The flash of Albino Luciani: a month that left its mark

22 August 1241. Gregory IX, Ugolino di Anagni, died. He studied law in Bologna and theology in Paris. He was a supporter and friend of Francis of Assisi, whom he helped to secure Pope Honorius III’s approval of the Rule for the Order of Friars Minor, and of Dominic of Guzmán, founder of the Order of Preachers. He had numerous disputes with Emperor Frederick II and excommunicated him on two occasions, due to the latter’s failure to fulfil his promise to organise a crusade to recapture Jerusalem and to punish him for having taken possession of papal territories. Gregory IX was responsible for the canonisation processes of Francis of Assisi, Anthony of Padua, Dominic of Guzmán and Elizabeth of Hungary. He introduced the ‘breviary’ for the Franciscans – an abridged collection of prayers and psalms – thereby exempting them from the normal daily canonical office, which was very lengthy at the time.

26 August 1978. Giovanni Paolo I, Albino Luciani from Veneto, was elected; his pontificate was very brief – little more than a month – but marked by several significant acts. His first decision was not to bring the conclave to an immediate close, but to keep the college assembled until the following day so that he might deliver a speech before the cardinals (including those over eighty who had not taken part in the conclave). In a decision that garnered immediate attention and approval, he eschewed the pompous coronation ceremony, replacing it with a liturgy celebrated without the traditional symbols of power (the tiara and the throne), during which he addressed the faithful speaking in the first person, thereby abolishing the customary royal plural. An affable man, he won the hearts of the people; his sudden death sparked controversy amongst those who did not believe it was a natural death.

27 August 1590. Sixtus V, the Franciscan Felice Peretti, who had been elected by acclamation, died. In just five years as Pope, he left his mark on Rome’s urban landscape, which remains to this day, with new, long, straight roads connecting the most important points, new aqueducts and obelisks in the squares (he was nicknamed the ‘Architect Pope’); he brought the construction of the dome of St Peter’s Basilica almost to completion—work that was finished after his death—and established the new home of the Vatican Library, including the Sistine Hall, which was then the largest covered space not used for religious or military purposes. It was he who decided to set the maximum number of cardinals at seventy, as there were seventy elders of the people of Israel, and this number remained unchanged until the time of John XXIII in the 20th century. He radically reorganised the Curia, replacing the consistories – general assemblies of the College of Cardinals – with the more efficient permanent congregations of cardinals, specialised by subject area, tasked with dealing with matters concerning the central government of the Church, of which they became the backbone (and this organisation, too, remained virtually intact until the reforms of the 20th century).