1.
Antipope Benedict XIII
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Benedict XIII, born Pedro Martínez de Luna y Pérez de Gotor, known as el Papa Luna in Spanish, was an Aragonese nobleman and Avignon Pope during the Western Schism. He is considered by the Catholic Church to be an antipope, Pedro Martínez de Luna was born at Illueca, Kingdom of Aragon in 1328. He belonged to the de Luna family, who were part of the Aragonese nobility and he studied law at the University of Montpellier, where he obtained his doctorate and later taught Canon law. In 1377 Pedro de Luna and the other returned to Rome with Pope Gregory. After Gregorys death on 27 March 1378, the people of Rome feared that the cardinals would elect a French Pope, consequently, they rioted and laid siege to the cardinals, insisting on an Italian Pope. The conclave duly elected Bartolomeo Prignano, Archbishop of Bari, as Urban VI on 9 April, some of them reconvened at Fondi in September 1378, declared the earlier election invalid and elected Robert of Geneva as their new Pope, initiating the Western Schism. Robert assumed the name Clement VII and moved back to Avignon, Clement VII sent him as legate to Spain for the Kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and Portugal, in order to win them over to the obedience of the Avignon pope. Owing to his relations, his influence in the Province of Aragon was very great. In 1393 Clement VII appointed him legate to France, Brabant, Flanders, Scotland, England, as such he stayed principally in Paris, but he did not confine his activities to those countries that belonged to the Avignon obedience. Following Clements death on 16 September 1394, the cardinals met at Avignon, the conclave consisted of 11 French cardinals, eight Italians, four Spaniards, and one from Savoy, all proclaiming the ardent wish to reunite the church. On the death of Urban VI in 1389 the Roman College of Cardinals had chosen Boniface IX, at the start of his term of office, de Luna was recognised as Pope by France, Scotland, Sicily, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and Portugal. In 1396 Benedict sent Sanchez Muñoz, one of the most loyal members of the Avignon curia, in 1398 the Kingdom of France withdrew its recognition of the Avignon papacy. Benedict was abandoned by 17 of his cardinals, with five remaining faithful to him. Benedicts rationale for continuing the rivalry lay in the fact that he was the last living cardinal created by Gregory XI, the last undoubted Supreme Pontiff. As the only unquestioned cardinal, Benedict argued, he was, by right and by canon law, following the Council of Constance Benedicts logic was completely disregarded. When these talks ended in stalemate in 1408, the French king, Charles VI, Charles helped to organise the Council of Pisa in 1409. This council was supposed to arrange for both Gregory and Benedict to resign, so that a new universally recognised Pope could be elected, to oppose this, Benedict convoked the Council of Perpignan but with little success. The Bishop of St Andrews, Henry Wardlaw, then successfully petitioned Benedict to grant the university status by issuing a series of papal bulls
2.
Pope
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The pope is the Bishop of Rome and, therefore, the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013, the office of the pope is the papacy. The pope is considered one of the worlds most powerful people because of his diplomatic and he is also head of state of Vatican City, a sovereign city-state entirely enclaved within the Italian capital city of Rome. The papacy is one of the most enduring institutions in the world and has had a prominent part in world history, the popes in ancient times helped in the spread of Christianity and the resolution of various doctrinal disputes. In the Middle Ages, they played a role of importance in Western Europe. Currently, in addition to the expansion of the Christian faith and doctrine, the popes are involved in ecumenism and interfaith dialogue, charitable work, Popes, who originally had no temporal powers, in some periods of history accrued wide powers similar to those of temporal rulers. In recent centuries, popes were gradually forced to give up temporal power, the word pope derives from Greek πάππας meaning father. The earliest record of the use of title was in regard to the by then deceased Patriarch of Alexandria. Some historians have argued that the notion that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, the writings of the Church Father Irenaeus who wrote around AD180 reflect a belief that Peter founded and organised the Church at Rome. Moreover, Irenaeus was not the first to write of Peters presence in the early Roman Church, Clement of Rome wrote in a letter to the Corinthians, c. 96, about the persecution of Christians in Rome as the struggles in our time and presented to the Corinthians its heroes, first, the greatest and most just columns, the good apostles Peter and Paul. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote shortly after Clement and in his letter from the city of Smyrna to the Romans he said he would not command them as Peter and Paul did. Given this and other evidence, many agree that Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero. Protestants contend that the New Testament offers no proof that Jesus established the papacy nor even that he established Peter as the first bishop of Rome, others, using Peters own words, argue that Christ intended himself as the foundation of the church and not Peter. First-century Christian communities would have had a group of presbyter-bishops functioning as leaders of their local churches, gradually, episcopacies were established in metropolitan areas. Antioch may have developed such a structure before Rome, some writers claim that the emergence of a single bishop in Rome probably did not occur until the middle of the 2nd century. In their view, Linus, Cletus and Clement were possibly prominent presbyter-bishops, documents of the 1st century and early 2nd century indicate that the Holy See had some kind of pre-eminence and prominence in the Church as a whole, though the detail of what this meant is unclear. It seems that at first the terms episcopos and presbyter were used interchangeably, the consensus among scholars has been that, at the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries, local congregations were led by bishops and presbyters whose offices were overlapping or indistinguishable
3.
