THE SHAMEFUL STORY OF SOME HIDDEN PAPI - third part The problems did not end with the papacy of Boniface VIII. Philip IV of France (Nice), not satisfied to see his mortal enemy to go to the Creator, was determined to desecrate the memory. Benedict XI (who succeeded Boniface) trying to appease the king, acquitted him of all charges or guilty about what had happened to its predecessor (the mockery of Anagni). When a year after Pope Benedict XI died, a scandalous intrigue led to the election of Bertrand de Grot, Archbishop of Bordeaux, as Clemente V (a sinistra).
Finalmente Filippo poteva disporre di un papa francese, malleabile alla sua volontà.
Clemente immediatamente annunciò ai suoi attoniti aiutanti che lo avrebbero accompagnato oltre le Alpi. La giustificazione era che di Anagni ne aveva abbastanza e che desiderava "non addolorare il nostro caro figliolo, il Re di Francia". In Francia si sistemò ad Avignone, sotto l'attento occhio di Filippo. Si trattava di una piccola città provenzale sulla riva orientale del Rodano.
Per evitare che Filippo accusasse (post mortem) Bonifacio di frode e di eresia il papa cedette ad ogni sua volontà. Il Re ricevette lodi per il suo comportamento contro Bonifacio Celestine V ° and was canonized as St. Peter of Morrone. The papacy suffered from an almost deadly blow this exile and papal throne succeeded a series of subjects, simply, without being bad or good, were not true popes. (Oddio! if we were good people in some earlier).
A classic example was Clement VI (Pierre Roger de Beaufort, Monaco Benedictine and Archbishop of Rouen), elected in 1342. Like his predecessor, John XXII and Benedict XII, he had never seen Italy, but, unlike Benedict XII, who was a real pain in the ass, Clement knew exactly how to live and spend, "Before me - he said - no one has been able to make the pope .... If the King of England Bishop wants to appoint his ass should not do is ask..
On one occasion a donkey made his way in full consistory, bringing a sign around his neck saying: "Please do me too bishop . The Pope took her laughing as he did when he received a letter, always during a hearing consistorial, saying: "From the Devil to his brother Clement." He and his "devils" (the Cardinals) all burst out laughing. The His system was to give more than they asked him and his one main goal was to make everyone happy. In Avignon they were all good musicians, goldsmiths, artisans, bankers, astrologers, petty thieves, pimps e soprattutto le splendide puttane (ed i bellissimi puttani). Alcuni si lamentavano sostenendo che in Avignone gli dei più adorati erano Bacco e Venere.
Uno dei pochi critici severi era il Petrarca, avvelenato dal fatto che Benedetto XII a suo tempo aveva voluto sua sorella e se l'era presa corrompendo suo fratello Gerardo. Descrivendo , anonimamente per non essere bruciato, la corte di Avignone come "la vergogna dell'umanità, un covo di vizi, una fogna dove è raccolta tutta la sporcizia del mondo. Lì Dio viene disprezzato, solo il denaro viene adorato e le leggi di Dio vengono calpestate. Tutto quanto in quel luogo respira menzogna: l'aria, la terra. le abitazioni e, soprattutto, i letti. "
Pope Clement suffered from an illness, officially diagnosed as a kidney disorder, but in fact it was caught in the bedroom. It was not very discreet in his loves, but this was part of his attitude toward life. He was one who gave all he could, even in bed. His private meetings were called "sessions of plenary indulgence." However, it must be said to its credit, legitimized all his children.
Much of his building was available to the Inquisition, with large prisons and torture chambers, in which Clemens went down every so often to encourage the inquisitors. The papal palace is defined by Froissart, French diarist, "the building more beautiful and solid that there is in the world." The Pope loved beautiful things around. English and Flemish tapestries, gilded clothes of Damascus, Tuscan silk, woolen clothes from Carcassonne, plates of gold and silver.
suspected that Petrarch had written bad things about those golden harness of his horses, but do not get angry that much only because the bites were gold. On the other hand, even though he had turned the Curia in an astonishing money machine, Clement was always short of money. Buy the entire city in 1348, had cost him 80,000 florins. He had also reduced the range of Jubilees in 50 years so they can enjoy during the suo papato (Bonifacio VIII ne aveva deciso uno ogni 100 anni), guadagnando cifre enormi sui pellegrini che passavano da Avignone nel loro viaggio a Roma.
