Loading summary
Transcript128 lines
- [00:00]
Katie Charlwood
Foreign.
- [00:14]
Co-host
Hello, delicious friend. Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to who
- [00:20]
did what now, the history podcast.
- [00:22]
That is not your history class. With me, your host, Katie Charlwood, history
- [00:28]
harlot and reader of books.
- [00:31]
Well, well, well.
- [00:34]
I had a fun weekend. By fun, I mean tiring. It was my daughter's 10th birthday, so I took her and my son down to Dublin for the day overnight. And we stayed in this, like, really cool hotel. And everything was, like, super fun. We went to Dublinia, which is like the whole Viking thing in Dublin. And then we went to. We did a VR sandbox thing. We did lots of stuff, right? And everything's going well, everything's cool, everything's fun. And we had great plans to get up early and go to the zoo the next morning. However, fate was not on our side because we had to be evacuated from
- [01:14]
our hotel at one o' clock in
- [01:15]
the morning due to a small fire. So whatever happened in whatever room, whatever floor, I don't know, right? All I know is one o' clock in the morning, fire alarm's going off and we're getting out that room and like, we're all in pajamas. And because it's the summer, they're all short pajamas. And like my son Also, he's like 11, he's, he runs hot. So he sleeps with like, just shorts on. And so, like, I wake up, I start grabbing the jackets off of the, like, the coat hangers and I'm like, shoes on. And he sits bolt up and he's like, what's going on? And I'm like, it's okay, it's just a fire alarm. I need you to get your jacket on. So I give him his jacket, I tell him to put his shoes on, and I try to wake up his sister. Now this girl, this girl slept through fire alarms. This girl could sleep through a jackhammer. This girl could sleep through an earthquake. And yet here we are.
- [02:15]
I am trying to, like, wake her up.
- [02:17]
I'm shaking her, he's shaking her, she's not budging. And I'm like, crap, I'm gonna have to carry this kid down the stairs.
- [02:24]
Like, she's play sports.
- [02:25]
So she's all muscle as well. So I'm like, oh, dear, let's hope the gym has been kicking off, like, never miss leg day. So I was like, great, put on my serial killer rain jacket, grab my phone, grab my room key in the pockets, go to grab my child. And so I scoop her up and that's when she wakes up because she's like, what is going on? And then she hears the fire alarm. She's freaking out, and I'm like, don't worry about it. I was like, fire alarm. Don't worry about it. We're gonna go downstairs. Here, put this jacket on. Here, let me get your shoes on. So I get her shoes on. I'm tying her laces. At this point, my son has opened the door, and he's walking out of it. So I have her. She's walking beside me. I literally grab a teddy, throw it into her arms. Like, hold this, because they've both got a teddy each. And we're going down the stairs. Well, we go out the room, and he's ahead, and then I can't see him in the hallway. And the man who's holding the fire escape door open. It's like, I stand there, I'm holding her, and I shout his name. And then this guy goes. He describes my son. And I go, yes. And he goes. He's already going down the stairs. And I go, great. So we get out onto the stairwell. When I'm on the stairwell, I can physically see him. He is like. He is leading the way. He's showing people out. His hands are over his ears, though, because he just cannot deal with the noise. And he is heading to the assembly point out in the car park. So off we go. We get there.
- [03:51]
It's cold.
- [03:52]
And then it gets to the point where they. They've gone from being half asleep to being full of adrenaline. And then, like, it's like. It's just. It's just there's so many of us, but, like, it's so funny because there were so many people who were not only fully dressed, but had their cases with them. And I'm like, I don't know. What's that important to you? Unless that case is full of medication or, like, you know, something irreplaceable. Like, you. You don't. If there's a fire alarm, you get out. Like, nobody was really panicking so much on my floor. Like, we went down three flights, but I was like, no, there's a fire alarm. We're getting out of the building. And if nothing else in my brain, I'm like, I need them to know that if they hear the alarm, they need to leave the building, you know, because the last thing I want is for them to hear an alarm and just be like,
- [04:47]
what?
- [04:48]
Like, I'll just stay. It'll be fine. Because it might not be at that point, but anyway, we're outside, we're out there. My friends start sending Pictures of their. Of their dogs and stuff. You know, my friend Saher, she was sending me the dog pictures and kids love dogs, so it was really, really great distracting them. But, like, I just love the fact the adrenaline kicked in and she's like, I'm in bloody shorts. And she's like, it's cold. He was so mad at it. But, yeah, then she was like. As we get back to the room, after the firemen come and after everything calms down and we're told to go back to the room, like, apparently there was like a small fire, somebody was smoking in a room and like, nothing. It was more like a little trash can, a bed, and kind of went up. But it was all fine, it was all sorted, no worries. But anyway, we go up, we're back in, everything's fine, and, like, she's complaining,
- [05:40]
Katie Charlwood
I'm not gonna be able to sleep now.