Pope Innocent XIII
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Pope Innocent XIII was born as Michelangelo dei Conti and was Pope from 8 May 1721 to his death in 1724. He is the last pope to date to take the name of Innocent upon his election. Pope Innocent XIII was reform-oriented, and he imposed new standards of frugality, Michelangelo dei Conti was born on 13 May 1655 in Poli, near Rome as the son of Carlo II, Duke of Poli, and Isabella dMonti. Like Pope Innocent III, Pope Gregory IX and Pope Alexander IV, he was a member of the family of the Conti. He included the family crest in his coats of arms. Conti commenced his studies in Ancona and then with the Jesuits in Rome at the Collegio Romano, after he received his doctorate in canon law and civil law, he was ordained to the priesthood. Conti also served as the Referendary of the Apostolic Signatura in 1691, Conti was also the Governor of Campagna and Marittima from 1692 to 1693 and the Governor of Viterbo from 1693 to 1695. Pope Innocent XII selected Conti as the Titular Archbishop of Tarso on 13 June 1695, Conti was also the nuncio to both Switzerland and Portugal. On 7 June 1706, Conti was elevated to the cardinalate and was made the Cardinal-Priest of Santi Quirico e Giulitta under Pope Clement XI and his appointment came about as the replacement of Gabriele Filippucci who declined the cardinalate. He would receive his titular church on 23 February 1711, while in Portugal, he was witness to Father Bartolomeu de Gusmãos early aerostat experiments. He was also transferred to Osimo as its archbishop in 1709 and was later translated one last time to Viterbo e Toscanella in 1712. He also served as Camerlengo of the Sacred College of Cardinals from 1716 to 1717, after the death of Pope Clement XI in 1721, a conclave was called to choose a new pope. It took 75 ballots just to reach a decision and choose Conti as the successor of Clement XI, after all candidates seemed to slip, support turned to Conti. The curial factions also turned their attention to him, in the morning of 8 May 1721, he was elected. He chose the name of Innocent XIII in honour of Pope Innocent III, on the following 18 May, he was solemnly crowned by the protodeacon, Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili. In 1721 his high reputation for ability, learning, purity, and his pontificate was prosperous, but comparatively uneventful. He held two consistories that saw three new cardinals elevated on 16 June 1721 and 16 July 1721, the Chinese Rites controversy that started under his predecessor continued during his reign. Innocent XIII prohibited the Jesuits from prosecuting their mission in China, the pope also assisted the Venetians in their struggles and also assisted Malta in its struggles against the Turks
4.
Pope Clement XII
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Pope Clement XII, born Lorenzo Corsini, was Pope from 12 July 1730 to his death in 1740. Clement presided over the growth of a surplus in the papal finances, in his 1738 bull In eminenti apostolatus, he provides the first public papal condemnation of Freemasonry, helping bring about the Catholic Churchs longstanding opposition to the order. Lorenzo Corsini was born in Florence in 1652 as the son of Bartolomeo Corsini, Marquis of Casigliano and his wife Elisabetta Strozzi, both of his parents belonged to the old Florentine nobility. He was a distant relative of Saint Andrea Corsini, Corsini studied at the Jesuit Collegio Romano in Rome and also at the University of Pisa where he earned a doctorate in both civil law and canon law. Corsini practiced law under the direction of his uncle, Cardinal Neri Corsini. After the death of his uncle and his father, in 1685, Corsini, now thirty-three, corsini’s home on the Piazza Novona, was the center of Rome’s scholarly and artistic life. In 1690 he was made titular Archbishop of Nicomedia and chosen nuncio to Vienna. He did not proceed to the court, because Leopold I. In 1696, Corsini was appointed treasurer-general and governor of the Castel SantAngelo and he advanced still further under Pope Benedict XIII, who made him Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, a judicial branch of the Roman Curia. He was successively appointed as the Cardinal-Priest of San Pietro in Vincoli, under Benedict XIII, the finances of the Papal States had been delivered into the hands of Cardinal Niccolò Coscia and other members of the curia, who had drained the financial resources of the see. Clement XII was one of the oldest men to be elected pope, as a Corsini, with his mother a Strozzi, the new pope represented a family in the highest level of Florentine society, with a cardinal in every generation for the previous hundred years. His first moves as Pope Clement XII were to restore the papal finances and he demanded restitution from the ministers who had abused the confidence of his predecessor. The chief culprit, Cardinal Niccolò Coscia, was fined and sentenced to ten years imprisonment. Papal finances were improved through reviving the public lottery, which had been suppressed by the severe morality of Benedict XIII. A competition for the majestic façade of the San Giovanni in Laterano was won by architect Alessandro Galilei, the façade he designed is perhaps more palatial than ecclesiastic, and was finished by 1735. Clement XII erected in that ancient basilica a magnificent chapel dedicated to his 14th century kinsman and he restored the Arch of Constantine and built the governmental palace of the Consulta on the Quirinal. He purchased from Cardinal Alessandro Albani for 60,000 scudi a famous collection of statues, inscriptions, etc. and he paved the streets of Rome and the roads leading from the city, and widened the Corso. He began the triumphant Baroque Fontana di Trevi, one of the ornaments of Rome
5.
