The Church in ExileRome in Decay

Pope Boniface VIIIdies in 1303

• on September 7, 1303 an army led by Sciarra Colonna family surprised Boniface at his retreat in Anagni who demanded he he resign. Boniface VIII refused and was beaten badly. He was released from captivity after three days and died on October 11, 1303.

Benedict XI

• Pope Benedict XI (born Nicola Boccasini), was elected Pope after Boniface’s death and died on July 7, 1304.

Pope Clement V1305-1314

• Raymond Bertrand de Got, elected Pope in June 5, 1305

• At Bordeaux at the time, he would never reign in Rome, for the first 4 years the papacy functioned from Poitiers

• In 1309 Clement moved the Papacy to Avignon• So begins the “Babylonian captivity”

Clement and the Empire

• Clement V's pontificate was also a disastrous time for Italy. The Papal States were entrusted to a team of three cardinals, but Rome, the battleground of the Colonna and Ordini factions, was ungovernable.

• In 1310 , the Emperor Henry VII (1308–13) entered Italy at Celent’s request, but Clement withdrew his consent and Henry had to fight just to get into Rome where he was crowned by Clement V's legates in (1312) .

John XXII

• Pope John XXII (1249 – December 4, 1334), born Jacques Duèze (or d'Euse), was pope from 1316 to 1334. He was the second Pope of the Avignon Papacy (1309-1377), elected by a conclave in Lyon assembled by Philip V of France. Like his predecessor, Clement V, he centralized power and income in the Papacy, living a princely life in Avignon. He opposed Louis IV of Bavaria as emperor, and Louis in turn invaded Italy and set up an antipope, Nicholas V. During this conflict, Pope John excommunicated Franciscan friar and scholar William of Ockham.

Pope Benedict XII

• born Jacques Fournier, was Pope from 1334 to 1342. (died April 25, 1342),

• He also ordered the construction of the Palais des Papes in Avignon.

Palais des Papes - Avignon

Palais des Papes

Petrarca in Avignon

• Meets Laura April 6, 1327 (Good Friday)

• Meets Cola Di Rienzo 1343

Petrarch on Avignon

• Petrarch, Letter to a friend, 1340

...Now I am living in France, in the Babylon of the West. The sun in its travels sees nothing more hideous than this place on the shores of the wild Rhone, which suggests the hellish streams of Cocytus and Acheron. Here reign the successors of the poor fishermen of Galilee; they have strangely forgotten their origin. I am astounded, as I recall their predecessors, to see these men loaded with gold and clad in purple, boasting of the spoils of princes and nations; to see luxurious palaces and heights crowned with fortifications, instead of a boat turned downward for shelter.

• We no longer find the simple nets which were once used to gain a frugal sustenance from the lake of Galilee, and with which, having labored all night an caught nothing, they took, at daybreak, a multitude of fishes, in the name of Jesus. One is stupefied nowadays to hear the lying tongues, and to see worthless parchments turned by a leaden seal into nets which are used, in Christ's name, but by the arts of Belial, to catch hordes of unwary Christians. These fish, too, are dressed and laid on the burning coals of anxiety before they fill the insatiable maw of their captors.

• Instead of holy solitude we find a criminal host and crowds of the most infamous satellites; instead of soberness, licentious banquets; instead of pious pilgrimages, preternatural and foul sloth; instead of the bare feet of the apostles, the snowy coursers of brigands fly past us, the horses decked in gold and fed on gold, soon to be shod with gold, if the Lord does not check this slavish luxury. In short, we seem to be among the kings of the Persians or Parthians, before whom we must fall down and worship, and who cannot be approached except presents be offered. O ye unkempt and emaciated old men, is it for this you labored? Is it for this that you have sown the field of the Lord and watered it with your holy blood? But let us leave the subject.

• I have been so depressed and overcome that the heaviness of my soul has passed into bodily affliction, so that I am really ill and can only give voice to sighs and groans.

Pope Clement VI 1342 - 1352

• Pope during the time of Cola di Rienzo.

• Clement had appointed Cola to a civil position at Rome, and, although at first approving the establishment of the tribunate, he later sent a legate who excommunicated him and, with the help of the aristocratic faction, drove him from the city in December 1347.

Rome in the Middle Ages

Cola Di Rienzo1313- 1354

Cola’s Rome

• Portico of Octavia / Sant’Angelo in Pescheria

Theater of Marcellus / Home of the Savelli

Torre delle MilizieHome of the Annibaldi

Torre dei Conti Beside Torre delle Milizie)

Torre dei Conti

ColosseumHome of the Frangipane

Cola Di Rienzo1313-1354

• In Rome on May 20, 1347 Cola di Rienzo, a young visionary with a gift for oratory, overthrew the rule of the barons and the pope. Cola's revolution then attempted to restore the greatness of the medieval commune, revive the ancient Roman Republic, and usher in a new age of liberty, justice and peace. The bright hope for Rome and Italy soon changed to disillusionment, however, as pope and barons conspired to isolate and then topple the Tribune of the People only seven months later.

Aftermath

• After a period of exile and wandering in the Abruzzi Mountains, Cola traveled to the Holy Roman Emperor in Prague where he was befriended by Charles IV but eventually arrested, imprisoned by the Inquisition, and turned over to his arch-enemy, Pope Clement VI in Avignon. In a bizarre turn of events he was freed and returned to Rome to restore the republic. Shortly thereafter the barons revolted again; and Rienzo was slain by a mob on the Capitoline Hill, near where his bronze statue now stands.