- [05:41]
Co-host
I'm just like, too much of this. And I was like, all right, give her a cuddle. Zonked out, she goes. But, yeah, the next morning, she's like, I just don't think.
- [05:52]
I don't think I'm up to the zoo today.
- [05:54]
And I was like, okay, okay. So we ended up doing an escape room instead. We did a Sherlock Holmes escape room and we. We beat it by 10 minutes. And it's actually really funny because we were doing the escape room and I was still reading the first clue because they'd found it and they'd read it and they handed it to me and as I'm reading it, they've solved it.
- [06:17]
I was like, what?
- [06:19]
And I'm like, these are my children. But hoo hoo. Anywho, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, katie, it's Pride Month.
- [06:28]
Quit your jibber jabber and fact me
- [06:31]
and fact you I will. But first we've got to get our
- [06:35]
source on the Black Prince of Florence by Catherine Fletcher, Cardinal Benedigli Sauli and church Patronage in 16th century Italy by Helen Hyde. Church in Politics in Renaissance Italy. The Life and Career of Cardinal Francesco Sorrini by Kate Lowe. The Pontificate of Leo X by William Roscoe. Under the A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations by Arnold Vandeleur. Sex and Spirituality in 1500s Rome by Gilbert. History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages Drawn from the Secret Archives of the Vatican and other Original Sources by. By Ludwig von Pastor. The Medici Popes by Herbert M Vaughan. And of course, we have our favourites, history.com and biography.com. are you sitting comfortably.
- [07:36]
Good.
- [07:37]
Then let's begin. So Pope Leo X did not start his life as Leo X, obviously, or as Pope. That would be weird. He came into the world as Giovanni di Lorenzo de Medici. Yes. Added the accent for dramatic effect. Apologies to any Italian listeners. And he was born on 11 December in 1475 in Florence, Italy. He was the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, head of the Florentine Republic, and Clarice Orsini. So he was the second son of Lorenzo de Medici. And being the second son, there's kind of rules. So the first son, he's going to inherit everything. He is your main sort of link in the chain. He is where your lineage, your heritage, your money, that's all going to go down him. His side. That's just how things were in the past. Oh. So I'm just saying this is a random second son. I mean, second son of a prominent figure, but still second son from the 1400s. And we have a birthday. Do you know how hard it is to find a medieval woman's birthday? I'm just putting it out there. It's absolutely shocking. But we have Giovanni here, so he is the second son. And the first son, they usually go in, you know, run the family business or whatever. The second son usually goes into the church, because that would be an ecumenical matter. The second son usually goes into the clergy, because that's another place of power, especially in Italy, because, you know, Italy as a general rule, very Catholic, like quite a lot of. Well, for quite a lot of Europe,
- [09:46]
Katie Charlwood
especially incredibly Catholic for most of this.
- [09:52]
Co-host
Definitely Christian, but usually Catholic.
- [09:55]
Katie Charlwood
So just as a sidebar, when people
- [09:58]
Co-host
discuss medieval Europe, they do not mean, like, Europe as a whole, especially as a geographical concept, because we see geography as this is the line drawn in the sand. This is this area. This is that area. And, you know, it was less of a physical geographic location, and it was more related to political or ecclesiastical affiliations, effectively. Medieval Europe is Christian Europe. That's what they mean. So if anybody discusses anything out with that, that's not what they're talking about. That's why generalizations happen. And you go, oh, but what about this? Yeah, it's because they're not counting it, because history is written by monks and stuff, and that's basically what it all comes down to. The monks were the ones writing the notes. So back to them being Christian. So Italy is so Christian that the king of Italy became the head of the Holy Roman Empire, known as the Holy Roman Emperor. Like, that's how much power the Church wielded they had like an empire. And a lot of things couldn't happen sort of within medieval Europe without the Pope say so, without that blessing, without that power. So there would be political power, which one some would have, and then another form of political power through the Church. So one would go through official political channels, and one would go through the religious channels. And it was just a way of ensuring that sort of power.
- [11:50]
I don't know a better way to put it.
