REBUILDING OF ROME BY NICHOLAS V, THE "BUILDER-POPE"

A.D. 1447-1455

MRS. MARGARET OLIPHANT


Of those pontiffs who are called the pride of modern Rome--through whom
the city "rose most gloriously from her ashes"--Nicholas V (Tommaso
Parentucelli) was the first. He was born at Sarzana, in the republic of
Genoa, about 1398, was ordained priest at the age of twenty-five, became
Archbishop of Bologna, and in 1447 was elevated to the papal chair. His
election was largely due to the influential part he had taken at the
councils of Basel, 1431-1449, and Ferrara-Florence, 1438-1445. In 1449,
by prevailing upon the Antipope, Felix V, to abdicate, he restored the
peace of the Church. He endeavored, but in vain, to arouse Europe to its
duty of succoring the Greek empire.

Although the coming Reformation was already casting its shadow before,
Nicholas stood calm in face of the inevitable event, devoting himself to
the spiritual welfare of the Church and to the interests of learning and
the arts. But he is chiefly remembered as the first pope to conceive a
systematic plan for the reconstruction and permanent restoration of Rome.
He died before that purpose could be executed in accordance with his
great designs; but others, entering into his labors, carried his work to
a fuller accomplishment.

It was to the centre of ecclesiastical Rome, the shrine of the apostles,
the chief church of Christendom and its adjacent buildings, that the care