1.
Pope John XV
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John XV and Pope John XV can also refer to Pope John XV of Alexandria. Pope John XV was Pope from August 985 to his death in 996 and he was said to have been Pope after another Pope John who reigned four months after Pope John XIV and was named Papa Ioannes XIV Bis or Pope John XIVb. This supposed second John XIV never existed, rather he was confused with a cardinal deacon John, son of Robert. In 993, he was the first pope to proclaim a saint, at the request of the German ruler, he canonized Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg on 31 January 993. Before that time, saint cults had been local and spontaneous, John XV was the son of Leo, a Roman presbyter. The Popes venality and nepotism made him unpopular with the citizens of Rome. He was a patron and protector of the monks of Cluny. During this papacy, a dispute arose over the deposition in 991 of Arnulf, Archbishop of Reims, by French churchmen. Hugh Capet, king of France, made Arnulf archbishop of Reims in 988, even though Arnulf was the nephew of the Kings bitter rival, Charles thereupon succeeded in capturing Reims and took the archbishop prisoner. Hugh, however, considered Arnulf a turncoat and demanded his deposition by John XV, what would you say of such a one, when you see him sitting upon the throne glittering in purple and gold. Must he not be the Antichrist, sitting in the temple of God, the proceedings of the Synod of Reims were repudiated by Rome, although a second synod had ratified the decrees issued there. John XV summoned the French bishops to hold an independent synod outside the French kings realm at Aachen to reconsider the case, when they refused, he called them to Rome, but they protested that the unsettled conditions en route and in Rome made that impossible. Through the exertions of the legate, the deposition of Arnulf was finally pronounced illegal, after Hugh Capets death on 23 October 996, Arnulf was released from his imprisonment and soon restored to all his dignities. As for Gerbert, he set out for the court at Magdeburg. This was the first time in history that a solemn canonization had been made by a Pope, the Emperor then elevated his own kinsman Bruno to the papal dignity under the name of Gregory V. Herbermann, Charles, ed. Pope John XV. Franz Xaver Seppelt, Geschichte der Päpste, 2nd edition, Kösel Verlag, Munich,1955, pp. 381ff. In, Massimo Bray, Enciclopedia dei Papi, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Vol.2, Rome,2000, OCLC313581688, pp. 102–107
2.
Pope Sylvester II
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Pope Sylvester II or Silvester II was Pope from 2 April 999 to his death in 1003. Originally known as Gerbert of Aurillac, he was a prolific scholar and he is said to be the first to introduce in Europe the decimal numeral system using Arabic numerals. He was the first French Pope, Gerbert was born about 946 in the town of Belliac, near the present-day commune of Saint-Simon, Cantal, France. Around 963, he entered the monastery of St. Gerald of Aurillac, in the following years, Gerbert studied under the direction of Atto, Bishop of Vic, some 60 km north of Barcelona, and probably also at the nearby Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll. Neither place was under Islamic rule at the time, Borrell II of Barcelona was facing major defeat from the Andalusian powers so he sent a delegation to Córdoba to request a truce. Bishop Atto was part of the delegation met with Al-Hakam II of Cordoba. Atto was mesmerized by the palaces in Cordoba and returned with great respect for the Arabs, Gerbert insisted that Atto teach him more about these Arabic princes who seemed to him more interested in the sciences and literature than warfare. This sparked Gerberts veneration for the Arabs and his passion for mathematics, in 969, Count Borrell II made a pilgrimage to Rome, taking Gerbert with him. There Gerbert met Pope John XIII and the Emperor Otto I, the Pope persuaded Otto I to employ Gerbert as a tutor for his young son, the future Emperor Otto II. Some years later, Otto I gave Gerbert leave to study at the school of Rheims where he was soon appointed a teacher by Archbishop Adalberon. After the death of Otto II in 983, Gerbert became involved in the politics of his time, in 985, with the support of his archbishop, he opposed Lothair of Frances attempt to take the Lorraine from Emperor Otto III by supporting Hugh Capet. Capet became King of France, ending the Carolingian line of Kings in 987, Adalberon died on 23 January 989. Gerbert was a candidate for his succession, but Hugh Capet appointed Arnulf. Arnulf was deposed in 991 for alleged treason against the King, there was so much opposition to Gerberts elevation to the See of Rheims, however, that Pope John XV sent a legate to France who temporarily suspended Gerbert from his episcopal office. Gerbert sought to show that this decree was unlawful, but a further synod in 995 declared Arnulfs deposition invalid, Gerbert now became the teacher of Otto III, and Pope Gregory V, Otto IIIs cousin, appointed him Archbishop of Ravenna in 998. With the Emperors support, he was elected to succeed Gregory V as Pope in 999, Gerbert took the name of Sylvester II, alluding to Pope Sylvester I, the advisor to Emperor Constantine I. Soon after he was elected pope, Sylvester II confirmed the position of his former rival Arnulf as archbishop of Rheims, in 1001, the Roman populace revolted against the Emperor, forcing Otto III and Sylvester II to flee to Ravenna. Otto III led two expeditions to regain control of the city and died on a third expedition in 1002
3.