- [11:51]
Like, it's just covering all your bases, you know, making sure you've every corner covered, you know, so if you need to put something through, you have these alliances and affiliations and all of these connections. So it was deemed very early on that the second son, Medici number two, was going to have a career in the Church. And when he's 7, he ends up getting benefices, which is basically rewards for being, you know, good and holy and wanting to do churchy things. And he gets these. And his dad's like, just careful now. You don't want to get into, like, luxury and vices and all this kind of stuff because you want to be like, good, like a good dude. Ha, ha, ha. This may shock you, but that is not how this story is gonna go. It's not gonna go at all. So his dad, Lorenzo, being incredibly important, starts, you know, lobbying on his behalf to Pope Innocent VII to name him the Cardinal of Santa Maria in Dominica. Sorry for the accent. I can't help myself. I should probably add, there's going to be a lot of nepotism in this story. Like, you think there's nepotism? You think you've seen a Nepal baby? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. There is not a level of nepotism than sort of Renaissance Italy. Like, the amount of favors and people getting jobs just because, you know, they're related to a Pope is absolutely ridiculous. Like, this has gotten to a point where the Pope has access to all this money and all this power, and they're just living it up like, half the time. Like, I understand the concept of wanting to help your friend or relative or whatever, but there comes a point where it's not helpful and is just incredibly self serving. But, yeah, he ends up being named cardinal at age 13, which I, I feel is just too young to be a cardinal. Like, he doesn't become a priest, and I think at this point he's like, he should. You should be a priest first and then work your way up to cardinal. Like, isn't that how it's supposed to go? You're supposed to go up the steps, up the ladders, you learn your bit. But no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not Giovanni here. No, no, no, he doesn't have to do that. Bloody ridiculous. So he's not allowed to wear, like, the insignia or do stuff in the, you know, in the college until he's 16. Like, they're like, no, no, no, no, you can't be doing that. Which is shocking. So he can be a cardinal as long as he doesn't, like, dress like a cardinal. Like you can be in our group, but you can't wear the uniform. But weird, but weird. I mean, he has, you know, a child at this point, so I get it. So seeing as he can't be like, proper for long cardinal, he ends up getting an education at Lorenzo's court. And it is a humanist education, the same one Henry VIII had, you know, very well rounded education, actually. So you're learning sort of arithmetic and languages and music and dance and philosophy. Like all of this stuff. I love that. I threw dance in there. Everybody had to dance. The Middle Ages, like, you don't have a lot of hobbies, you don't have a lot of opportunities. Like you got to be able to work at a party, you know. But he gets a humanist education and he has. I mean, he's being taught by all these amazing thinkers like Marcellio Ficini, Bernardo Babbiena. Like, he is doing well and he is studying on top of all this, he's studying theology and canon law. So he's, you know, he's learning, he's working his way up. Now, when he's 16, he is formally admitted into the Sacred College of Cardinals and is allowed to live in Rome. Now, a month after he gets into the College of Cardinals, his father dies. So Lorenzo is just dead. He's gone, kaput. So Lorenzo passes away and he has to return to Florence to go deal with the funeral and, you know, all of those important things. So he goes and does that and he's dealing with all that. He's grieving, I would assume. God, I hope so bad if he wasn't. So he's doing all that, but then he has to return to Rome because Pope Innocent has died. And so a new pope needs to get elected. So he returns to the Conclave and he opposes the election of everyone's favorite horrible pope, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, who ends up being elected as Pope Alexander the the 6th. Because none of these popes want new names. They'll have to be the 5th, the 6th, the 12th, the 8th, like, let's have a weird Pope. Let's have a Pope with a weird name like Chad. Could you imagine a Pope Chad? Oh, come on. Like that'd be very funny. Pope, Chad, Pope. I don't know. I don't know the names of all the Popes. I feel like something silly would be very good, very fun. Pope Tem. Hehe. So he opposes Rodrigo Borgia and that doesn't work out. So he ends up heading back to stay with his brother Piero in Florence. So a lot of stuff is going
- [18:21]
Katie Charlwood
on at this point.
- [18:22]
Co-host
I don't know if you remember our. Now a lot of this would have been covered in our Lucrezia Borgia episode and our Katarina Sforza episodes about all of the tumultuous crazy that was happening in, in, in Italy at this time. So first we have Girolamo Savonarola. I have definitely mispronounced that name. So we have him and he is this puritan friar. So he's a monk, right? Think of, you know, the High Sparrow from Game of Thrones. He's puritan. He's a fanatic. He is a fanatical monk. Tyrannical, some might even say. Like, he is very into austerity measures like the Tory government. And he's all about, you know, poverty is good and pain is good and frivolity is bad. And he's just, he's just making enemies left, right and center. Like he's one of the reasons that the Medicis get kicked out of Florence. So he's causing all this. And then of course, we have King Charles VIII of France, who is like invading and just causing shit again in the previous episodes. And it gets to the point where there's an uprising in Florence and like, they're super into this monk dude and they're just sick of all this that's happening. And they effectively kick the Medici's out of Florence. So this is. Piero manages to go to Venice and d' Urbino and Giovanni, he ends up in the Netherlands and France and
- [20:18]
Katie Charlwood
I'm
- [20:19]
Co-host
not going to say Germany because it's like German states. So he could have ended up in Prussia, for example, I'm not sure where exactly in Germany he was, but he was going around, he was, he was getting about. When he's 18, he manages to come back to Rome and he's still very young and he is received very well by the current Pope, Pope Borgia or, you know, Alexander Vill. And so he lives in Rome and he's spending time getting to know like literature and art and he's reading stuff, he's getting involved in the art scene, minus the berets and the clicking the fingers instead of clapping. So the Medici's getting kicked out.
