted to Portugal to conquer those islands rescinding any right to Christianize the natives of the island. Eugene excommunicated anyone who enslaved newly converted Christians, the penalty to stand until the captives were restored to their liberty and possessions. In 1434, Eugene issued the bull
Regimini Gregis Dominici, forbidding the enslavement of Christian Canarians, and followed this with an order to suspend further conquest in order to allow the Franciscans to continue their work peacefully. Portuguese soldiers continued to raid the islands in 1435, and Eugene issued a further edict "
Sicut Dudum" that prohibited wars being waged against the islands and affirming the ban on enslavement. Eugene condemned the enslavement of the peoples of the newly colonized Canary Islands and, under pain of excommunication, ordered all such slaves to be immediately set free. Eugene went on to say that, "If this is not done when the fifteen days have passed, they incur the sentence of excommunication by the act itself, from which they cannot be absolved, except at the point of death, even by the Holy See, or by any Spanish bishop, or by the aforementioned Ferdinand, unless they have first given freedom to these captive persons and restored their goods." Eugene tempered "Sicut Dudum" in September 1436 with the issuance of a papal bull in response to complaints made by King
Edward of Portugal that allowed the Portuguese to conquer any unconverted parts of the Canary Islands. According to Raiswell (1997), any Christian would be protected by the earlier edict, but the un-baptized were implicitly allowed to be enslaved. Following the arrival of the first African captives in
Lisbon in 1441,
Prince Henry asked Eugene to designate Portugal's raids along the West African coast as a crusade, a consequence of which would be the legitimization of enslavement for captives taken during the crusade. On 19 December 1442, Eugene replied by issuing the bull
Illius qui se pro divini, in which he granted full remission of sins to members of the Order of Christ and those enrolled under their banner who took part in any expeditions against the Saracens and enemies of Christianity. In 1443, in the bull "Rex regum", the Pope took a neutral position on territorial disputes between Portugal and Castile regarding rights claimed in Africa. Richard Raiswell interprets the bulls of Eugene as helping in some way the development of thought which perceived the enslavement of Africans by the Portuguese and later Europeans "as dealing a blow for Christendom". Joel S Panzer views
Sicut Dudum as a significant condemnation of slavery, issued sixty years before the Europeans found the New World.
Jews Eugene initially favored the Jews, issuing decrees protecting their rights, opposing forced baptisms, and permitting wider economic activities. However, political considerations, particularly pressure from the
Council of Basel and his desire to secure Spanish loyalty, led him to issue the hostile bull
Dudum ad nostram in 1442, which severely restricted Jewish life. Ultimately, this bull was not enforced during his lifetime, and shortly before his death, Eugene IV reaffirmed his opposition to forced conversions in Spain, suggesting a return to his earlier, more tolerant stance. ==Death and legacy==