Flamboyant pope who helped make books available to ordinary people
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| Cristofano dell'Altissimo's portrait of Pope Paul II |
He is remembered for enjoying dressing up in sumptuous,
ecclesiastical finery and having a papal tiara made for himself, which was
studded with diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, topaz, large pearls and many other
precious gems.
Barbo was born in Venice and was a nephew of Pope Eugenius
IV through his mother and a member of the noble Barbo family through his
father.
He adopted a spiritual career after his uncle was elected as
pope and made rapid progress. He became a cardinal in 1440 and promised that if
he was elected pope one day he would buy each cardinal a villa to escape the
summer heat. He then became archpriest of St Peter’s Basilica.
It was reported that Pope Pius II suggested he should have
been called Maria Pietissima (Our Lady of Pity) as he would use tears to help
him obtain things he wanted. Some historians have suggested the nickname may
have been an allusion to his enjoyment of dressing up or, possibly, to his lack
of masculinity.
Barbo was elected to succeed Pope Pius II in the first
ballot of the papal conclave of 1464.
Beforehand an agreement had been drawn up that bound the
future pope to continue the Turkish war, to not journey outside Rome without
the consent of the majority of the cardinals, nor to leave Italy without the
consent of all of them.
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| Pope Paul II as depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicles in 1493 |
Upon taking office, the new pope, Paul II, was obliged to
convene an ecumenical council within three years.
Paul II later modified these terms for his own benefit,
losing the confidence of the college of cardinals as a result.
After his coronation, Paul withdrew from public life and
became almost inaccessible. Audiences were granted only at night and even his
good friends waited a fortnight to see him.
Paul II is reputed to have worn rouge in public. There was a
story told by one cardinal that he meant to take the name Formosus II, which
means handsome, but that he was persuaded not to. Another story claimed he was
dissuaded from choosing Marcus because he was Venetian and the Cardinal of San
Marco and because 'Viva San Marco' was the war cry of Venice.
Paul II built the Palazzo San Marco, which is now called
Palazzo Venezia, in Rome and continued to live there even when he was pope.
He annoyed the College of Cardinals by creating new
cardinals in secret without publishing their names. Some were believed to have
even died before their names were published.
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| The house in Venice's Calle della Pietà, where Pietro Barbo was born. |
When Paul II died suddenly of a heart attack, reports of the
cause of death varied. Some said he had collapsed with indigestion after eating
an excess of melons. Some said he had died while being sodomised by a page boy.
Paul II oversaw the introduction of printing into the Papal
States with the results that books became less expensive and enabled more
people to be educated.
He also put on popular amusements for the locals such as a
horse race during the Carnival along a main street in Rome, which then became
known as Via del Corso.
He is said to have forced Jews to run naked in the streets
for the amusement of non-Jews and it is claimed he made them identify
themselves by wearing yellow handkerchiefs in public, a tactic used later
during the Holocaust. After the death of Paul II, the next pope and a selecct
group of cardinals discovered a quantity of jewels, pearls and gold that he had
amassed.
Before he became Pope Paul II, Pietro Barbo was made archpriest
of the old St Peter’s Basilica, the church built over the burial site of St
Peter in the fourth century. It contained tombs for most of the popes from St
Peter to the 15th century but in 1505,
after Paul’s death, Pope Julius II decided to demolish the old Basilica and
replace it with a bigger, far more imposing structure, which would house his
own tomb. The present Basilica was designed by Donato Bramate, Michelangelo,
Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
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| The Palazzo San Marco - now Palazzo Venezia - was Pope Paul II's favoured residence in Rome |
Paul II lived at Palazzo San Marco in Rome even when he was
pope. Now known as Palazzo Venezia, north of Capitoline Hill, the palace was
originally a modest, medieval house for cardinals to live in. It took on a new
layout in 1451 when owned by Pietro Barbo, the future Pope Paul II. It had some
of the first Renaissance architectural features in Rome and much of the stone
used was quarried from the nearby Colosseum, a common practice until the 18th
century.