- [21:10]
Katie Charlwood
Part of it was a little bit
- [21:12]
Co-host
of a power play from, you know, the Pope because the Borgias kind of had some issues with them, you know, here and there and so off they went. But then Alexander VI dies and in 1503, Pope Julius II ascends to the pontificate. And you know, Giovanni, pretty happy. Cardinal Giovanni there is like, that's cool. Pope Julius is cool. We're cool with Pope Julius and everything is fine. The very same year, something good, bad, depending on your perspective, happens to Giovanni because his brother Piero dies. So, you know, obviously sad that his brother is no longer with him, but also with him out the way. Giovanni is now the head of the Medici family. In Giovanni, he is getting in good with the Pope because when he is 29. That's right, 29 years old, hasn't even hit the big three zero yet. Hasn't even had a chance to have a quasi life crisis. No. Barely a gray hair on any of those balls. Yeah, I brought back balls again. You didn't think I was gonna do it, but I did. But yeah. He's 29 and he gets appointed the Papal Legate of Bologna and Romagna. Basically, he's the representative of the Pope in these places. So in Bologna and Romagna, he is the Pope's dude. He is the person you talk to if you want to get a message to the Pope or the Pope wants to get the message to you. So he's, you know, he's the middleman, he's Julie, the guard dog. So Florence at this point is a republic and it's aligned with the French, so it's sided with them. The Medici's have been kicked out and Pope Julius has sent Giovanni to basically deal with them. So he's been, he's been sent with a papal army to go deal with this, but unfortunately things don't go well. So the French end up winning this battle and they capture Giovanni with their retreating forces. So even though they've won, they have suffered such a massive loss that they're just stuck. They have no choice but to just leg it back and run away. And they take Giovanni with them. He manages to escape, head back to Florence and re establishes the Medicis as like the main guys in Florence, like the head honchos, although his younger brother ends up taking proper control at that point. But anyway, they become the most important family in Florence, and the French get driven out of Italy. Now, Pope Julius, he's not well. His time on this mortal coil is coming to an end, and so everyone is expected to return to Rome. So then Pope Julius dies, right? And they need to elect a new pope. Now, there are considerably less cardinals there at the papal conclave in 1513, because, you know, the French cardinals are not there because of, you know, the whole invading Italy thing, but with the Medicis and the Sforzas and the ay, ay, yai, yai, yai. Just wild, absolutely wild. And so all the votes go in and who gets carried in to the building but Giovanni, because he is suffering from terrible anal fissures and fistulas. Like, it gets to the point where people are commenting on how bad it smells. Now, it is also commented that his particular lifestyle led to this. Basically, he was doing a lot of butt stuff. Anal sex, you know, sodomy, all the other terminology for it. I don't. I don't know. Butt stuff just sounds funnier to me. So I'm gonna stick with butt stuff, even though that feels really childish. But I'm in a lot of pain and I'm on a lot of drugs. Drugs. It's okay. They were prescribed by a doctor. Yes. And the age of 37. 37, Giovanni is elected Pope. Now, the story is that some of them felt sorry for him and they didn't think he was going to be around much longer because, you know, because of all of his anal issues. But, yeah, he gets elected and he decides on the name Leo. So he is Pope Leo X. And now he is in charge of the Church, and his younger brother is in charge of the Medici family. So over the next couple of days. So this is how quick it was. On the 15th of March, he's ordained as a priest. On the 17th of March, St Patrick's Day, he was ordained as the Bishop of rome. And on the 19th of March, he was officially named Pope. Now, now, no offense, that's four days. Over the course of four days, he went through all of the ecumenical stuff, all of the. All of. All of the clergy, like, leveling up. Like, he levelled up through the clergy with four days. Four days he did it, which is worrying. And so he is known as the young pope, obviously, because he's very young. Have you seen popes? They're generally quite wrinkly. Like, they're. They're prunes in human form. You know, they're getting on a bit. And this may shock you, but he is the last non priest to ever be elected Pope. And I think for good reason. Now Leo is in charge and he starts spending money. Now, I don't know if you know this, but the Vatican is hella rich. Like, they are rolling in it. They have so much money. And, you know, people would say to Leo, listen, have you considered being a bit more pious? I mean, he was praying, he would fast before Mass and he would do, like, all of the things one would expect someone deeply religious to do. So he would go through all of that, but then also would spend a fuck ton of money. So he. He spent so much money, like, so much money to the point that he spent over the next two years all of the money, like, all of all of the people money. And they're like, can you maybe not do that? And he said, fuck that for a game of soldiers. I am gonna just renovate this pitch. Because what he does is he makes a pornographic bathroom. I don't know if you've heard about
- [29:11]
Katie Charlwood
the Pope's pornographic bathroom.
