ALSO BY JOHN JULIUS NORWICH Byzantium: The Early Centuries Byzantium: The Apogee Byzantium: The Decline and Fall The Middle Sea A History of Venice Shakespeare’s Kings Mount Athos Sahara The Normans in Sicily The Architecture of Southern England Paradise of Cities Copyright © 2011 by John Julius Norwich All rights reserved Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc Published in the United Kingdom as The Popes: A History by Chatto & Windus, a member of The Random House Group Limited, London The illustration credits are located on this page Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Norwich, John Julius Absolute monarchs : a history of the papacy / John Julius Norwich p cm eISBN: 978-0-679-60499-0 Papacy—History I Title II Title: History of the papacy BX955.3.N67 2011 262′.13—dc22 2010036598 Title-page image copyright © iStockphoto.com/© Paolo Cipriani Maps by Reginald Piggott www.atrandom.com Jacket design: Susan Zucker Koski Jacket painting: Pierre Subleyras, portrait of Pope Benedict XIV (detail) (Musée Condé, Chantilly, France/Giraudon/ Bridgeman Art Library) v3.1 For Allegra, who first suggested this book Contents Cover Other Books by This Author Title Page Copyright Dedication Introduction CHAPTER I CHAPTER II Vigilius (537–555) Leo III and Charlemagne (795–861) CHAPTER IV CHAPTER VI Pope Joan (855?–857?) CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX Gregory the Great (590–604) CHAPTER VII CHAPTER X Defenders of the City (c 100–536) CHAPTER III CHAPTER V St Peter Nicholas I and the Pornocracy (855–964) Schism (964–1054) Gregory VII and the Normans CHAPTER XI Innocent and Anacletus CHAPTER XII Innocent III Avignon CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX The End of the Hohenstaufen CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XX Alexander III and Frederick Barbarossa CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XV The English Pope CHAPTER XXI The Monsters The Medici Pair Baroque Rome The Age of Reason The Jesuits and the Revolution Pio Nono CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XXV The Renaissance The Counter-Reformation CHAPTER XXII Laetentur Coeli! CHAPTER XXVI Progress and Reaction Leo XIII and the First World War CHAPTER XXVII CHAPTER XXVIII Pius XI and Pius XII Vatican II and After Bibliography List of Popes and Antipopes Illustration Insert Maps Modern Italy Medieval Rome Papal States in the 16th Century Illustration Credits About the Author Introduction This book is, essentially, a straightforward single-volume history of the Papacy It is an idea that I have had at the back of my mind for at least a quarter of a century, since my daughter Allegra rst suggested it, and I have been running up against various individual popes for a good deal longer than that Several of them played a major part in my history of Norman Sicily, written forty years ago, and a good many more played equally important roles in my histories of Venice, Byzantium, and—most recently—the Mediterranean I can even claim some personal experience of the Vatican, having worked in its library and having had two private audiences—with Pius XII and Paul VI —the latter when I was lucky enough to attend his coronation in 1963 as dogsbody to the Duke of Norfolk, who was representing the queen In addition, I well remember the future John XXIII—who was nuncio in Paris while my father was ambassador there— and the future John Paul I, when he was Patriarch of Venice But we are talking about a history, not a personal memoir As such, it clearly cannot hope to tell the whole story, which is far too long for one volume and all too often stultifyingly boring Many of the early popes are little more than names, and one of them—Pope Joan, to whom I have nevertheless been unable to resist devoting a short chapter—never existed at all We naturally begin at the beginning, with St Peter, but after him for the better part of the next millennium the story will be episodic rather than continuous, concentrating on those ponti s who made history: Leo the Great, for example, protecting Rome from the Huns and Goths; Leo III, laying the imperial crown on the head of the astonished Charlemagne; Gregory the Great and his successors, manfully struggling with emperor after emperor for supremacy; or Innocent III and the calamitous Fourth Crusade Later chapters will deal with the “Babylonian Captivity” in Avignon; with the monstrous popes of the High Renaissance, notably the Borgia Alexander VI, Julius II, and the Medici Leo X (“God has given us the Papacy, now let us enjoy it”); with those of the Counter-Reformation, above all Paul III; with the luckless Pius VII, who had to contend with Napoleon; and with his still more unfortunate namesake Pius IX, who steered—or more often failed to steer—the Papacy through the storm of the Risorgimento When we reach the turn of the twentieth century, we shall look particularly at the remarkable Leo XIII, and then at the popes of the two world wars, Benedict XV and the odiously anti-Semitic Pius XII, to whom the beloved Pope John XXIII came as such a welcome contrast Then, after a brief glimpse of the unhappy Paul VI, we come to the greatest papal mystery of modern times, the death—after a ponti cate lasting barely a month—of John Paul I Was he murdered? At the start of my investigations it seemed to me more than likely that he was; now I am not so sure Finally we shall discuss the astonishing phenomenon of John Paul II As for Benedict XVI, we shall just have to see Papal history can, like other varieties, be written from any number of points of view This book is essentially political, cultural, and, up to a point, social There are moments, from time to time, when basic matters of doctrine cannot be avoided—in order to explain the Arian heresy, the Great Schism with the Orthodox Church, the Albigensian Crusade, the Reformation, even