Pope Clement X
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Pope Clement X, born Emilio Bonaventura Altieri, was Pope from 29 April 1670 to his death in 1676. Emilio Boneventura Altieri was born in Rome in 1590, the son of Lorenzo Altieri and Victoria Delfin, during earlier pontificates, the Altieri held many important offices and had been entrusted with several delicate missions. Altieri received a doctorate in law from the Roman College in 1611, after finishing his studies, he was named auditor of Giovanni Battista Lancellotti in 1623, in the nunciature of Poland. He was ordained April 6,1624, on his return to Rome, he was named Bishop of Camerino, then governor of Loreto and of all Umbria. Pope Urban VIII gave him charge of the designed to protect the territory of Ravenna from the unruly Po River. Pope Innocent X sent him as nuncio to Naples, where he remained for eight years and he is credited with the re-establishment of peace after the stormy days of Masaniello. Pope Alexander VII confided to him a mission to Poland, Pope Clement IX named him Superintendent of the Papal Exchequer, and in 1667 his maestro di camera, and he was made Secretary of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars. Just before his death, Clement IX made him a Cardinal and he was then about seventy-nine years of age, and Clement IX, when making him a member of the Sacred College, said to him, You will be our successor. After the funeral of Pope Clement IX, sixty-two electors entered into conclave on 20 December 1669, forty-two votes were necessary, and due to the rivalry between the French and Spanish factions, heated discussion prevailed for four months. The reason a prelate of such transcendent merits received the cardinalate so late in life seems to have been that he had waived his claims to the elevation in favour of an older brother. On 29 April 1670, the papacy was offered to him by fifty-nine Cardinals present at the election and he, however, objected because of his age, for he was almost eighty, and exclaimed, I am too old to bear such a burden. Pointing to Cardinal Brancaccio, Altieri said he was the Cardinal whom they ought to elect and he was crowned on 11 May. On the 8th of June Clement X took possession of St. John Lateran, in the same month he granted to the prelate-clerks of the chamber the use of the violet-coloured band around their hats. Occasionally forgetful, he promised the same favors to different people and came to rely on his cardinal-nephew. All but one of the scions of the Altieri family had chosen the ecclesiastical career. In exchange for adopting the Altieri surname he would one of the Paoluzzi a Cardinal. Like all the pontiffs, Clement X advised the Christian princes to love each other, and to prove it by generous measures and it was especially between Spain and France that the pope desired to witness a renewal of feelings of good understanding. In 1671, the Pope published an edict by which he declared that a noble might be a merchant without loss of his nobility, in 1676, Gianlorenzo Bernini scculpted one of his final statues, a bust of Clement X
6.