- [29:13]
Co-host
This is the one. This is the secret Vatican bathroom, full of sort of
- [29:21]
Katie Charlwood
artwork.
- [29:22]
Co-host
Frescoes, perhaps. I think it's a. Frescoes. It's artwork anyway. And it's.
- [29:27]
Katie Charlwood
It.
- [29:29]
Co-host
It's basically porn.
- [29:30]
Katie Charlwood
It's pornographic imagery.
- [29:32]
Co-host
It's just a big dirty bathroom. It's very funny.
- [29:34]
Katie Charlwood
So you've got that.
- [29:35]
Co-host
And he is enlarging the Vatican palace and he's ordering churches and chapels to be built around Rome. But he's not just spending on himself, he's also forking a lot of money out to charity. So this is where I say you can be two things at once. You can do good things and you can do awful things. This is why, like, bad people can do good things and good people can do bad things. And some people are absolute cunts, like this fella. Because what he does is he decides that not only is he going to spend all the Vatican's money, like he doesn't give a shit, and he has to find ways to make more money. And he does this by creating new offices and offering these roles to the highest bidder so you could get a job if you were rich, effectively, instead of being capable or good. And so he started selling papal indulgences. He's giving beneficiaries out. He is just going to town. And it gets to the point that he is just spending so much money and he's not. His outgoings are more than his incomings, effectively. And he then has to deal with King Francis the First. King Francis the First of France. France. Francis of France, he is a little bit power hungry because he wants to regain control of Milan and Naples. And he marches to Italy to head an army to just try and take over. And you've got the French, the French, the French, I can't remember what you. This. The French, you've got the French army and you've got the Swiss army, and they're fighting in Marignano and the French take control of Milan, and it's. It's just. It's not great. And also, Italy's not too cool with that. The Pope's not too cool with that. And in the meantime, he is trying to deal with a bunch of stuff because he was hoping to put his brother in charge of a lot of stuff.
- [32:03]
Katie Charlwood
They wanted to make him a powerhouse
- [32:05]
Co-host
and to be a Roman patrician. So he was hoping to invest all of his sort of political plans in his brother. He had made him a Roman patrician, and he was hoping to really, really get the ball rolling there and really gain power through Giuliano effectively. His plan was to put him in charge of the kingdom in central Italy. So he was hoping to have him in charge of Ferrara and Urbino and Piacenza and Parma. And he was just really hoping to
- [32:44]
Katie Charlwood
get all this going.
- [32:47]
Co-host
But then Juliana dies, or, sorry, Juliano dies, and his son, Leo's nephew, Lorenzo. I know, I know. Another name that gets repeated. He is now. He's now the big boss. He's now where all those. All those plans are going. He is putting all his eggs in one basket. So he's got plans for him. So he deals with him. And then he takes Ippolito, who is his nephew, because he is. But he's illegitimate. So he raises him because that's. That's always good to have on hand, because here's the thing. He's the Pope. He can declare him legitimate anytime he wants. So he has power here. So he's dealing with that. And then the following year, when he's 38, he ends up having a meeting with Francis, of course, and he ends up at the Concordat of Bologna, and it's basically a treaty with France where Francis I gets the right to appoint all of the churchmen in France, which sounds super fun. So we're in 1517, which is he very, very busy year for Leo. Oh, my God, I forgot the elephant. Okay, so when Leo gets elected to, you know, being Pope, he is gifted a white elephant by the King of Portugal, because he's trying to stay on his good side, obviously. And it's a big white elephant called Anon. But the Pope calls him Hanno, right? And he loves this elephant more than fucking life itself. Like this elephant gets treated the best. It has do tricks, it lives in a gold room, it's just having a great time. Hanno is treated so fucking well. And the Pope fucking loves this elephant. Like I don't know what else to tell you. Like he is the way people obsess over their dogs. That's the way Leo treats this elephant. Like he loves it, he has parties with it.
- [34:58]
Katie Charlwood
Like I, I cannot tell you how much weird elephant related history I know,
- [35:05]
Co-host
but I, I know far too much elephant related history, far too much. But anyway, he has it and he has it for four years. So this is the year we still
- [35:18]
Katie Charlwood
have it currently 15, 17.
- [35:20]
Co-host
We still have Hanno the elephant still very much living his best life. Now the elephant is not the only thing he loves. He also spends a lot of special time with certain cardinals, certain bishops, certain friends, best friends, roommates, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. But we'll get back to that in a moment. So what happens is Europe, Christian Europe ends up banding together because they're so afraid of the Turks. So they are terrified they are going to be overrun by the Turks is, you know, as if they haven't just been like invading all of these other countries and trying to like enforce, you know, Catholic dogma upon them.