Sia la regina Brigitta di Svezia sia Caterina da Siena (poi fatte sante) scrissero molte lettera al papa pregandolo di tornare a Roma, ma senza alcuna risposta. Il 3 dicembre 1352 un fulmine colpì la basilica di San Pietro, colpendola e fondendo le campane. Tutti pensarono che il papa fosse morto e cominciarono a festeggiare:"E' morto, il papa è morto e seppellito all'inferno". I pietosi dissero: beh! ora è finita. I cinici invece: non ce n'è mai abbastanza.
Ci sono state un mucchio di occasioni in which Catholics have said the papacy reached its lowest point, can not fall over. Dante said Boniface VIII Avignon period of Petrarch. Both were wrong.
pressures Catherine of Siena, Tuscany nun pale and dry, on Gregorio XI succeeded in forcing him to break (along with threats of the Romans to elect a new pope) to return to Rome, which he did in 1377. Of the past 278 years from 1100 only 82 popes they had spent in Rome. And the eternal city it took only a few months to do it dry.
the death of the pope's voters were divided into two factions, French and Italian. The French were determined to elect one of them and given the Lateran had burned the conclave was held in April at the Vatican. Outside, 30,000 Romans were screaming like mad, "the Roman blood volume." And, if not Roman, should at least be Italian. The cardinals are present, not knowing what to do voted for an outsider, Prignano Bartholomew, Archbishop of Bari (not u Roman), but for fear of crowd of people, the octogenarian Cardinal Teobaldeschi dressed in papal dress and performed to the crowd .
A courier ran in the election of Pisa relating Teobaldeschi (he was a cardinal in Pisa), where he celebrated with fireworks. Only three days later he was informed that the pope was Prignano him, who settled on papal chair under the name of Urban VI (left). Napoletano Urban lower-class person was considered easy to maneuver by the wily French. But they had miscalculated.
Mildly alcoholic and prone to attacks of anger, the pope hates fuss and wanted to reform the addicts, as he called them at all costs. On some occasions physically tried to beat the Cardinals that irritated him, held by Robert of Geneva, while shouting: "I do everything, absolutely everything what I like."
While a handful of cardinals was trying to find a legal system to prohibit, without success, excommunicated King Charles of Naples, an old enemy. Then, by Charles imprisoned in the fortress of Nocera, excommunicated, every day four times a day, all the army of Charles. Released by the Genoese was seen drunk in Genoa, in a garden, while five rebels were tortured in a cardinal the next room.
A group of French cardinals, who fled to Anagni, determined that Urban was "not the pope," Pope and nominate Robert of Geneva, a cousin of the King of France, which he called Clement VII. Urban counterattacked by appointing 26 new cardinals loyal to him. Given that both popes were appointed more or less the same group of cardinals, the situation was critical. Wyclif in England said: "I always knew that the pope had his feet forked (an allusion to the devil), now also has a forked head (two popes).. "The confusion was at its peak and everyone took a stand: for Urban England, France, for Clement, while Christianity was in the casino and thought if no one knows who the real pope, what we need the papacy?
Clement, at Avignon, behaved worse than a pimp, proving to be a true pope in Avignon, having already demonstrated its ability to liar as a cardinal.
In 1389 Urbano, the pope who nobody wanted, finally died. The fourteen remaining cardinals chose as his successor in Rome Bonifacio IX (a sinistra), un assassino e probabilmente il più grande simoniaco della storia. Era in grado di vendere tutto e vendeva tutto. Si diceva che nessuno era in grado di spremere soldi da una santificazione o una canonizzazione meglio di lui. Non capitò mai che mettesse la firma su di un documento senza farsi pagare lautamente.
Forse l'unica cosa che non fece pagare fu la scomunica di Clemente, che Clemente ricambiò immediatamente. La situazione era incasinatissima. Brigitta di Svezia venne canonizzata tre volte per essere assolutamente sicuri di averla fatta santa.
La cosa andò avanti fino al 1409 , quando in un Concilio, convocato a Pisa, vennero deposti entrambi, Gregorio XII (who succeeded Innocent VII, who succeeded Boniface) in Rome and Benedict XIII (successor to Clement), as heretics and schismatics. He was appointed Cardinal Filargi of Milan, with the name of Alexander fifth. Of course it will Benedict Gregory agreed and so, instead of two popes, now there were three.
Someone suggested to divide the triple tiara in three parts, someone else to change the "I" as follows: "I BELIEVE IN THREE Holy Catholic Church". The only certainty that came from the Council of Pisa was appointed the pope was not the real pope. However now there were three popes infallible, all invoking the supreme authority over the Church, all the others solemnly scomunicanti two and all threatening to convene a council in three different places.
