He was the first Pope publicly to acknowledge his seven children, and to call them sons and daughters.[1] Avarice, venality, sloth, and the ascendency of base favorites made his reign loathsome without the blaze and splendor of the scandals of his fiery predecessor.

In corruption he advanced a step even beyond Sixtus, by establishing a Bank at Rome for the sale of pardons.[2] Each sin had its price, which might be paid at the convenience of the criminal: 150 ducats of the tax were poured into the Papal coffers; the surplus fell to Franceschetto, the Pope's son.

This insignificant princeling, for whom the county of Anguillara was purchased, showed no ability or ambition for aught but getting and spending money.

He was small of stature and tame-spirited: yet the destinies of an important house of Europe depended on him; for his father married him to Maddalena, the daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, in 1487.

This led to Giovanni de' Medici receiving a Cardinal's hat at the age of thirteen, and thus the Medicean interest in Rome was founded; in the course of a few years the Medici gave two Popes to the Holy See, and by their ecclesiastical influence riveted the chains of Florence fast.[3] The traffic which Innocent and Franceschetto carried on in theft and murder filled the Campagna with brigands and assassins.[4] Travelers and pilgrims and ambassadors were stripped and murdered on their way to Rome; and in the city itself more than two hundred people were publicly assassinated with impunity during the last months of the Pope's life.