Angelo was held by a lieutenant of the Pope^s nephew,
who was the governor of it, and this nephew was at a
distance from Eome, and that they were not certain
what his intentions might be, the Conclave could not
be held with due independence and liberty in the
immediate vicinity of the fortress. But those who had
these scruples, having been assured of the perfect loyalty
of the intentions of the governor, and another nephew
of the Pope, a brother of the governor, and a cardinal,
imdertaking to answer for him, the Conclave was held
at the Vatican, and the idea of holding it in the convent
of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which had been pro-
posed, was abandoned.
The Conclave was a very short and uneventful one,
the Venetian Pietro Barbo, a nephew of Eugenius IV.,
and great nephew of Gregory XII., by his mother
Polissena Condulmieri, having been elected, as Paul II.,
almost without opposition, by accession^ after the first
scrutiny. One amusing incident followed, however,
after the election, but before the Conclave broke up.
Barbo, when asked, according to custom, by what name
he would become Pope, said that he would be called
Formoso — a not unprecedented name, though the one
precedent had to be sought as far back as the ninth
century. Now it so happened that Pietro Barbo was a
very remarkably handsome man,* and their Eminences,



* A contemporary chronicler says of T^itti that, ** not haying succeeded
ifoll in literary culture, he determined to make his pontificate reputable
by ornamental pomp, in which his majestic presence and pre-eminently



f



156 THE PAPAL CONCLAVES.
