was aware that he was nearing his end, and his malady probably prompted the feverish impatience with which on 18 June 1464 he assumed the cross and departed for Ancona to conduct the crusade in person. Slavery Pius condemned slavery of newly baptized Christians as a "great crime" in an address of 1462 to the local ruler of the Canary Islands. Pius instructed bishops to impose penalties on transgressors. Pius did not condemn the concept of trading in slaves, only the enslavement of those who were recently baptised, who represented a very small minority of those captured and taken to Portugal. Pope Urban VIII, in his bull dated 22 April 1639, described these grave warnings of Pius (7 October 1462, Apud Raynaldum in Annalibus Ecclesiasticis ad ann n. 42) as relating to "neophytes". According to British diplomatic papers, the letter was addressed to Bishop Rubeira and confirms Urban's observation that the condemnation relates to new converts being enslaved. Illness and death In spite of suffering from a fever, Pope Pius II left Rome for Ancona in the hope of increasing the morale of the crusading army. However, the crusading army melted away at Ancona for want of transport, and when at last the Venetian fleet arrived, the dying Pope could only view it from a window. He died two days later, on 14 August 1464, and was succeeded by Pope Paul II. Pius II's body was interred at the Vatican, in Old St. Peter's Basilica, in the Chapel of S. Andrew. When his nephew, Pius III, died, his body was buried, at his own order in his Will, next to the body of Pius II in the Chapel of S. Andrew in S. Peter's. Demolition of Old St. Peter's began, on orders of Julius II, in 1506, and the tombs were moved to the crypt (grottoes) of S. Peter's. In 1612, when S. Andrea della Valle was completed, the bodies of the two popes, and part of their funeral monuments, were moved there, and re-entombed on 1 February 1613. Reputation and legacy Pius II was one of the most prominent authors of his period. His most important and longest work is his autobiography Commentaries in 12 and/or 13 books, first published in 1584 in Rome by Archbishop Francesco Bandini Piccolomini, a distant relative. Piccolomini altered it to some extent, removing words, phrases and whole passages that were unflattering to his