Upheaval in the papal court? Nuttin' new, there. Some of the most fascinating reading, with twists and turns of plots and plotting is the Oxford Dictionary of Popes by Kelly. Brief bios of popes from St. Peter onwards, with enough material for a thousand novelists.
So it's no surprise that, when Pope Benedict XVIth announced...More...
...that he was renouncing the papal tiara, that my thoughts turned to Kelly's book and to Hadrian the VII by Fr. Rolfe.
"This baroque masterpiece by the enigmatic Frederick Rolfe, the self-styled Baron Corvo, is a remarkable novel of thwarted ambition and ecclesiastica wish-fulfilment." That from the back cover of the version published by Wordsworth Classics...and the book, "baroque" in the sense of intricately composed, lives up to the promise.
Enjoy!
2 comments:
plots may there be...but the resignation is a different issue, don't you think?
Depends on your point-of-view....
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