The trouble about writing a history of the popes is that there are so many of them. Usually elderly when elected, most of them have only lasted a few years. The longest reign was that of the mid-19th-century pope, Pius IX, Pio Nono, who clung on for 31 years. In our own times, Pius XII did 19 years, Paul VI 15 and John Paul II 18. But all were unusual. Closer to the average was poor John Paul I, who lasted 34 days. As a result there have been 264 popes. About some we know nothing and one or two may have been fictitious. ‘Pope Joan’ certainly was.
So taking on the task of a comprehensive survey requires courage. Lord Norwich is a battle-hardened veteran of many popular histories. The Hon. Gerard Noel is a Catholic former editor who has already produced a rollicking history of the Renaissance popes. Each has served up a useful volume. I salute them both: they are, equally, light spring reading for the serious-minded.
About three-quarters of the popes are of little interest to the modern reader. The most fascinating ones are a puzzling mixture of vice and virtue. The Borgia pope Alexander VI, usually presented as the worst of the lot, was, says Noel, ‘one of the most capable of pontiffs, a consummate statesman’. But Norwich quotes the diary of Johannes Burchard, the Papal Master of Ceremonies, showing him on 30 October 1501, at a dinner given by his son Cesare at which 50 naked prostitutes crawled on the floor to pick up chestnuts, afterwards joining in a general orgy. Such a bunga-bunga occasion was by no means unique, and suggests that Signor Berlusconi, himself a curious mixture of skill and depravity, has ample precedents for his activities.
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