Paluzzo Paluzzi Altieri degli Albertoni
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He studied at the University of Perugia and earned a doctorate of law. Thereafter he became a cleric of the Apostolic Chamber during the part of the pontificate of Pope Urban VIII. He became Auditor-General of the Apostolic Chamber during the pontificate of Pope Alexander VII, in 1664, Altieri was elevated to Cardinal in pectore by Pope Alexander VII. His elevation to cardinal was published in 1666 and he was made Cardinal-Priest of Santi Apostoli, the following month he was elected Bishop of Montefiascone e Corneto and consecrated by his mothers relative, Cardinal Ulderico Carpegna. He participated in the conclave of 1667 which elected Pope Clement IX, over the following few years he became a close advisor to Cardinal Emilio Altieri. At the papal conclave of 1669–1670 Altieri was elected as Pope Clement X, in May 1670 he was appointed Bishop of Ravenna and papal legate in Avignon. In 1671, Altieri was named Prefect of the Sacred Consulta Propaganda Fide and was made Governor of Tivoli and that same year he was appointed Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church and Crown-cardinal of Ireland. Altieri was appointed, or appointed himself, to so many positions he was accused by his contemporaries of megalomania, though he had established a well-regarded ecclesiastic career, his limited diplomatic experience caused problems for the Pope and for the Holy See, even after Clements death. Between 1678 and 1679 he was also appointed Camerlengo of the Sacred College of Cardinals and he participated in the conclave of 1691 which elected Pope Innocent XII and was thereafter appointed Cardinal-Bishop of Palestrina. He was made Archpriest of the Patriarchal Lateran Basilica in 1693 and Bishop of Porto e Santa Rufina, six months later, on 29 June 1698, he died suddenly at his dinner table. He was waked in the Church of Santa Maria in Campitelli, Ulderico Carpegna consecrated Altieri to the episcopacy on 2 May 1666. Having himself consecrated Pope Benedict XIII to the episcopacy, Cardinal Altieri is in the lineage of Pope Francis. While bishop, he was the consecrator of
7.
Gravina in Puglia
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Gravina in Puglia is a town and comune of the Metropolitan City of Bari, Apulia, southern Italy. The word gravina comes from the Latin grava or from the messapic graba, with the meaning of rock, shaft, other words that share the same root are grava, gravaglione and gravinelle. The town was founded by the Greeks during the colonization of Greater Greece, diodorus notes it as an Apulian town, which was wrested from the Samnites by the Romans during the 3rd Samnite War. It was a town in the interior of Apulia and it is noticed by Strabo as the frontier town of the Peucetii, and its name is noticed by Pliny among the municipal towns of Apulia. The Via Appia, which linked Rome to Brindisi, passed through Gravina, the Itineraries place it 20 miles from Venusia, on the branch of the Appian Way which led direct to Tarentum. Later it was ruled by Byzantines, Lombards and North African Muslims, the city was the site of a Norman countship in the Hauteville Kingdom of Sicily and in the later Kingdom of Naples. A famous count of the former was Gilbert, who was sent by his cousin, in the latter period it was the hereditary fief of John, Duke of Durazzo. The Normans called the town Garagnone or Garaynone, from 1386 to 1816 it was a fief of the Orsini family, the pope Benedict XIII was born here in 1649. Feudal oppression led to riots, in particular from 1789 until the unification of Italy. Gravina in Puglia was partly destroyed by Allied bombings during World War II, Gravina Cathedral - built by the Normans in Romanesque style. Destroyed by fires and earthquakes in the century, it houses a splendid reliquary of an arm of the English Thomas Becket. The remains of Frederick IIs castle, site on a nearby the city. According to Giorgio Vasari, it was designed in 1231 by one Fuccio from Florence, san Sebastiano - Renaisssance-style church with a nave and two aisles separated by pilasters. The cloister of the convent has with Romanesque capitals decorated with animal. San Michele delle Grotte- 10th-century church carved out from the tuff rocks It has also a well preserved Roman bridge, dates back to at least 1686. Following the earthquake of 1722 the bridge was restored and transformed into an aqueduct by the Orsini family of Rome, the commune of Gravina in Puglia produces a white Denominazione di origine controllata Italian wine that can be made in a still or sparkling Spumante style. While the still Gravina wine is almost always dry, the sparkling Gravina wine can be made in both a dry secco and slightly sweet amabile style, all grapes destined for DOC wine production needing to be harvested to a yield no greater than 15 tonnes/ha. The wine is primarily from Malvasia del Chianti, Greco di Tufo
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Kingdom of Naples
