The Dark Century
When you think of Rome you also think of the Pope.
Between Rome and the Pope, in fact, there is a unique relationship.
The Supreme Pontiff has always lived in the city of which he is also the Bishop, apart from a brief period in which the popes moved first to Viterbo (1257-1281) and then to Avignon (1309-1377).
Vatican City is in fact located in the heart of Rome, and from that place the Pope exercises his rule in the Church.
This can also help you understand how much the power of the popes has always influenced the history of the city of Rome.
A Rome that has also had to suffer the “saeculum obscurum” of the Church because of inadequate Popes.
This is in fact the name given to that dark and disastrous period in the history of the Popes that goes from 888 to 1046.
Almost 160 years that were full of episodes that certainly did not represent the sacred, but certainly the profane.
This happened because at that time the Carolingian empire disappeared and one of its tasks was to watch over the Church of Rome as its natural protector.
Thus the figure of the Pope, deprived of such an important control, fell under the dominion of the noble families of Rome, who, without any care for the figure who represented the Church, put their relatives or their favorites on the Chair of Peter.
In that period many Popes were elected and all of them were controlled by three families of the Roman nobility in struggle with each other:
– the Theophylacts,
– the Crescenzi
– the Tuscolani.
To understand this period is enough to talk about Marozia a noble woman linked to the family of Teofilatti.
It is said that she was very beautiful and because of her political moves, but not only, she dominated Rome and the Catholic Church for twenty years.
Marozia, when she was only 15 years old around 907, was the lover of Pope Sergius III, her cousin.
From that relationship was born a son named John who was later elected Pope under the name of John XI.
Moreover Marozia was so influential that she was able to decide the election of the next three popes when between 928 and 929 Leo VI and Stephen VII were elected.
In 931 Marozia succeeded in bringing to the papal throne his first-born son, just 21 years old, John XI.
The new Pope, of weak character, was however only an instrument in the hands of his mother, who was considered the mistress of Rome.
Almost simultaneously with the consecration of John XI dies in strange circumstances her husband and Marozia marries his brother-in-law Hugh of Provence.
A move to think to bring her husband to be crowned emperor, using its influence on her son Pope.
Her plans, however, failed because of the intervention of Alberic II, her second son and half-brother of John XI.
In this family struggle Alberic II chased Hugh of Provence from Rome, had his mother arrested and imprisoned Pope John XI, his brother, in the papal palace of the Lateran, thus remaining the undisputed master of Rome by electing to the papal throne Pope Leo VII one of his protégés.
From that moment there was no more news of Marozia.
According to some, she was imprisoned in Castel Sant’Angelo where she died.
I leave you with a little advice.
Even the cinema has talked about the relationship of the Pope with the people of Rome.
In my opinion, it is explained in a wonderful way within three films that I recommend you see.
They are part of the history of Italian cinema and the director is the Roman Luigi Magni, who told through cinema how people lived in the Rome of the Popes in the nineteenth century, also talking about the legendary figure of Pasquino in the first film, called “Nell’anno del Signore” (In the Year of the Lord), made in 1969.
This was followed by
“In the name of the King Pope” of 1977
“In the name of the sovereign people” of 1990.
These films, which if you find you absolutely must see, are also very funny and tell in a perfect way the theme of the relationship between the people, the Roman aristocracy and the papal power, all in the context of the historical upheavals that occurred in the period of the Risorgimento in Italy.