- [36:15]
Katie Charlwood
Like as if that's not a thing
- [36:17]
Co-host
when that was very much, you know, a millennia of things, you know, it's just, it's wild. So there is this like peace between like France and Spain and the Habsburg monarchy and Venice. And because they're like, wanna fight against, you know, the Turks because again, they're worried about someone doing to them what they did to other people. Oh no, if it isn't the consequences of your own actions. We shame.
- [36:52]
Katie Charlwood
We shame.
- [36:53]
Co-host
So yeah, they end up doing that and there's a little bit of peace for real. But then of course you have Henry VIII who's like consistently in a deck measuring contest with the King of France. Him and Francis are just like wasting money, trying to screw each other over. So Leo here manages to get 150,000 ducats in order to like
- [37:26]
Katie Charlwood
help Henry VII in order to enter the Imperial
- [37:31]
Co-host
League of Spain and England against France. Like they're just trying to fuck it over.
- [37:37]
Katie Charlwood
And this war lands from like February
- [37:41]
Co-host
to September that year. But it brings, it does help. It brings up Lorenzo. He manages to get up and just does well, does well for himself. Although there is like A bunch of
- [37:59]
Katie Charlwood
stuff messed over and there was supposed
- [38:02]
Co-host
to be a crusade, but then obviously the crusade can happen. And this whole war cost him 800,000 ducats in total. 800,000. I don't even know how much that is in today's money. A fuck ton, that's what I know. But at the end, Lorenzo is the new Duke, Duke, Duke of Urbino. So, you know, not, not the worst way for it to end, but there is a bunch of stuff going on. So they end up having a party and they are celebrating and they're having a good time and they're all drinking wine and the elephant's there and the elephant is offered wine and it drinks him a goblet. And then in the middle of this party, Hanno the elephant head starts to wobble, starts making noises and then collapses. Now there's two, two stories to this. The first being that the elephant was fed gold leaf and laxative, which did something to it. And the other is that the elephant was provided poisoned wine because the wine that the elephant Hanno drank was supposed to be like celebratory wine for, you know, the Pope and his pals. And so Leo starts getting suspicious. Who out of everybody was going to do that to him? But Leo sees what's happening and he decides to tell people that someone is planning to murder him. And he has a reason for that. But first, his beloved Hanno the elephant gets a full church funeral, a full church service, proper, like, again, really loved the elephant very much into this. And so he has a massive funeral for it. And then Hanno the elephant is buried under the Vatican where their bones still lay. Like that elephant is still there. So here's the thing. Pope Leo has a lover, the 26 year old Cardinal Alfonso Petrucci. Now, Leo has ousted Petrucci's cousin and he is well mad. And so he ends up heading back to Siena, which does not sit well with the Pope.
- [40:48]
Katie Charlwood
Not at all.
- [40:50]
Co-host
So Siena, the town of Siena, it is a town, it's a city, it's a Tuscan city. Technically, yeah. It is a rival of Florence, which is the Pope city. So they're basically like my town against your town. So
- [41:09]
Katie Charlwood
he had put like Sienna under
- [41:11]
Co-host
the protection of the papacy.
- [41:14]
Katie Charlwood
So like the Pope's like, I'm looking
- [41:15]
Co-host
after that, don't worry about it. And yeah, Petrucci ends up involved in this alliance and he's trying to negotiate retaking the city. And Leo was pissed, absolutely mad at this. He's fucking not worth it at all.
- [41:33]
Katie Charlwood
Not getting on the situation.
- [41:35]
Co-host
And so, like, one is betrayed, the other's betrayed.
- [41:39]
Katie Charlwood
They're all pissed off with each other.
- [41:41]
Co-host
And he decides he wants to get rid of him. And he is looking at his elephant, he's looking at everything around him.
- [41:48]
Katie Charlwood
And he goes, you know what? I've got a plan.
- [41:52]
Co-host
I'm going to accuse him of murder.
- [41:55]
Katie Charlwood
And that's what he does.
- [41:58]
Co-host
So he ends up sending, like, a letter to Patrici offering him safety and security. And, like, you know, everything's fine.
- [42:08]
Katie Charlwood
We just want to chat and have a talk.
- [42:11]
Co-host
And so he brings him over and he arrives, only to be arrested. See, unbeknownst to Petrucci, a bunch of people from servants to surgeons have been rounded up, tortured and interrogated.
- [42:30]
Katie Charlwood
And they're all pointing the finger to,
- [42:32]
Co-host
like, this conspiracy of cardinals. And you've got the surgeon who's like, yeah, he paid me to poison him during a surgery for his anal fistulas. So, like, he was just gonna, like,
- [42:49]
Katie Charlwood
poison his ass, quite literally.
