The House of Colonna, also known as Sciarrillo or Sciarra, is an Italian noble family, forming part of the papal nobility. It was powerful in medieval and Renaissance Rome, supplying one pope and many other church and political leaders. The family is notable for its bitter feud with the Orsini family over influence in Rome, until it was stopped by papal bull in 1511. In 1571, the heads of both families married nieces of Pope Sixtus V. Thereafter, historians recorded that "no peace had been concluded between the princes of Christendom, in which they had not been included by name".
Pope Boniface VIII was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 24 December 1294 until his death in 1303. The Caetani family was of baronial origin, with connections to the papacy. He succeeded Pope Celestine V, who had abdicated from the papal throne. Boniface spent his early career abroad in diplomatic roles.
Pope Boniface IX was head of the Catholic Church from 2 November 1389 to his death, in October 1404. He was the second Roman pope during the Western Schism. In this time, the Avignon claimants, Clement VII and Benedict XIII, maintained the Roman Curia in Avignon, under the protection of the French monarchy. He is the last pope to date to take on the pontifical name "Boniface".
Pope Clement V, born Raymond Bertrand de Got, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 5 June 1305 to his death, in April 1314. He is remembered for suppressing the order of the Knights Templar and allowing the execution of many of its members. A Frenchman by birth, Clement moved the Papacy from Rome to Avignon, ushering in the period known as the Avignon Papacy.
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.
Nicholas V, born Pietro Rainalducci was an antipope in Italy from 12 May 1328 to 25 July 1330 during the pontificate of Pope John XXII (1316–1334) at Avignon. He was the last antipope set up by a Holy Roman Emperor.
Anagni is an ancient town and comune in the province of Frosinone, Latium, in the hills east-southeast of Rome. It is an historical and artistic centre of the Latin Valley.
The Fraticelli or Spiritual Franciscans opposed changes to the rule of Saint Francis of Assisi, especially with regard to poverty, and regarded the wealth of the Church as scandalous, and that of individual churchmen as invalidating their status. The Fraticelli were declared heretical in 1296 by Boniface VIII.
Unam sanctam is a papal bull that was issued by Pope Boniface VIII on 18 November 1302. It laid down dogmatic propositions on the unity of the Catholic Church, the necessity of belonging to it for eternal salvation, the position of the Pope as supreme head of the Church and the duty thence arising of submission to the Pope in order to belong to the Church and thus to attain salvation. The Pope further emphasized the higher position of the spiritual in comparison with the secular order. The historian Brian Tierney calls it "probably the most famous" document on church and state in medieval Europe. The original document is lost, but a version of the text can be found in the registers of Boniface VIII in the Vatican Archives. The bull was the definitive statement of the late medieval theory of hierocracy, which argued for the temporal as well as spiritual supremacy of the pope.
Pietro Colonna was an Italian cardinal.
The 1292–94 papal election, was the last papal election which did not take the form of a papal conclave. After the death of Pope Nicholas IV on 4 April 1292, the eleven surviving cardinals deliberated for more than two years before electing the third of six non-cardinals to be elected pope during the Late Middle Ages: Pietro da Morrone, who took the name Pope Celestine V.
The 1304–1305 papal conclave was initiated after the death of Pope Benedict XI in July 1304. The conclave took place in Perugia, the city in which Benedict had died, and proved to be a protracted affair. It ran from 10 or 17 July 1304 to 5 June 1305, and ultimately elected the non-cardinal Raymond Bertrand de Got as Pope Clement V. At the time of his election de Got was Archbishop of Bordeaux, and thus a subject of Edward I, King of England, although he was a childhood friend of Philip IV of France. Clement V's decision to relocate the papacy to France was one of the most contested issues in the papal conclave following his 1314 death, during which the minority of Italian cardinals were unable to engineer the return of the papacy to Rome. This immediately preceded the beginning of the Avignon Papacy.
Napoleone Orsini was a Roman cardinal. His ecclesiastical career lasted 57 years, 54 of them as a cardinal, and included six conclaves.
In the 1303 papal conclave, Benedict XI was elected to succeed Boniface VIII as pope.
Onorato I Caetani was an Italian nobleman, who was the count of Fondi from 1348 and the Great Constable of the Kingdom of Naples also from 1348. He was also lord of Sermoneta, Bassiano, Marino and also Senator of Rome from 1384.
Giovanni Colonna was a Roman Catholic cardinal during the Avignon papacy and was a scion of the famous Colonna family that played an important role in Italian history.
Pedro Rodríguez de Quexada or Petrus Hispanus was an ecclesiastic from Castile.
Matteo Rosso Orsini, was a Roman aristocrat, politician, diplomat, and Roman Catholic Cardinal. He was the nephew of Pope Nicholas III (1277-1280).
Giacomo or Jacopo Colonna was a member of a powerful noble family in Rome, and an Italian cardinal.
Luca Fieschi was a Genoese nobleman and Roman Catholic cardinal from 1300.