infallibility and the Immaculate Conception—but as far as possible I have tried to steer well clear of theology, on which I am in any case utterly unquali ed to pronounce In doing so, I have followed in the footsteps of many of the popes themselves, a surprising number of whom seem to have been far more interested in their own temporal power than in their spiritual well-being Let me protest once again what I have protested on countless occasions before: I am no scholar, and my books are not works of scholarship This one probably contains no signi cant information that any self-respecting church historian will not be perfectly well aware of already, but it is not designed for church historians It is intended, like everything else I have written, for the average intelligent reader, be he believer or unbeliever, who would simply like to know a little more about the background of what is, by any account, an astonishing story I have tried, as always, to maintain a certain lightness of touch Historical accuracy must never, of course, be knowingly sacri ced in the cause of entertainment—even though, particularly in the early centuries, it is all too often impossible to guarantee— but there remain countless fascinating and well-authenticated stories and anecdotes which it would have been sad indeed to omit Some of these are to the credit of the Papacy, others not; I can only say that as an agnostic Protestant I have absolutely no ax to grind, still less any desire either to whitewash it or to hold it up to ridicule My task has been simply to look at what is perhaps the most astonishing social, political, and spiritual institution ever created and to give as honest, as objective, and as accurate an account of it as I possibly can JOHN JULIUS NORWICH CHAPTER I A St Peter fter nearly two thousand years of existence, the Papacy is the oldest continuing absolute monarchy in the world To countless millions, the pope is the Vicar of Christ on Earth, the infallible interpreter of divine revelation To millions more, he is the ful llment of the biblical prophecies of Antichrist What cannot be denied is that the Roman Catholic Church, of which he is the head, is as old as Christianity itself; all other Christian religions—and there are more than 22,000 of them—are o shoots or deviants from it It all started, according to the generally accepted view, with St Peter To most of us he is a familiar gure We see his portrait in a thousand churches—painted, frescoed, or chiseled in stone: curly gray hair, close-cropped beard, his keys dangling from his waist Sometimes he stands beside, sometimes opposite, the black-bearded, balding St Paul, armed with book and sword Together they represent the Church’s joint mission—Peter to the Jews of the diaspora, Paul to the Gentiles Peter’s original name was Simon, or perhaps Symeon (Oddly enough, the two names are unrelated: the rst is Greek, the second Hebrew, but both languages were current in Bethsaida in Galilee, where he was born.) Profession: sherman, and quite a successful one He and his brother Andrew were in partnership with James and John, the sons of Zebedee; he seems to have had his own boat, and he could certainly a ord to employ a number of assistants His brother Andrew is described by St John as having been a disciple of John the Baptist, and it may well have been through the Baptist that Simon rst met Jesus At any rate he soon became the rst of the disciples, and then of the twelve Apostles whom Christ selected from them—seeing them, perhaps, as a symbol of the twelve tribes of Israel; and he had already reached this position of preeminence when, at Caesarea Philippi, St Matthew (16:18–19) reports Jesus as saying to him, “Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church … I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.” On those few words—the Latin version of which is inscribed around the base of the dome of the Basilica of St Peter—rests the entire structure of the Roman Catholic Church The name Peter is so familiar to us today that it comes as something of a surprise to learn that until those words were uttered it was not a name at all, but a perfectly ordinary noun: the Aramaic kephas, translated into the Greek petros, meaning a rock or stone There seems little doubt that Jesus did indeed bestow it upon Simon; the fact is rmed by St Mark and also (writing some time afterward) by St John, although the two admittedly disagree about the actual occasion when the event occurred Matthew’s, however, is the only gospel that adds Jesus’s stated reason for the choice of name, and it is this addition that has led scholars to suggest that the whole passage may be a later interpolation The very fact that it does not appear in the other gospels has struck some of them as suspicious—though there are plenty of other incidents that are reported by Pope Leo X (de’ Medici, 1513–1521) and his nephews Painted by Raphael in 1518, soon after Leo had appointed him architect of the new St Peter’s Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (Illustration Credit i1.18) Pope Clement VII (de’ Medici, 1523–1534) It was he who refused to allow the annulment of Henry VIII’s first marriage and endured the sack of Rome in 1527 Sebastiano del Piombo, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples (Illustration Credit i1.19) Pope Paul III (Farnese, 1534–1549) Father of four illegitimate children before his election One of two portraits by Titian, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples (Illustration Credit i1.20) Pope Paul V (Borghese, 1605–1621) An arch-reactionary, he first took issue with Galileo for his espousal of Copernicus’s Pope Paul V (Borghese, 1605–1621) An arch-reactionary, he first took issue with Galileo for his espousal of Copernicus’s theory that the sun, rather than the earth, was the center of the universe Gianlorenzo