Now (1410 ca.) Characters in the drama were:
Corrario Angelo, Gregory XII, Venetian, about ninety years, chosen by the Romans as "too old to be corrupt": The Pope provident To deny her tiara immediately committed to pay gambling debts and selling everything I could. Whether that is the one that was not there, coming to Rome to sell the King of Naples.
Peter Moon, appointed by the hysterical English Avignon. It was what mattered less, because even abandoned by the King of France. And soon returned to Spain, where he excommunicated all, the whole Church and the faithful, saying to the last to be the true pope.
Baldassarre Cossa, John XXIII, a suave cardinal who had succeeded Alexander V and represented the 'obedience of Pisa. It was believed that he had never confessed and communicated that he did not believe in immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body and some believed that he did not believe in God was known to be an ex-pirate, a poisoner (the poor Filargi), mass murderer, fornicator overall with a predilection for the sisters, adulterer scale hitherto unknown, simony par excellence, blackmailer , pimp and master of dirty tricks.
At the time of his election was a deacon. Was ordained a priest one day and made Pope the next day.
When another John XXIII was elected in 1958, many Catholic cathedrals had to remove the John XXIII of the fifteenth century from their lists of popes.
In the fifteenth century, not a voice was raised in defense of the papacy, and with people like Francesco della Rovere on the throne, it is not hard to imagine why.
Francis became Sixtus IV (left) in 1471. He had several children, called, according to the custom of the time, "the grandchildren of the pope." Sixtus granted three grandchildren and six other relatives cardinal's hat. Among the beneficiaries was also Giuliano della Rovere, future Pope Julius II.
The favorite was Peter Sisto Riario, the historian Theodor Griesinger believed to be his son and sister. Sure, the new pope showed an alarming affection for the boy. Enough to make him bishop of Treviso, Cardinal Archbishop of Seville, patriarch of Constantinople, Archbishop of Valencia and, most recently, the archbishop of Florence (where he lived his mortal enemies: I de Medici)
Until then, Peter, was a simple Franciscan annual bake their unique habit to eliminate pests.
become a cardinal was radically changed. It turned into a spendthrift on a large scale, a womanizer, which kept fans the unbridled wealth, so that even the diarists of the time to worry. He died young broke completely from the vices.
Opera Sixtus was the chapel that bears his name (Sistine Chapel), which currently take place all papal elections. Remember that the Sistine Chapel said he has seen all the colors: the cardinals who are camping, you stepped on and entertained until the horses of Napoleon, who used it as a stable.
Sisto was also the first pope to grant a "legal" brothels of Rome, which brought thirty thousand ducats a year in taxes, and to allow the priests to keep a companion contro pagamento di un'apposita tassa. Un'altra fonte di guadagno era quella rinveniente dai permessi concessi ai ricchi di consolare certe signore in assenza dei mariti. Ma era nel campo delle indulgenze che Sisto mostrò tutto il suo genio: egli fu infatti il primo che pensò di poterle liberamente applicare ai morti. Questo costituì una illimitata fonte di guadagno alla quale nessuno dei suoi predecessori, neanche i più avidi, aveva mai pensato.
La cosa aveva implicazioni teologiche straordinarie perché il papa, creatura di carne e sangue, affermava di avere potere nella regione della morte. Anime tormentate per il loro peccaminoso comportamento da viventi, potevano ora essere liberate dai tormenti del Purgatorio sulla sola parola del papa, posto che i loro affezionati e religiosi familiari pagassero la giusta mercede. Chi si sarebbe rifiutato di compiere un atto di carità cristiana verso le persone amate? Padri, mariti, amanti, parenti, tutti cercavano di tirare fuori dal purgatorio i loro cari spendendo quanto necessario.
Con la minaccia e la descrizione di luoghi orribili (il purgatorio era rappresentato come luogo di sofferenza) tutti erano indotti a credere che il perdono papale avrebbe condotto i loro cari in paradiso. Il potenziale di corruzione era enorme. In precedenza buona parte del reddito della Curia e del papato proveniva dal commercio di reliquie, che, peraltro, non erano inesauribili anche se facilmente falsificabili. La grandezza Sixtus lies in its being able to find a good absolutely unlimited and unpalatable, the price of which could be adapted for all the bags and does not cost anything. The faithful were not required repentance, prayer or anything, just pay the equivalent (adapted to the possibilities of each).
The invention of purgatory, of which there is no mention in the sacred writings, was substantial element of this papal most fruitful trade. The simple reflection that if the pope can free a soul for money, may well leave without money, it can leave one, the can also free all and if it does not, is a monster tyrant - as rightly Simon took over Fish (A Supplicacyion for the Beggars, 1529), seemed not to be performed by anyone.
