1492 conclave

A papal conclave was held from 6 to 11 August 1492 to elect a new pope to succeed Innocent VIII, who had died on 25 July 1492. Of the 27 eligible cardinal electors, all but four attended. On the fourth ballot, the conclave elected Cardinal Rodrigo Borja, the vice chancellor of the Roman Catholic Church. After accepting his election, he took the name Pope Alexander VI.
The event was the first papal conclave to be held in the Sistine Chapel. Cardinal Rodrigo Borja was elected unanimously on the fourth ballot. The election is notorious for allegations that Borja bought the votes of his electors, promising them lucrative appointments and other material gifts. Concerns about this conclave were among the reasons that Pope Julius II—who was at the time of the election one of the foremost candidates and participants, as Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere—enacted stronger rules against simony in 1503, shortly after Alexander VI's death in the same year. In the 1492 conclave, Charles VIII of France reportedly bankrolled 200,000 ducats for the election of Giuliano della Rovere.

Cardinal electors

Of the 23 cardinals participating in the conclave, fourteen had been elevated by Pope Sixtus IV. The cardinals of Sixtus IV, known as the "Sistine Cardinals" and led by Giuliano della Rovere, had controlled the conclave of 1484, electing one of their own, Giambattista Cibo as Pope Innocent VIII. Since 1431 the composition of the College of Cardinals had been radically transformed, increasing the number of cardinal-nephews, crown-cardinals, and representatives of powerful Roman noble families. With the exception of three curial officials and one pastor, the cardinals were "secularly-minded princes largely unconcerned with the spiritual life of either the Latin church or its members."
At the time of Innocent VIII's death, the names of Cardinals Gherardo and Sanseverino, had not been published, thus making them ineligible to participate in the conclave; however, both were published as an act of the College in sede vacante, Gherardo having been pushed by Giovanni Battista Orsini and Sanseverino by Ascanio Sforza. Gherardo was assigned the title of Santi Nereo e Achilleo, which it was believed Innocent VIII had intended for him; Sanseverino was given the poor and undesirable diaconate of San Teodoro to ensure that the future pontiff would confirm his assignment.
According to the account of bishop ambassador Giovanni Andrea Boccaccio, at least seven cardinals considered themselves papabile, having dismantled the furnishings of their palaces as a precaution against the traditional pillaging of the pope-elect's residence by the Roman populace: da Costa, di Campofregoso, Michiel, Piccolomini, Domenico della Rovere, Savelli, and Zeno.

