1.
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
2.
Pope Boniface IX
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Pope Boniface IX, born Pietro Tomacelli, was Pope from 2 November 1389 to his death in 1404. He was the second Roman Pope of the Western Schism, during this time the Popes of the Avignon Obedience, Clement VII and Benedict XIII, maintained the Roman Curia in Avignon, under the protection of the French monarchy. Piero Tomacelli came of an ancient but impoverished family of Casarano in the Kingdom of Naples. An unsympathetic German contemporary source, Dietrich of Nieheim, asserted that he was illiterate, neither Pope had the magnanimity to put an end to the terrible state of affairs by resigning. After his election at the conclave of 1389, Germany, England, Hungary, Poland. The remainder of Europe recognized the Avignon Pope Clement VII and he and Boniface mutually excommunicated each other. Boniface IX saw to it that Ladislaus was crowned King of Naples at Gaeta on 29 May 1390, Boniface IX was born circa 1350 in Naples as Piero Tomacelli, one brother was Andrea. He also took over the port of Ostia from its Cardinal Bishop, in the Papal States, Boniface IX gradually regained control of the chief castles and cities, and he re-founded the States as they would appear during the fifteenth century. The antipope Clement VII died at Avignon on 16 September 1394, but the French cardinals quickly elected a successor on 28 September, Cardinal Pedro de Luna, who took the name Benedict XIII. Over the next few years, Boniface IX was entreated to abdicate, even by his strongest supporters, King Richard II of England, the Diet of Frankfurt, and King Wenceslaus of Germany. Pressure for a council also grew as the only way to breach the Western Schism. During the reign of Boniface IX two jubilees were celebrated at Rome, the first, in 1390, had been declared by his predecessor Pope Urban VI and was largely frequented by people from Germany, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, and England. Several cities of Germany obtained the privileges of the jubilee, as indulgences were called, the jubilee of 1400 drew to Rome great crowds of pilgrims, particularly from France, in spite of a disastrous plague. Pope Boniface IX remained in the city nonetheless and their numbers spread to Spain and northern Italy. These evoked uneasy memories of the processions of wandering flagellants of the Black Death period. They went in procession from city to city, clad in garments, with faces hooded. Rumors of imminent divine judgement and visions of the Virgin Mary abounded and they sang the newly-popular hymn Stabat Mater during their processions. Boniface IX gradually discountenanced these wandering crowds, a prey of agitators and conspirators
3.
Pope Gregory XII
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Pope Gregory XII, born Angelo Corraro, Corario, or Correr, was Pope from 30 November 1406 to 4 July 1415 when he was forced to resign to end the Western Schism. On 1 December 1390 he was made Titular Patriarch of Constantinople, on 12 June 1405 he was created cardinal and the Cardinal-Priest of San Marco by Pope Innocent VII. He was Apostolic Administrator of Constantinople from 30 November 1406 to 23 October 1409 and he became Supreme Pontiff on 30 November 1406, taking the name Gregory XII. The two pontiffs opened wary negotiations to meet on neutral turf at Savona in Liguria, but soon began to waver in their resolve, the cardinals of Gregory XII openly showed their dissatisfaction at this manoeuvring and gave signs of their intention to abandon him. On 4 May 1408, Gregory XII convened his cardinals at Lucca, consequently, they summoned the council to Pisa and invited both pontiffs to be present. Neither Gregory XII nor Benedict XIII appeared, meanwhile, Gregory XII stayed with his loyal and powerful protector, the condottiero Carlo I Malatesta, who had come to Pisa in person during the process of the council to support Gregory XII. At the fifteenth session,5 June 1409, the Council of Pisa deposed the two pontiffs as schismatical, heretical, perjured, and scandalous, they elected Alexander V later that month. Gregory XII, who had created ten more cardinals, had convoked a rival council at Cividale del Friuli, near Aquileia. Gregory XIIs cardinals pronounced Benedict XIII and Alexander V schismatics, perjurers, and devastators of the Church, the Council of Constance finally resolved the situation. Gregory XII appointed Carlo Malatesta and Cardinal Giovanni Dominici of Ragusa as his proxies, the cardinal then convoked the council and authorized its succeeding acts, thus preserving the formulas of Papal supremacy. Thereupon on 4 July 1415, Malatesta, acting in the name of Gregory XII, pronounced the resignation of the Pope, the Council then set aside Antipope John XXIII, the successor of Alexander V. After the former follower of Benedict XIII appeared, the council declared him deposed, a new Roman pontiff, Pope Martin V, was not elected before Gregory XIIs death. Therefore, the Papal seat was vacant for two years, the rest of Gregory XIIs life was spent in peaceful obscurity in Ancona. He was the last pope to resign until Benedict XVI did so on 28 February 2013, Papal resignation This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Ott, Michael
4.