Duchy of Carinthia
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The Duchy of Carinthia was a duchy located in southern Austria and parts of northern Slovenia. It was separated from the Duchy of Bavaria in 976, and was the first newly created Imperial State after the original German stem duchies. Carinthia remained a State of the Holy Roman Empire until its dissolution in 1806, a constituent part of the Habsburg Monarchy and of the Austrian Empire, it remained a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary until 1918. By the Carinthian Plebiscite in October 1920, the area of the duchy formed the Austrian state of Carinthia. In the seventh century the area was part of the Slavic principality of Carantania, the Bavarian stem duchy was incorporated into the Carolingian Empire when Charlemagne deposed Odilos son Duke Tassilo III in 788. In the 843 partition by the Treaty of Verdun, Carinthia became part of East Francia under King Louis the German, after Berthold became Duke of Bavaria in 938, both territories were ruled by him. Duke Henrys son Henry II the Quarreller from 974 onwards, revolted against his cousin Emperor Otto II, at the same time Emperor Otto II created a sixth duchy in addition to the original stem duchies, the new Duchy of Carinthia. He reverted the possession of the territories to the Luitpoldings, when he split Carinthia from the Bavarian lands, over the centuries, the name Carinthia gradually replaced former Carantania. The realm of the Carinthian dukes initially comprised a vast territory including the marches of Styria, Carniola and Istria, though Henry once again managed to regain the ducal title in 985, Carinthia upon his death in 989 fell back to the Imperial Ottonian dynasty in Bavaria. Adalbero was removed from office in 1035 after he had out of favour with the Salian Emperor Conrad II. In 1039 Carinthia was inherited by Emperor Henry III himself, who split off the Carniolan march the following year and granted it to Margrave Poppo of Istria. In 1077, the duchy was given to Luitpold, again a member of the Eppensteiner family, upon his death the duchy was further reduced in area, a large part of the Eppenstein lands in what is today Upper Styria passed to Margrave Ottokar II of Styria. The remainder of Carinthia passed from Duke Henry III to his godchild Henry from the House of Sponheim, the most outstanding of the Spanheim dukes was Bernhard, the first Carinthian duke who was actually described and honoured in documents as prince of the land. The last Spanheim duke was Ulrich III, he signed a treaty with his brother Archbishop Philip of Salzburg. In spite of being supported by the Habsburg king Rudolf I of Germany, the duchy was seized by Rudolph and Philip died a year later in 1279. Rudolf, after being elected King of the Romans and defeating King Ottokar II, the Habsburgs would continue to rule Carinthia until 1918. As with the component parts of the Habsburg Monarchy, Carinthia remained a semi-autonomous state with its own constitutional structure for a long time. The Habsburgs divided up their territories within the family twice, according to the 1379 Treaty of Neuberg, each time, the Duchy of Carinthia became part of Inner Austria and was ruled jointly with the adjacent duchies of Styria and Carniola
4.
