page_title: Pope Eugene IV
section_title: Conciliar reform and papal misfortunes
hierarchical_section_title: Pope Eugene IV / Biography / Papacy / Conciliar reform and papal misfortunes
context_page_description: Pope Eugene IV, born Gabriele Condulmer, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 3 March 1431 to his death. Condulmer was a Venetian, and a nephew of Pope Gregory XII. In 1431, he was elected pope. His tenure was marked by conflict first with the Colonnas, relatives of his predecessor Martin V, and later with the Conciliar movement. In 1434, due to a complaint by Fernando Calvetos, bishop of the Canary islands, Eugene IV issued the bull "Creator Omnium", rescinding any recognition of Portugal's right to conquer those islands still pagan. He excommunicated anyone who enslaved newly converted Christians, the penalty to stand until the captives were restored to their liberty and possessions. In 1443 Eugene decided to take a neutral position on territorial disputes between Portugal and Castile regarding rights claimed along the coast of Africa.
context_section_description: By far the most important feature of Eugene IV's pontificate was the great struggle between the Pope and the Council of Basel (1431–39), the final embodiment of the Conciliar movement. On 23 July 1431, his legate Giuliano Cesarini opened the council, which had been convoked by Martin V. Canon Beaupère of Besançon, who had been sent from Basel to Rome, gave the pope an unfavourable and exaggerated account of the temper of the people of Basel and its environs. 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. 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. By its terms, the Pope recalled his bull of dissolution, and, reserving all the rights of the Holy See, acknowledged the council as ecumenical on 15 December 1433 except for the initial unapproved sessions that contained canons which exalted conciliar authority above that of the pope.
  These concessions also were due to the invasion of the Papal States by the former Papal condottiero Niccolò Fortebraccio and the troops of Filippo Maria Visconti led by Niccolò Piccinino in retaliation for Eugene's support of Florence and Venice against Milan (see also Wars in Lombardy). This situation led also to establishment of an insurrectionary republic at Rome controlled by the Colonna family. In early 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 pick him up at Ostia. The city was restored to obedience by Giovanni Vitelleschi, the militant Bishop of Recanati, in the following October. In August 1435 a peace treaty was signed at Ferrara by the various belligerents. The Pope moved to Bologna in April 1436. His condottieri Francesco I Sforza and Vitelleschi in the meantime reconquered much of the Papal States. 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 August 1436.
caption: Painting of Pope Eugene rowing down the Tiber escaping Rome
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