Elector	Nationality	Order and title	Elevated	Elevator	Notes
Rodrigo Borja	Kingdom of Valencia	Cardinal-Bishop of Porto e Santa Rufina	20 February 1456 created in pectore; published 17 September 1456	Callixtus III	Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church, Administrator of Valencia elected Pope Alexander VI Cardinal-nephew, House of Borgia
Oliviero Carafa	Neapolitan	Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina	18 September 1467	Paul II	Vice Dean of the College of Cardinals Crown cardinal of Ferdinand I of Naples
Giuliano della Rovere	Savona	Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and Velletri	16 December 1471 created in pectore; published 22 December 1471	Sixtus IV	Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal-nephew, bishop of Bologna, administrator of Avignon Future Pope Julius II
Giovanni Battista Zeno	Venetian	Cardinal-Bishop of Frascati	21 November 1468	Paul II	Cardinal-nephew
Giovanni Michiel	Venetian	Cardinal-Bishop of Palestrina	21 November 1468	Paul II	Cardinal-nephew
Jorge da Costa	Portuguese	Cardinal-Bishop of Albano	16 December 1476	Sixtus IV	Archbishop of Lisbon; Crown cardinal of Afonso V of Portugal
Girolamo Basso della Rovere	Savona	Cardinal-Priest of S. Crisogono	10 December 1477 created in pectore; published 12 December 1477	Sixtus IV	Cardinal-nephew; bishop of Recanati e Macerata
Domenico della Rovere	Piedmont	Cardinal-Priest of S. Clemente	10 February 1478	Sixtus IV	Cardinal-nephew; archbishop of Turin
Paolo di Campofregoso	Genoese	Cardinal-Priest of S. Sisto	15 May 1480	Sixtus IV	Former ruler of Genoa; archbishop of Genoa
Giovanni Conti	Roman	Cardinal-Priest of S. Vitale	15 November 1483	Sixtus IV
Giovanni Giacomo Sclafenati	Milanese	Cardinal-Priest of S. Cecilia	15 November 1483	Sixtus IV	Bishop of Parma
Lorenzo Cibò di Mari	Genoese	Cardinal-Priest of S. Marco	9 March 1489	Innocent VIII	Cardinal-nephew; archbishop of Benevento
Ardicino della Porta	Milanese	Cardinal-Priest of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo	9 March 1489	Innocent VIII	Bishop of Aleria
Antoniotto Pallavicini	Genoese	Cardinal-Priest of S. Prassede	9 March 1489	Innocent VIII	Bishop of Orense
Maffeo Gherardo, O.S.B.Cam.	Venetian	Cardinal-Priest of Ss. Nereo e Achilleo	9 March 1489	Innocent VIII	Not published before death of Innocent VIII; patriarch of Venice
Francesco Piccolomini	Sienese	Cardinal-Deacon of S. Eustachio	5 March 1460	Pius II	Protodeacon, bishop of Siena, future Pope Pius III, Cardinal-nephew
Raffaele Riario	Savona	Cardinal-Deacon of S. Lorenzo in Damaso	12 December 1477	Sixtus IV	Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, Cardinal-nephew
Giovanni Battista Savelli	Roman	Cardinal-Deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano	15 May 1480	Sixtus IV	Former Governor of Bologna
Giovanni Colonna	Roman	Cardinal-Deacon of S. Maria in Aquiro	15 May 1480	Sixtus IV
Giambattista Orsini	Roman	Cardinal-Deacon of S. Maria Nuova	15 November 1483	Sixtus IV
Ascanio Sforza	Milanese	Cardinal-Deacon of Ss. Vito e Modesto	6 March 1484 created in pectore; published 17 March 1484	Sixtus IV	House of Sforza, ruling family member of Milan
Giovanni de' Medici	Florentine	Cardinal-Deacon of S. Maria in Domnica	9 March 1489	Innocent VIII	Future Pope Leo X, member of the ruling family of Florence
Federico Sanseverino	Neapolitan	Cardinal-Deacon of S. Teodoro	9 March 1489	Innocent VIII	Not published before death of Innocent VIII

Absent cardinals

There is no evidence that the 4 absent cardinals made an attempt to reach Rome for the conclave.

Elector	Nationality	Order and title	Elevated	Elevator	Notes
Luis Juan del Mila y Borja	Catalan	Cardinal-Priest of Ss. IV Coronati	20 February 1456 created in pectore; published 17 September 1456	Callixtus III	Archpriest of the Sacred College; bishop of Lérida; de facto retired Cardinal-nephew
Pedro González de Mendoza	Castilian	Cardinal-Priest of S. Croce in Gerusalemme	7 May 1473	Sixtus IV	Archbishop of Toledo; Had not left Iberian Peninsula since elevation Crown cardinal of the Catholic Monarchs
André d'Espinay	French	Cardinal-Priest of Ss. Silvestro e Martino ai Monti	9 March 1489	Innocent VIII	Archbishop of Bordeaux, and Lyon; Crown cardinal of Charles VIII of France
Pierre d'Aubusson	French	Cardinal-Deacon of S. Adriano	9 March 1489	Innocent VIII	Grand Master of Knights Hospitaller Busy defending Rhodes from the Turks

Procedures

As dictated by the prescriptions Ubi periculum and Ne Romani, the conclave should have begun on 4 August, ten days after the death of Innocent VIII; however, the conclave was delayed to await the slow arrival of the aged Gherardo, bearing a letter from Venice's Council of Ten urging his acceptance into the College. The cardinals had decided as early as their first meeting on 24 July to use the Sistine Chapel for the balloting and assembly of the conclave.
Johann Burchard, the German papal master of ceremonies, who presided over the conclave, as well as the previous one in 1484, kept an extensive diary, noting that each cardinal was provided:
The Mass of the Holy Spirit and then a speech by Bernardino Lopez de Carvajal, a Spaniard and the ambassador to Ferdinand and Isabella, on the "evils afflicting the Church" preceded the beginning of the conclave on 6 August 1492. Another Spaniard, Gonzalo Fernandez de Heredia, archbishop of Tarragona, was appointed prefect of the Vatican. Two important offices during sede vacante were filled with compatriots of Cardinal Borja, and it is believed that they both were chosen by Borja in his capacity as Dean to strengthen his position before the conclave.
The remainder of 6 August was consumed by the drafting and subscription to the conclave capitulation, which—although not extant—is known to have restricted the number of new cardinals which could be created by the new pope.