Pope Clement III, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 December 1187 to his death in 1191. He ended the conflict between the Papacy and the city of Rome, by allowing the election of magistrates, which reinstalled the Papacy back in the city after a six year exile. Clement, faced with a deplete college of cardinals, created thirty-one cardinals over three years, the most since Hadrian IV. He died 20 March 1191 and was quickly replaced by Celestine III.
Pope Clement VII was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 November 1523 to his death on 25 September 1534. Deemed "the most unfortunate of the popes", Clement VII's reign was marked by a rapid succession of political, military, and religious struggles—many long in the making—which had far-reaching consequences for Christianity and world politics.
Pope Gregory X, born Teobaldo Visconti, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1 September 1271 to his death and was a member of the Secular Franciscan Order. He was elected at the conclusion of a papal election that ran from 1268 to 1271, the longest papal election in the history of the Catholic Church.
Pope Innocent IV, born Sinibaldo Fieschi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 25 June 1243 to his death in 1254.
Pope Innocent X, born Giovanni Battista Pamphilj, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 September 1644 to his death, in January 1655.
Pope John XXII, born Jacques Duèze, was head of the Catholic Church from 7 August 1316 to his death, in December 1334. He was the second and longest-reigning Avignon Pope, elected by the Conclave of Cardinals, which was assembled in Lyon. Like his predecessor, Clement V, Pope John centralized power and income in the Papacy and lived a princely life in Avignon.
The Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven successive popes resided in Avignon rather than in Rome. The situation arose from the conflict between the papacy and the French crown, culminating in the death of Pope Boniface VIII after his arrest and maltreatment by Philip IV of France. Following the subsequent death of Pope Benedict XI, Philip forced a deadlocked conclave to elect the French Clement V as pope in 1305. Clement refused to move to Rome, and in 1309 he moved his court to the papal enclave at Avignon, where it remained for the next 67 years. This absence from Rome is sometimes referred to as the "Babylonian captivity” of the Papacy.
Frederick William Rolfe, better known as Baron Corvo, and also calling himself Frederick William Serafino Austin Lewis Mary Rolfe, was an English writer, artist, photographer and eccentric.
Pedro Martínez de Luna y Pérez de Gotor, known as el Papa Luna(lit. 'the Moon Pope') or Pope Luna, was an Aragonese nobleman who was christened antipope Benedict XIII during the Western Schism.
The papal conclave held from 2 to 28 September 1823 ended with the election of Annibale della Genga to succeed the death recently deceased Pius VII as pope. Della Genga took the name Leo XII.
Acclamation was formerly one of the methods of papal election.
Jus exclusivae was the right claimed by several Catholic monarchs of Europe to veto a candidate for the papacy. Although never formally recognized by the Catholic Church, the monarchs of France, Spain and Austria claimed this right at various times, making known to a papal conclave, through a crown-cardinal, that the monarch deemed a particular candidate for the papacy objectionable.
The Renaissance Papacy was a period of papal history between the Western Schism and the Reformation. From the election of Pope Martin V of the Council of Constance in 1417 to the Reformation in the 16th century, Western Christianity was largely free from schism as well as significant disputed papal claimants. There were many important divisions over the direction of the religion, but these were resolved through the then-settled procedures of the papal conclave.
The 1667 papal conclave was convened on the death of Pope Alexander VII and ended with the election of Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi as Pope Clement IX. The conclave was dominated by factions loyal to the cardinal nephews of Alexander VII and Urban VIII. It saw the continued existence of the Squadrone Volante, or Flying Squadron, that had emerged in the 1655 conclave. The conclave also saw Spain and France, the two largest Catholic powers at the time, both support Rospigliosi's election as pope. Ultimately, Rospigliosi's election was achieved when the French ambassador bribed Flavio Chigi, Alexander's nephew, to support Rospigliosi. Following the conclave all the parties believed they had elected the pope that they had wanted.
The September 1276 papal election is the only papal election to be the third election held in the same year; after Pope Gregory X died, two successors died that year, requiring yet another election. The election was also the first non-conclave, since the establishment of the papal conclave after the papal election, 1268–1271.
The 1294 papal conclave was convoked in Naples after the resignation of Pope Celestine V on 13 December 1294. Celestine V had only months earlier restored the election procedures set forth in the papal bull Ubi periculum of Pope Gregory X, which had been suspended by Pope Adrian V in July 1276. Every papal election since then has been a papal conclave. It was the first papal conclave held during the lifetime of the preceding pontiff, an event not repeated until the 2013 papal conclave following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.
The 1280–81 papal election elected Simon de Brion, who took the name Pope Martin IV, as the successor to Pope Nicholas III.
The 1676 papal conclave was convened after the death of Pope Clement X and lasted from 2 August until 21 September 1676. It led to the election of Cardinal Benedetto Odescalchi as Pope Innocent XI.
The 1689 papal conclave was convened after the death of Pope Innocent XI. It led to the election of Cardinal Pietro Vito Ottoboni as Pope Alexander VIII. The conclave saw previous factions join together because they lacked numerical strength, and saw the rise of the zelanti as a political force in the election of the next pope. Ottoboni was eventually unanimously elected with the consent of the secular monarchs, becoming the first Venetian in over 200 years to be elected pope.
The 1691 papal conclave was convened on the death of Pope Alexander VIII and ended with the election of Cardinal Antonio Pignatelli as Pope Innocent XII. It lasted for five months, from 12 February to 12 July 1691. The conclave became deadlocked after Catholic monarchs opposed the election of Gregorio Barbarigo, who some members of the College of Cardinals also viewed as too strict. The conclave only ended in July when cardinals started to become ill from the heat, and after French cardinals agreed to vote for Pignatelli despite him coming from Spanish-controlled Naples.