- [42:51]
Co-host
Like, that's what he says. And then you've got sort of these letters appear saying that this person did this, this person did that, and they get arrested and people are shocked and a bit.
- [43:06]
Katie Charlwood
A bit worried.
- [43:08]
Co-host
So all the main players involved, they are found guilty in a trial by
- [43:13]
Katie Charlwood
a bunch of cardinals, right?
- [43:15]
Co-host
So you have Nini and Vercelli and Riario Petrucci. They're all found guilty. So Nini and Vercelli were hung, drawn
- [43:26]
Katie Charlwood
and quartered with their bodies displayed on the bridge outside of the Castel sant',
- [43:29]
Co-host
Angelo, you know, to prove a point. And Petrucci was supposed to be a few days later. But between these executions and the next round of executions, Leo appoints 31 new
- [43:48]
Katie Charlwood
cardinals, like, doubling the size of the college, like, since the re establishment of the single papacy In Rome, like, 60, 70 years before, like, the most amount of cardinals that have been appointed at any one time was 12, but he went for 31. Almost as if he was trying to get more people in his corner, right? So he manages to elect, elect, create a mount.
- [44:18]
Co-host
It was like four Florentines, Medici allies
- [44:23]
Katie Charlwood
in laws, Sienese, including Raphael Petrucci. So, like a rival, like, branch of the cardinal's family, Alfonso's family.
- [44:37]
Co-host
So effectively, a lot of these older
- [44:39]
Katie Charlwood
cardinals that been there, their power had sort of been displaced and this new college of cardinals had appeared. So, yeah, there was supposed to be an execution for Alfonso Petrucci, like, three days after this. And the remaining conspirators, quote, unquote, were just freaking out. So Sauli his family goes to France and asks the crown to like jump in in his behalf. Like, the government of Genoa manages to intervene too. Castellessi flees to Rome and like loses all of his like good shit and he gets stripped of being cardinal, he like loses everything. One of the other conspirators manages to like pull a Siegfried and Roy and tricks Leo X's guards into following like a decoy entourage while he manages to sneak the fuck out of Rome. And Soli, who's having a bunch of issues, he, because of, you know, the crown and the government lobbying on his behalf, he gets moved to a most comfortable cell and Riario, his family and friends are making arrangements to pay his fine. So like most fines for this for the conspirators was like 12 and a half thousand ducats. Riario, his was 150,000. Like the richest man in Rome. Agostino Chi, like he pays like a third of the sum and Riario gets released and he's exiled. So he's off, he's bucket off to Naples. Sauli is released like a week later and he's fined 25,000 ducats and he's confined, he's on home arrest, right? Home arrest, house arrest. And he's stuck in his house and he loses like a bunch of his stuff and then he dies earlier. So eh, so like throughout all this,
- [46:55]
Co-host
Leo makes,
- [46:58]
Katie Charlwood
was it half a million ducats out of all this, which is 250 times the income of the poorest cardinal in Rome. Now what happens for Petrucci, like he apparently had said, you know, that he was going to kill the Pope, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, which maybe he said in anger, maybe he said with intent. Whom's to say? All we know was that Leo wanted rid of him and he needed excuse to do so. And framing someone for murder or attempted murder of the Pope during anal surgery is definitely one way to do it. But as Petrucci is in his cell awaiting his execution, somebody breaks in and strangles him with a red silk cord, which is known as the Turkish method. I mean that's an intimate death. I mean I'm not one to give people advice on murder, but that is an intimate, specific death. There are so many other options. In so many ways he could have been executed. But that's a deeply personal, personal thing. Maybe it was meant to be an insult, I'm not sure, but it was, it is what it was. Now again, we're still in 1517 and there was a lot of stuff happening so Some of you may know 1517 for a very particular reason for the Church, and it's because Martin Luther, he takes his 95 theses and he nails them to the church door in Germany. See, seven years before, Martin Luther had actually come to Rome and then seen all the sort of wanton luxury and all of the. All of the nepotism and the scheming and. And just. Just the awfulness, he thought, because he was like, this is not good. This is all too much. And so, like, Leo and Martin Luther, they had not. They had not done well. Leo had ended up actually excommunicating Martin Luther, which is weird. Do you know how hard it is actually to get excommunicated? Like, it is so hard to be excommunicated by the Church.
- [49:20]
Co-host
I've tried.
- [49:21]
Katie Charlwood
It's not an easy thing to do.
- [49:23]
Co-host
So basically, this is the start of
- [49:24]
Katie Charlwood
the Reformation, and you have, like, these fractures and these factions sort of splitting up. And Protestantism, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, like, all of these different sort of branches appear and they're all going. We're not super. Enter the whole Roman Catholicism right now because of all the dodginess that's happening in the church and all the money laundering and, you know, making weird crime families happen. And also a lot of this weird family tree, which is a wreath. It's. There's a lot of it going on.
