¹²² Bellarmine, says John XII, was almost the most vicious of the popes. Fait feri omnium deterrimus. De Rom. pontif. 6. 2. e. 29.
¹²⁴ Liutprand. I. 6. c. ult.—Vita Joannis xii. vol. 3. Rer. ltd. 1. ii. pa. 328.
¹²⁵ See Pleffell. Abr. Chron. of the History of the Public Rights of Germany, ann. 964; Koch’s Sketch of the Revolutions of Europe. 3d period etc.
With the exception of these last words the act is delivered down to us in Grotius’s decree; yet some Italian authors consider it apocryphal, without, assigning any other reason for this opinion than the enormous extent¹²⁶ which this constitution seems to confer on the imperial power. We may, however, assert in this place, that though the authenticity of this text be not very rigororously insisted on, the testimony of contemporary historians¹²⁷ invariably proves, that Otho obliged Leo VIII. to subscribe an explicit recognition of the imperial rights.
¹²⁶ These decrees are inventions in which we find exorbitant concessions to the imperial power, as well in the spiritualities as temporalities of the Church of Rome. Cardinal Baronius in his Ecclesiastical Annals, 964, father Pagi in his Critique on Baronius, and others, have wisely rejected similar impostures. Muratori’s Annals of Italy, year 964. vol. 6. p. 410.
¹²⁷ Liutprand. 1. 6, c. 6.—See vol. Pannom. 1. 8. c. 136; Grationi Decretum dis. c. 73; De Marca Concord. 1. 8, c. 12; St Marc. Abd. Hist, of Italy, vol. 4. dog. 1167, 1185.
The recent revolt of John XII. sufficed to excite in the emperor an anxiety for this new guarantee: and Leo, his own creature, had no power of placing restrictions to it. The act was such as Otho willed it to be and this prince, a conqueror and a benefactor, would not rest satisfied with an ambiguous formula.
Leo VIII. and Benedict V. died in 965; the commissioners of Otho caused the election of John XIII. but the Romans revolted against this new pope, and banished him. Otho was obliged to return into Italy, and hasten to Rome to subdue the seditious and restore the pontiff. John could forgive none of his enemies: he signalized his return by atrocious vengeances, of which the emperor condescended to become the accomplice and the instrument. They have tarnished the glory of this prince, and justified the indifferent reception, at this period, of one of his ambassadors to the Greek emperor, Nicephoras Phocas.: