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IN our efforts to realise the leading events of our own history we experience no small difficulty from the fact that so much of the face of England has completely altered its outward appearance under the stress of modern development, so that we find it particularly hard to picture to ourselves their original setting. Our overgrown yet ever-spreading capital owns scarcely a feature to-day in common with the London of the Tudors or Plantagenets; the relentless pushing of industrial enterprise has turned whole shires from green to black, from verdant countryside to smoke-grimed scenes of commerce. It is therefore well-nigh impossible for us in many cases to conjure up the old-world conditions of Merrie England. But in writing of Italian annals we are confronted by no such problem: altered to a certain extent no doubt is the present aspect of Italy, yet in Florence, Venice, Siena and most of her cities we still possess the empty stages of the pageants and deeds of long ago, all ready prepared for us to people with the famous figures of the historic past...
The stories of seven popes who ruled at seven different critical periods in the 600 years leading into the Reformation.
The papacy has often resembled a secular European monarchy more than a divinely inspired institution. Roman pontiffs bestowed great wealth on their families and forged strategic alliances with other powerful families to increase their power. Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia), for example, forced his daughter Lucrezia into a series of marriages for political reasons. When her marital alliance was no longer advantageous, as was the case in her second marriage, her husband was brutally murdered. Many papal families also intermarried in hopes of forming a hereditary papacy; at least two members of the Fieschi, Piccolomini, Della Rovere, and Medici families served as pope. Papal families since the early history of the church are fully covered in this comprehensive work. Genealogical charts graphically show the descendants of the popes, presenting in many cases the interrelationships between the papal families and their relationships with many of the leading families of Europe. Detailed histories examine the impact of the papacy on each pope's family and how each influenced the history of the church.
This work is concerned with the activities of the Florentine merchants active in Rome during the mid-sixteenth century, and their connections and relations with the Apostolic Chamber, particularly during the pontificate of Pope Paul III.
John Julius Norwich examines the oldest continuing institution in the world, tracing the papal line down the centuries from St Peter (traditionally - but by no means historically - the first Pope) to the present. Of the 280-odd holders of the supreme office, some have unquestionably been saints; others have wallowed in unspeakable iniquity. One was said to have been a woman, her sex being revealed only when she improvidently gave birth to a baby during a papal procession. Almost as shocking was Formosus whose murdered corpse was exhumed, clothed in pontifical vestments, propped up on a throne and subjected to trial; or John XII, of whom Gibbon wrote 'his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the shrine of St Peter'. John Julius Norwich brings the story up to date with lively investigations into the anti-semitism of the contemptible Pius XII, the possible murder of John Paul I and the phenomenon of the Polish John Paul II. From the glories of Byzantium to the decay of Rome, from the Albigensian Heresy to controversy within the Church today, "The Popes" is superbly written, witty and revealing.
"A brilliant book on a number of different levels. Lascelles has an engaging prose style and an amazing eye for detail and apposite anecdote. Surely only purblind Catholic zelanti will object to this outstanding analysis.” – Frank McLynn, author of Genghis Khan, Napoleon and 1066 “Lascelles has achieved the seemingly impossible: a concise and highly readable history of Catholic Popes that manages to be extremely entertaining and informative at the same time.” – Gerald Posner, author of God’s Bankers “Lascelles has taken an overwhelming subject, and not been overwhelmed by it in any way. A highly enjoyable read. ” – Paul Strathern, author of The Medici For many people, the popes are an irrelevance: if they consider them at all, it may be as harmless old men who preach obscure sermons in Latin. But the history of the popes is far from bland. On the contrary, it is occasionally so bizarre as to stretch credulity. Popes have led papal armies, fled in disguise, fathered children (including future popes), and authorised torture. They have been captured, assaulted and murdered. While many have been admired, others have been hated to such a degree that their funeral processions have been disrupted and statues of them torn down after their deaths. Many have been the enemies of freedom and progress – divisive rather than unifying figures. In a fascinating and engaging read, best-selling author Christopher Lascelles examines the history of the popes through the ages, laying bare the extent to which many of them fell so very short of the Christian ideals they supposedly represented. He explains how it was that, professing to follow a man who said ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ and 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth’, they nevertheless became the heads of a rich state that owned more land in Europe than any king, relying on foreign military aid to keep power; and how pride, greed and corruption became commonplace in an institution founded on love, faith and forgiveness. This book is aimed at the general reader who is short on time and seeks an accessible overview unencumbered by ecclesiastical jargon and scholarly controversies.