The Pope who sold the Vatican's annual revenue for a prisoner

Health · Published 18 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In 1489, Pope Innocent VIII struck a chilling bargain with the Ottoman Sultan. To keep a captive prince in a Vatican cell, the Pope accepted a sum of money equal to the entire annual revenue of the Holy See. It was a masterclass in high-stakes, morally ambiguous diplomacy.

Pope Innocent VIII, who reigned from 1484 to 1492, was a figure defined by complex political maneuvering and personal controversy. Though he was a tool of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, his papacy was marked by a series of unscrupulous financial and political decisions. He depleted the papal treasury through wars with Italian states, particularly Naples, and subsequently attempted to replenish funds by creating and selling new ecclesiastical posts. One of his most notable diplomatic maneuvers involved the captive Prince Jem, the brother of Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II. In 1489, the Sultan paid Innocent 120,000 crowns—an amount equivalent to the Vatican's total annual revenue—plus holy relics and an annual fee to keep Jem in custody. Innocent used the prince as a geopolitical pawn, threatening to release him whenever the Sultan threatened war against the Christian Balkans.

Jem remained in the Vatican until 1495, when Innocent's successor, Alexander VI, released him to the French army. Innocent's legacy is further complicated by his role in the persecution of witchcraft. In 1484, he issued the bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, which acknowledged the existence of witchcraft while condemning it. He subsequently dispatched inquisitors to Germany to conduct trials. His reign was also characterized by the suppression of intellectual movements, such as his 1486 persecution of the Renaissance Platonist Pico della Mirandola. Even the physical artifacts of his reign, such as the fragments of his Missal, reflect this era of transition and high-status artistry.

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