Bernini, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (Illustration Credit i1.21) Pope Innocent X (Pamfili, 1644–1655) Dominated through most of his reign by his reputed mistress, the sinister and corrupt Olimpia Maidalchini Velazquez, Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome (Illustration Credit i1.22) Pope Pius VII (Chiaramonti, 1800–1823) Obliged to deal as best he could with Napoleon, who treated him abominably Jacques-Louis David, Musée du Louvre, Paris (Illustration Credit i1.23) December 2, 1804: The Emperor Napoleon crowns himself and the Empress Josephine in Notre Dame, watched by Pope Pius VII on right, seated Jacques-Louis David, Musée du Louvre, Paris (Illustration Credit i1.24) Pope Pius IX (1846–1878) and King Victor Emmanuel II Popular print (Illustration Credit i1.25) Pope Leo XIII (1878–1903) Mass-produced popular print, Museo del Risorgimento, Milan (Illustration Credit i1.26) Pope Pius XII (1939–1958) at his coronation in 1939, seated on the sedia gestatoria (Illustration Credit i1.27) Pope John Paul I (1978): his first blessing from the balcony overlooking St Peter’s Square (Illustration Credit i1.28) Pope John Paul II (1978–2005), obliged to use his Popemobile after an attempt on his life in 1981 (Illustration Credit i1.29) Illustration Credits i1.1 St Peter and St Paul embracing Mosaic, Byzantine school Duomo, Monreale, Sicily/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library i1.2 The Crypt of the Popes, third century Catacomb of San Callisto, Rome, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence i1.3 The Mausoleum of Theodoric Ravenna, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence i1.4 Justinian and his entourage, including Archbishop Maximian Apse mosaic San Vitale, Ravenna, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence i1.5 Theodora and her entourage Apse mosaic San Vitale, Ravenna, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence i1.6 St Gregory the Great in his study Tenth-century ivory Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, © akg-images i1.7 Constantine the Great presents Pope Sylvester with the tiara Thirteenthcentury fresco Church of the Santi Quattro Coronati, Rome, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence i1.8 Pope Joan gives birth Engraving, F Spanheim, Histoire de la Papesse Jeanne, The Hague, 1721 i1.9 The coronation of Charles the Bald by Pope John VIII in 875 Musée Condé, Chantilly, France/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library i1.10 The Emperor Otto III The Munich Gospels Staatsbibliothek, Munich, © akgimages i1.11 Statue of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence i1.12 Pope Innocent III Fresco Monastery of Sacro Speco, Subiaco, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence—courtesy of the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali i1.13 Pope Boniface VIII inaugurates, from the benediction balcony of the Lateran, the rst Jubilee in 1300 Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence i1.14 Christ presents the keys to St Peter Fresco by Pietro Perugino Sistine Chapel, Rome, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence i1.15 Pope Alexander VI at prayer Detail from Resurrection fresco by Pinturicchio Borgia Apartments, Vatican Palace, Rome, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence i1.16 Pope Julius II Raphael National Gallery, London, © akg-images/RabattiDomingie i1.17 Pope Pius II at Ancona Pinturicchio Piccolomini Library, Siena Cathedral, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence i1.18 Pope Leo X and his nephews Raphael Galleria degli U zi, Florence, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence—courtesy of the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali i1.19 Pope Clement VII Sebastiano del Piombo Museo di Capodimonte, Naples/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library i1.20 Pope Paul III Titian Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence—courtesy of the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali i1.21 Bust of Pope Paul V Gianlorenzo Bernini Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, © akg-images/Erich Lessing i1.22 Pope Innocent X Velázquez Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome, © V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum, London i1.23 Pope Pius VII Jacques-Louis David Musée du Louvre, Paris, © RMN/Géard Blot i1.24 Coronation of the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Josephine in Notre Dame, December 2, 1804 Jacques-Louis David Musée du Louvre, Paris, © RMN/Hervé Lewandowski i1.25 Pope Pius IX and King Victor Emmanuel II Popular print © Mary Evans Picture Library i1.26 Pope Leo XIII Mass-produced popular print Museo del Risorgimento, Milan, © 2011 Photo Scala, Florence i1.27 Pope Pius XII at his coronation in 1939 © Mary Evans Picture Library i1.28 Pope John Paul I, 1978 © Getty Images/Hulton Archive i1.29 Pope John Paul II, 1981 © Press Association ABOUT THE AUTHOR JOHN JULIUS NORWICH is one of Britain’s preeminent historians and travel writers He has written the histories of Norman Sicily, Byzantium, Venice, and the Mediterranean His other books have been on Shakespeare’s history plays, on music, and on architecture ... and I have been running up against various individual popes for a good deal longer than that Several of them played a major part in my history of Norman Sicily, written forty years ago, and a. .. about a history, not a personal memoir As such, it clearly cannot hope to tell the whole story, which is far too long for one volume and all too often stultifyingly boring Many of the early popes... Emperor Theodosius the Great, a fanatically anti-Arian Spaniard, summoned the second Ecumenical Council, which was held at Constantinople and nally worked out a satisfactory solution to the problem