- [50:01]
Co-host
It's.
- [50:02]
Katie Charlwood
It's not good. So he is so mad about all of this sort of Reformation shit happening that he releases his people bull, or as I like to call it, his people bullshit. And he is just so mad, denouncing it all, so on and so forth. And Martin Luther ends up burning the papal bull he'd been sent because. He gets sent because he's like, you need to remove these 41 sentences, which we think are heretical. And you've got like 60 days to do it. He's got a deadline, right? And, you know, he gets this. He gets this on 15 June, but it's not until 10 December that he actually just straight up burns the damn thing. So he's like. He's like, I mean, that's more than 60 days.
- [50:50]
Co-host
That's.
- [50:51]
Katie Charlwood
That is. But he burns it anyway. He's like, ooh, just a big show at this point. It's a big fuck you to him. And yeah, Leo's like, mm, you know what? You are excommunicated. No. So in 1521, King Henry VIII, he brings a book, Septum Sacramentorum, as presented to Pope Leo X and Leo Gives Henry the title of Defender of the Faith because he's, like, so anti Martin Luther. Like, he's so Catholic, which is funny in hindsight because, yeah, didn't exactly stick with that too long, did we? But then, of course, we have. Lutheranism is, like, spreading into Scandinavia. It is just all over the shop. And is it King Christian? Well, the king is Sweden. He's like, okay, I'm gonna use this to my advantage to push Rome away. Because, like, Leo would give, like, rewards and stuff from Scandinavia to, like, people who gave him money and helped him gain more power. So he would do that. And he hinted up, like, not dealing so much with it after a while. And he didn't really check it too much because in his later years, he was getting. He was not well, shall we say. And so he ended up sort of passing the baton to his nephew Giuliano, because of course he did, because it's a family affair, apparently. So he does that, and he ends up becoming incredibly fucking ill because he gets bronchopneumonia, like, the bad pneumonia. Like, so much. So much illness. Should have washed his hands more. That's all I'm saying. And he is so ill. Like, this comes on, like, sharp and fast in the end of November, and he ends up dying so suddenly that he doesn't get, like, his last rites, so his final sacraments. Like, he manages to not get them. So that.
- [53:07]
Co-host
That's.
- [53:07]
Katie Charlwood
That's not a good sign for him. But it's such a fast death. Like. Like there's, like, an idea that he got poisoned, but it's pneumonia. Like, all of the signs point to pneumonia. And on the 1st of December, 1521, at the age of 46, Giovanni de Medici, Pope Leo X passes away.
- [53:34]
Co-host
And so ends our story of Pope
- [53:37]
Katie Charlwood
Leo the 10th, who murdered his lover because he could and had a pet elephant and was super corrupt. If you liked my telling of this
- [53:47]
Co-host
story, please rate and review. Five stars.
- [53:50]
Katie Charlwood
You have no idea how much I hope this is coherent because I'm on so many painkillers right now.
- [53:56]
Co-host
I'm not even sure I did it right.
- [53:58]
Katie Charlwood
I'm not even sure I hit all my notes.
- [54:00]
Co-host
I think I skipped a couple pages.
- [54:01]
Katie Charlwood
But here we are. We're just gonna have to deal with it. And next week is gonna be better because we're gonna have fun lesbians, or at the very least, a super cool bisexual person. There's. There's gonna be some women loving women in there somewhere. They're gonna be amazing. So I guess you can follow me on all the socials.
- [54:21]
Co-host
I'm on threads and whatever Twitter is
- [54:23]
Katie Charlwood
called Now I'm on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook. But you know what? I'm going to give a list next week of, like, all the stuff I'm on. And the website's getting updated, so do that. And it's recommendation time, actually. Yes. So I'm going to recommend the. Oh, my God. It's Kate Lister's doctor Kate Lister. You know when someone says, like, Captain Jack Sparrow, that's like me with Kate Lister, because I'm like Dr. Kate Lister. I love her so much. So her book, the Curious History of Sex, I think that's the name of it. I don't remember. It's really good. I was reading about it today. I was reading it.
- [55:03]
Co-host
It was very fun.
- [55:05]
Katie Charlwood
It was a Valentine's gift that I got in the post today. It was very nice. Anyway, that's that for reading, for listening. I am going to suggest you listen to the Kinky History podcast, because Valentine's Day is coming up and you deserve that. And listen to Esme, because she's awesome. And for watching. Oh, there's a documentary called the Irish for Sex with Blah Hindberger. I should go watch that. Do that. It's on rt.
- [55:38]
Co-host
Go watch it.
- [55:39]
Okay.
- [55:40]
Katie Charlwood
And with this, I shall bid you good night. Adios. Au revoir a vous end, my friends.
- [55:46]
Co-host
Bye.
- [55:46]
Katie Charlwood
Bye.