Pope Nicholas IV

Pope Nicholas IV (30 September 1227 – 4 April 1292), born Girolamo Masci, was Pope from 22 February 1288 until his death. Originally a Franciscan friar, he had been legate to the Greeks under Pope Gregory X in 1272, succeeded Bonaventure as Minister General of his religious order in 1274. He was made Cardinal Priest of Santa Prassede and Latin Patriarch of Constantinople in 1278 by Pope Nicholas III, Cardinal Bishop of Palestrina by Pope Martin IV. He succeeded Pope Honorius IV in February 1288 at the end of a papal election that took ten months to conclude.

Masci was born at Lisciano, near Ascoli Piceno. He was a pious, peace-loving friar with no ambition save for the Church, the crusades and the extirpation of heresy. He steered a middle course between the factions at Rome and sought a settlement of the Sicilian question. In May 1289 he crowned King Charles II of Naples and Sicily after the latter had expressly recognized papal suzerainty, and in February 1291 concluded a treaty with Kings Alfonso III of Aragon and Philip IV of France looking toward the expulsion of James II of Aragon from Sicily. The loss of Acre in 1291 stirred Nicholas IV to renewed enthusiasm for a crusade. He sent missionaries, among them the celebrated Franciscan John of Monte Corvino, to labour among the Bulgarians, Ethiopians, Mongols, Tatars and Chinese.

Nicholas IV issued an important constitution on 18 July 1289, which granted to the cardinals one-half of all income accruing to the Holy See and a share in the financial management, thereby paving the way for that independence of the College of Cardinals which, in the following century, was to be of detriment to the papacy.

Nicholas IV died in the palace which he had built beside the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.