Just to make matters worse, as already mentioned, in 1478 Sixtus also published the Bull which established the Inquisition in Castile. In 1482, two thousand heretics were burned in Andalusia alone.
Sixtus died in 1484 and someone said, because of the warmongering temperament shown by the pope, who was killed by peace.
His successor, Innocent VIII (left), provided that issues the Papal Bull against English Jews, who, as told by "The Catholic Dictionary" arranged to provide work for the Inquisition centuries. Despite increasing demands decided to do nothing against the concubinage of the clergy, so that someone, ironically, wrote: "His Holiness is up in the morning from his bed of whores to open and close the gates of Purgatory and Paradise." In point of death seems to have done experimenting on himself (from his doctor jew, which he believed had magical powers) the transfusion of three young people (all died in vain, though handsomely paid "to live" because recently dead Burchard, his secretary, he recovered the money). But we were not yet arrived at the bottom of the abyss.
It is believed that the Catalan Rogrigo Borgia has committed his first murder when he was twelve years old, killed in stabbing a peer. Does not even seem to have any privacy with regard to love affairs, but unfortunate, his uncle was the Pope Callistus III, who provided, in 1456, to appoint him archbishop of Valencia, the most important diocese in Spain.
Rodrigo was already famous for having sex with either a woman and her two beautiful daughters (one of which was his beloved Vanozza Cattanei)
recalled to Rome to become a cardinal at twenty-six, and a vice chancellor of the Church year later, unable to bear the sorrow of distance from the settled his lovers in Venice.
Alla morte dello zio il nuovo papa, Pio II, gli ruppe un poco le balle ironizzando sul fatto che "gli si addiceva non aver altro in testa che piaceri voluttuosi", ma , nel complesso, Rodrigo superò il regno di ben quattro papi, riuscendo a farsi eleggere nel 1492 con il nome di Alessandro VI (a sinistra), dimenticandosi tra l'altro che Alessandro V era stato inserito tra gli antipapi e quindi ufficialmente "non esisteva".
Nella lotta per l'elezione venne spesa una vera fortuna. Sul della Rovere erano stati impegnati 200.000 ducati dalla Francia e 100.000 da Genova, ma il Borgia , pur spendendo fino all'ultimo quattrino riuscì a prevalere.
Si dice che dopo l'elezione, Giovanni de Medici abbia detto al Cardinal Cibo:"Ora siamo nelle grinfie del lupo più selvaggio che il mondo abbia mai visto. O scappiamo o lui, senza dubbio alcuno, ci divorerà.". Il cardinal della Rovere fuggì immediatamente, per ritornare solo dieci anni dopo, quando il Borgia era già morto.
Del Borgia si sa quasi tutto, delle sue amanti, dei suoi molti figli (quasi tutti regolarmente riconosciuti, bisogna dirlo), della sospettata relazione con sua figlia Lucrezia e del feroce e crudelissimo Cesare, modello del Machiavelli per "il Principe".
Sembra che Alessandro avesse intenzione di condurre Cesare fino al papato, con le varie nomine a vescovo, a cardinal and the repeated Bolle enacted in order to regularize their position public.
But Caesar had to be too much even for his father, and it seems that even the death of Alexander would move into an incorrect poisoning attempt (wrong because it does not direct the father) that Caesar was wrong.
The years of the Borgia papacy, to re-read the sequence and the events that occurred in their course, have something extreme, "off limits", of the kind that watch that advertise on TV. Everything was carried to excess: murder, poisoning, orgies, incestuous relationships, syphilis and venereal diseases, husbands killed as useless or annoying. In short, a world of vicious violence of which Rodrigo was certainly not the worst.
The political power and also conditional on the public the truth, as if to be able to marry Lucrezia (for political reasons) Alessandro sought to annul the previous marriage to Giovanni Sforza for "non-consummated marriage to her husband's impotence." All Rome laughed for months since Sforza refused to cooperate, saying the drink plentiful, offering his manhood and even public demonstrations, while Lucretia was known as "the great whore that Rome has ever known."
The poisoning death of Alexander was terrible and the corpse was described by Ambassador Giustiniani, a Venetian, "as the most horrible and ugly monster dead body that has ever seen, without any shape or appearance of humanity." A few hours after death the body exploded sulphurous fumes from all orifices, and was so smelly that it was difficult to find someone to put him in the coffin and transported him to St. Peter's, where, however, was expelled in 1610 (now buried in the Church Via di Monserrato English).