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It continued to be officially known as the Kingdom of Sicily, although it no longer included the island of Sicily. For much of its existence, the realm was contested between French and Spanish dynasties, in 1816, it was reunified with the island kingdom of Sicily once again to form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Following the rebellion in 1282, King Charles I of Sicily was forced to leave the island of Sicily by Peter III of Aragons troops, Charles, however, maintained his possessions on the mainland, customarily known as the Kingdom of Naples, after its capital city. Charles and his Angevin successors maintained a claim to Sicily, warring against the Aragonese until 1373, joans reign was contested by Louis the Great, the Angevin King of Hungary, who captured the kingdom several times. Queen Joan I also played a part in the demise of the first Kingdom of Naples. This led to Joan Is murder at the hands of the Prince of Durazzo in 1382, the two competing Angevin lines contested each other for the possession of the Kingdom of Naples over the following decades. René of Anjou temporarily united the claims of junior and senior Angevin lines, in 1442, however, Alfonso V conquered the Kingdom of Naples and unified Sicily and Naples once again as dependencies of Aragon. At his death in 1458, the kingdom was again separated and Naples was inherited by Ferrante, Alfonsos illegitimate son. Charles VIII expelled Alfonso II of Naples from Naples in 1495, Ferrantino was restored to the throne, but died in 1496, and was succeeded by his uncle, Frederick IV. Charles VIIIs successor, Louis XII reiterated the French claim, in 1501, he occupied Naples and partitioned the kingdom with Ferdinand of Aragon, who abandoned his cousin King Frederick. The deal soon fell through, however, and Aragon and France resumed their war over the kingdom, the Spanish troops occupying Calabria and Apulia, led by Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordova did not respect the new agreement, and expelled all Frenchmen from the area. The peace treaties that continued were never definitive, but they established at least that the title of King of Naples was reserved for Ferdinands grandson, the future Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Ferdinand nevertheless continued in possession of the kingdom, being considered as the heir of his uncle Alfonso I of Naples. The French finally abandoned their claims to Naples by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, in the Treaty of London, five cities on coast of Tuscany were designated the Stato dei Presidi, and part of the Kingdom of Naples. After the War of the Spanish Succession in the early 18th century, under the terms of the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714, Naples was given to Charles VI, the Holy Roman Emperor. He also gained control of Sicily in 1720, but Austrian rule did not last long, when Charles inherited the Spanish throne from his older half-brother in 1759, he left Naples and Sicily to his younger son, Ferdinand IV. Despite the two Kingdoms being in a union under the Habsburg and Bourbon dynasts, they remained constitutionally separate. Being a member of the House of Bourbon, Ferdinand IV was an opponent of the French Revolution and Napoleon
9.
Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
10.
Lazio
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Lazio is one of the 20 administrative regions of Italy, situated in the central peninsular section of the country. With almost 5.9 million residents and a GDP of more than 170 billion euros, Lazio is the second most populated region of Italy and its capital is Rome, capital and largest city of Italy. Lazio comprises an area of 17,236 km2 and it has borders with Tuscany, Umbria, and Marche to the north, Abruzzo and Molise to the east, Campania to the south. The region is flat and hilly, with small mountainous areas in the most eastern and southern districts. The coast of Lazio is mainly composed of beaches, punctuated by the headlands of Circeo. The Pontine Islands, which are part of Lazio, lie opposite the southern coast, behind the coastal strip, to the north, lies the Maremma Laziale, a coastal plain interrupted at Civitavecchia by the Tolfa Mountains. The central section of the region is occupied by the Roman Campagna, the southern districts are characterized by the flatlands of Agro Pontino, a once swampy and malarial area, that was reclaimed over the centuries. To the south of the Tiber, other groups form part of the Preapennines, the Alban Hills, also of volcanic origin. The highest peak is Mount Gorzano on the border with Abruzzo, see also, History of Italy The Italian word Lazio descends from the Latin word Latium. The name of the region also survives in the designation of the ancient population of Latins, Latini in the Latin language spoken by them. Although the demography of ancient Rome was multi-ethnic, including, for example, Etruscans and other Italics besides the Latini, in Roman mythology, the tribe of the Latini took their name from king Latinus. Much of Lazio is in flat or rolling. The lands originally inhabited by the Latini were extended into the territories of the Samnites, the Marsi, the Hernici, the Aequi, the Aurunci and the Volsci, all surrounding Italic tribes. This larger territory was still called Latium, but it was divided into Latium adiectum or Latium Novum, the lands or New Latium, and Latium Vetus, or Old Latium. The northern border of Lazio was the Tiber river, which divided it from Etruria, the emperor Augustus officially united almost all of present-day Italy into a single geo-political entity, Italia, dividing it into eleven regions. However, the wars against the Longobards weakened the region. With the Donation of Sutri in 728, the Bishop of Rome acquired the first territory in the region beyond the Duchy of Rome, the strengthening of the religious and ecclesiastical aristocracy led to continuous power struggles between secular lords and the Pope until the middle of the 16th century. Other popes tried to do the same, during the period when the papacy resided in Avignon, France, the feudal lords power increased due to the absence of the Pope from Rome
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope Benedict XIII". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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