Talk:Pope Sixtus IV

Questionable dates
I removed this sentence: He supported the claim by Portugal to ownership of the newly discovered Americas by a bull in 1481.

Weren't the Americas discovered 11 years later? Or there's something I missed? I know only of a bull made by Pope Alexander IV in 1493/94.

---''The Papal Bull Aeterni regis was issued on June 21 1481 by Pope Sixtus IV, and confirmed the substance of the Treaty of Alcáçovas in confirming Castile in its possession of the Canary Islands and granting all further acquisitions made by Christian powers in Africa (and eastward to the Indies) to Portugal. Cvnunavik''

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Cvnunavik (talk • contribs) 17:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Another funny one: When the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, he welcomed them to Rome, for many were fleeing to their relatives in Constantinople.

If he died in 1484 how can he welcome people in 1492? Snowdog 23:41, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Article cleanup
I referred this article to cleanup:

His last memoirs were recently found in an excavation of his crypt shocking many as it revealed Sixtus IV to be, in fact, a Jew who hid his Hebrew ancestry his entire tenure as pope.

References do not support article; in particular, I cannot find any references for the claim that Pope Sixtus IV was either of Jewish ancestry or secretly a practicing Jew. Adambondy 10:16, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * We can thank anonymous abuser:68.80.172.175 for the joke. --09:48, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Citations missing
I've changed the citecheck flag to a citations missing template. It appears that the problem is a shortage of citations, not the appropriateness of the citations actually provided. Durova 01:53, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Sentence was too long and didn't make sense
Changed this sentence "With his election, and after some ineffective sorties against the Ottoman Turks in Smyrna, where fund-raising energy was more successful than half-hearted attempts to storm Smyrna and some attempts at unification with the Greek Church, he turned to temporal issues and dynastic considerations."

"...though he is said to have fathered his sister's son." This phrase has been suppressed. --Wetman 09:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Character
This sentence serves as the last under the subheading "Character":
 * However, such accusations by Protestant polemicists can be dismissed as attempts at anti-Catholic propaganda.

That is not necessarily true; even more so, though not necessarily, if the theological scholar and historian documented the sources from which he drew such a conclusion. This sentence is clearly either written by a Catholic, or someone with pro-Catholic sentiments: neither of which should infiltrate a supposed non-biased historical article.

It would appear that Bale is not the only one to draw the conclusions he did about Sixtus, so either let this pro-Catholic "propaganda" sentence be removed, or the author of it cite a legitimate source countering Bishop Bale's accusation.--Slim Jim (talk) 05:38, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I added this section so happy to respond to try and meet your concerns. I did look again at the sentence to see if it was being unfairly harsh but it does sound to me that while Bale may have stumbled upon something with Sixtus himself, he surely made up the bit about sodomy in the summer (to which the propaganda aspect is addressed). How do we know Bale had any evidence for this - he is the only source? And let's be honest he pretty much called all monks "sodomites" regardless of whether they were or they weren't so not that reliable. Contaldo80 (talk) 12:18, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Image of Tomb Added
This image is already in wikipedia, though another image is much clearer. However, that image has no attribution, so it's impossible to know if copyright issues are involved. --Janko (talk) 11:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Confusing sentence in #Consistories
The Pope created 34 cardinals in eight consistories held during his reign, among them three nephews, one grandnephew and one other relative, thus continuing the practice of nepotism that he and his successors would engage in during this period. The bolded part is hard to understand. "This period" is his term as Pope, so his successors wouldn't do anything "during this period". The part about "continuing the practice" — should that be "beginning"? There's nothing said about as pre-existing practice of nepotism that he was continuing. Maybe ...and one other relative, thus establishing a practice of nepotism that he and his successors would engage in.? There's no cite for the sentence so I can't go to the source to see what was said. Schazjmd  (talk)  20:46, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Sorted in LGBT cats
Pope Sixtus IV was a LGBT Roman Catholic pope. That should be sorted in category. --188.96.230.248 (talk) 20:58, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Category:LGBT Roman Catholic popes
 * Advocate.con: 21 Gay Popes, Cardinals, and Assorted Catholic Leaders, By Jacob Ogle

propose deletion for outdated sources
Melchior2006 (talk) 20:07, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Havelock Ellis (1906). Studies in the psychology of sex is simply too outdated to be of much use.
 * Sex Lives of the Popes. This book is described on Amazon as follows: "Sex Lives of the Popes is a humorous expose of papal promiscuity." Perhaps not suited to a general reference project like WP?
 * ""Sisto IV (1414–1484)", Palazzo-Medici Riccardi Archived 2014-08-10 at the Wayback Machine" is copied from here, p. 123.
 * If it is ok with you, I will delete or update these references.
 * since no one made any suggestions, I went ahead and deleted Havelock and the "humorous exposé". --Melchior2006 (talk) 12:32, 18 January 2023 (UTC)