NICHOLAS IV. (Girolamo de Ascoli), pope from February 22, 1288, to April 4, 1292, was born at Ascoli, of humble parentage. At an early age he entered the Franciscan order, of which he rose to be general in 1274, after the death of Bonaventura. It was in this capacity that in 1278 he condemned Roger Bacon to imprisonment on account of his writings. He subsequently became bishop of Praeneste; and he was created cardinal by Nicholas III. Repeated meetings of the conclave upon the death of Honorius IV. resulted, ten months after the vacancy had occurred, in the election of Ascoli, whose first and almost only historical act was to annul the solemn treaty by which Charles the Lame (of Anjou) had obtained from Alphonso III. of Aragon his release from prison,— “the most monstrous exercise of the absolving power which had ever been advanced in the face of Christendom” (Milman). The revival of the old and expiring enthusiasm of the crusading epoch was a cause he had much at heart; and it was partly at least with the object of stirring up the Mongols against the hated Saracens that he gave John of Monte Corvino and other members of his order their missions to China. The fall of Ptolemais, the last remnant of the Christian dominion in Palestine (1291), greatly affected him, and combined with other disappointments to hasten his death. Celestine V. succeeded.