From Alexander III, the pope who faced the schism caused by Frederick I Barbarossa, to Sergius I, elected in defiance of the hundred pounds of gold offered by Archdeacon Pasquale, via the unpredictable conclave of 1914 which took even the tailors—who had been left without their cassocks—by surprise

He went down in history as one of the three Popes to whom the title ‘the Great’ is bestowed. His greatest legacy was the radical rethinking of the very concept of the head of the Church: he conceived the papal office, first and foremost, as that of the ‘servant of the servants of God’

From Benedict XIV, to whom Voltaire dedicated one of his works, to the 39 days of Adrian V. And then Pius VII, who welcomed the relatives of his persecutor onto the covered terrace in Piazza Venezia

From Sixtus III, who settled the theological debate on the human and divine nature of Jesus, to Stephen IX, who was not a bishop at the time of his election. And then Ormisda, who had the canons of the Eastern Church translated into Latin

From Paul II, who commissioned the construction of Palazzo Venezia, to Nicholas II, who excluded secular authority from the appointment of the Pope, right up to Urban VIII, who only abandoned geocentrism following the condemnation of Galileo

Leo IV, led on horseback by the emperor, and Leo XIII, the pope during the break with the Kingdom of Italy. Two popes remembered for their innovations, who lived through very different historical periods