Holy Roman Empire
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The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor, reviving the title in Western Europe, more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The title was revived in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne, some historians refer to the coronation of Charlemagne as the origin of the empire, while others prefer the coronation of Otto I as its beginning. Scholars generally concur, however, in relating an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, the office of Holy Roman Emperor was traditionally elective, although frequently controlled by dynasties. Emperor Francis II dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon, before 1157, the realm was merely referred to as the Roman Empire. In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, by the end of the 18th century, the term Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had fallen out of official use. As Roman power in Gaul declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control, by the middle of the 8th century, however, the Merovingians had been reduced to figureheads, and the Carolingians, led by Charles Martel, had become the de facto rulers. In 751, Martel’s son Pepin became King of the Franks, the Carolingians would maintain a close alliance with the Papacy. In 768 Pepin’s son Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an expansion of the realm. He eventually incorporated the territories of present-day France, Germany, northern Italy, on Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the west for the first time in over three centuries. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, however, the Carolingian Empire broke apart, according to Regino of Prüm, the parts of the realm spewed forth kinglets, and each part elected a kinglet from its own bowels. After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy, the last such emperor was Berengar I of Italy, who died in 924. Around 900, autonomous stem duchies reemerged in East Francia, on his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry the Fowler of Saxony, who was elected king at the Diet of Fritzlar in 919. Henry reached a truce with the raiding Magyars, and in 933 he won a first victory against them in the Battle of Riade, Henry died in 936, but his descendants, the Liudolfing dynasty, would continue to rule the Eastern kingdom for roughly a century. Upon Henry the Fowlers death, Otto, his son and designated successor, was elected King in Aachen in 936 and he overcame a series of revolts from an elder brother and from several dukes. After that, the managed to control the appointment of dukes. In 951, Otto came to the aid of Adelaide, the queen of Italy, defeating her enemies, marrying her. In 955, Otto won a victory over the Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld
5.
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
6.
Papal States
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The Papal States, officially the State of the Church, were territories in the Italian Peninsula under the sovereign direct rule of the pope, from the 8th century until 1870. They were among the states of Italy from roughly the 8th century until the Italian Peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. At their zenith, they covered most of the modern Italian regions of Lazio, Marche, Umbria and Romagna and these holdings were considered to be a manifestation of the temporal power of the pope, as opposed to his ecclesiastical primacy. By 1861, much of the Papal States territory had been conquered by the Kingdom of Italy, only Lazio, including Rome, remained under the Popes temporal control. In 1870, the pope lost Lazio and Rome and had no physical territory at all, Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini ended the crisis between unified Italy and the Vatican by signing the Lateran Treaty, granting the Vatican City State sovereignty. The Papal States were also known as the Papal State, the territories were also referred to variously as the State of the Church, the Pontifical States, the Ecclesiastical States, or the Roman States. For its first 300 years the Catholic Church was persecuted and unrecognized and this system began to change during the reign of the emperor Constantine I, who made Christianity legal within the Roman Empire, and restoring to it any properties that had been confiscated. The Lateran Palace was the first significant new donation to the Church, other donations followed, primarily in mainland Italy but also in the provinces of the Roman Empire. But the Church held all of these lands as a private landowner, the seeds of the Papal States as a sovereign political entity were planted in the 6th century. Beginning In 535, the Byzantine Empire, under emperor Justinian I, launched a reconquest of Italy that took decades and devastated Italys political, just as these wars wound down, the Lombards entered the peninsula from the north and conquered much of the countryside. While the popes remained Byzantine subjects, in practice the Duchy of Rome, nevertheless, the pope and the exarch still worked together to control the rising power of the Lombards in Italy. As Byzantine power weakened, though, the took a ever larger role in defending Rome from the Lombards. In practice, the papal efforts served to focus Lombard aggrandizement on the exarch, a climactic moment in the founding of the Papal States was the agreement over boundaries embodied in the Lombard king Liutprands Donation of Sutri to Pope Gregory II. When the Exarchate of Ravenna finally fell to the Lombards in 751, the popes renewed earlier attempts to secure the support of the Franks. In 751, Pope Zachary had Pepin the Younger crowned king in place of the powerless Merovingian figurehead king Childeric III, zacharys successor, Pope Stephen II, later granted Pepin the title Patrician of the Romans. Pepin led a Frankish army into Italy in 754 and 756, Pepin defeated the Lombards – taking control of northern Italy – and made a gift of the properties formerly constituting the Exarchate of Ravenna to the pope. The cooperation between the papacy and the Carolingian dynasty climaxed in 800, when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor, the precise nature of the relationship between the popes and emperors – and between the Papal States and the Empire – is disputed. Events in the 9th century postponed the conflict, the Holy Roman Empire in its Frankish form collapsed as it was subdivided among Charlemagnes grandchildren
7.
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
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gregory V". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
