Read "The Life of Cesare Borgia" by Rafael Sabatini online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The rule of Sixtus was as vigorous as it was scandalous. To say--as has been said--that with his succession to St. Peter's Chair came for the Church a still sadder time than that which had preceded it, is not altogether true. Politically, at least, Sixtus did much to strengthen the position of the Holy See and of the Pontificate. He was not long in giving the Roman factions a taste of his stern quality. If he employed unscrupulous means, he employed them against unscrupulous men--on the sound principle of similia similibus curantur--and to some extent they were justified by the ends in view.
He found the temporal throne of the Pontiffs tottering when he ascended it. Stefano Porcaro and his distinguished following already in 1453 had attempted the overthrow of the pontifical authority, inspired, no doubt, by the attacks that had been levelled against it by the erudite and daring Lorenzo Valla.