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
5.
Sulmona
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Sulmona is a city and comune of the province of LAquila in Abruzzo, Italy. It is in Valle Peligna, a plateau once occupied by a lake that disappeared in prehistoric times, Sulmona was one of the principal cities of the Peligni, as an independent tribe, but no notice of it is found in history before the Roman conquest. A tradition alluded to by Ovid and Silius Italicus, which ascribed its foundation to Solymus, the first mention of Sulmo occurs in the Second Punic War, when its territory was ravaged by Hannibal in 211 BC, who, however, did not attack the city itself. The writings of that rhetorical writer are not, however, to be taken literally, antonius as soon as he presented himself. Not much more is known historically of Sulmo, which, however, from the Liber Coloniarum we learn also that it had received the status of a colony, probably in the time of Augustus, though Pliny does not give it the title of a Colonia. Inscriptions, as well as the geographers and Itineraries, attest its continued existence as a municipal town throughout the Roman Empire, traditionally, the beginning of the Christian age in Sulmona is set in the 3rd century. The city was part of the diocese of Valva, while a Sulmonese bishop is known from the 5th century, one of the earliest bishops was Saint Pamphilus, an Italian pagan convert to Christianity in the 7th century from nearby Corfinium. He was elected bishop of Valva in 682 and died in 706 and he is the patron saint of Sulmona and is buried in the church dedicated to him, the present Sulmona Cathedral. Sulmona became a commune under the Normans. Despite that, it continued to expand and a new line of walls was added in the 14th century, in the 16th century a flourishing paper industry was started. In 1706 the city was razed by an earthquake. Much of the city was rebuilt in the prevailing elegant Baroque style of the 18th Century. Sulmona experienced a boom in the late 19th Century due its railway hub. The anarchist and labor organiser Carlo Tresca was born there in 1879 and was active in the Italian Railroad Workers Federation until emigrating to the US in 1904, sulmonas strategic position also made it a target for air raids during World War II. The railway station, the sections and parts of the old town were damaged. Campo 78 at Sulmona served as a POW camp in both world wars, the camp itself was built on a hillside and consisted of a number of brick barracks surrounded by a high wall. During World War II, conditions in Sulmona, as in many Italian camps, were good, regular rations of macaroni soup and bread were augmented by fresh fruit and cheese in the summer, and food parcels from the International Committee of the Red Cross were distributed regularly. For recreation, the laid out a football field, and they also had equipment for cricket
6.
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
7.
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
8.
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
9.
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bologna
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The Archdiocese of Bologna is a Roman Catholic archbishopric in northern Italy, with the archiepiscopal seat in Bologna Cathedral. The current Archbishop is Matteo Zuppi since 2015, the archdiocese has the following suffragans, diocese of Imola diocese of Faenza-Modigliana archdiocese of Ferrara-Comacchio. The bishopric of Bologna was founded in the 3rd century and raised to the level of an archbishopric on 10 December 1582, the following is a list of the bishops and archbishops of Bologna from 313 to the present day. P
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope Innocent VII". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton.
