User:Savidan

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I am an undergraduate at Dartmouth College majoring in Economics and Geography. I've been on Wikipedia since December 2005, and an administrator ^{deletions• blocks• protections} since January 2007.

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Pope Pius XII reigned as the 260th pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, and sovereign of Vatican City State from March 2, 1939 until his death on October 9, 1958. His leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II and the Holocaust remains the subject of continued historical controversy. Before his election as pope, Pacelli served as a priest, monsignor, papal nuncio, cardinal, cardinal Secretary of State, and camerlengo in which roles he worked to conclude treaties with other nations, most notably the Reichskonkordat with Germany. After World War II, he was a vocal supporter of amnesty for war criminals and a staunch opponent of communism. Pius is one of few popes in recent history to exercise his papal infallibility by issuing an apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, which defines ex cathedra the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. He also promulgated forty-six encyclicals, including Humani Generis, which retains continued relevance to the Church's position of evolution. He also decisively eliminated the Italian majority in the College of Cardinals with the Great Consistory. (More...)

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A cardinal-nephew is a cardinal elevated by a pope who is his uncle, or more generally, his relative. The practice of creating cardinal-nephews originated in the Middle Ages, and reached its apex during the 16th and 17th centuries, and is central to the etymology of the word nepotism, which appeared in the English language circa 1670. From the middle of the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377) until Pope Innocent XII's anti-nepotism bull, Romanum decet pontificem (1692), a pope without a cardinal-nephew was the exception to the rule. Every Renaissance pope who created cardinals appointed a relative to the College of Cardinals, and the nephew was the most common choice. The institution of the cardinal-nephew evolved over seven centuries, tracking developments in the history of the Papacy and the styles of individual popes. From 1566 until 1692, a cardinal-nephew held the curial office of the "Superintendent of the Ecclesiastical State". The curial office as well as the institution of the cardinal-nephew declined as the power of the Cardinal Secretary of State increased and the temporal power of popes decreased in the 17th and 18th centuries. Notable cardinal-nephews include fourteen popes—John XIX, Benedict IX, Anastasius IV, Gregory IX, Alexander IV, Adrian V, Gregory XI, Boniface IX, Eugene IV, Paul II, Alexander VI, Pius III, Julius II, and Clement VII—and two saints—Charles Borromeo and Anselm of Lucca. (more...)

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The Tomb of Antipope John XXIII is the marble tomb monument for Antipope John XXIII, Baldassare Coscia, created by Donatello and Michelozzo, and located in the Florence Baptistry adjacent to the Duomo. It was commissioned by the executors of Coscia's will after his death on December 22, 1419 and completed during the 1420s, establishing it as one of the early landmarks of Renaissance Florence. According to Ferdinand Gregorovius, the tomb is "at once the sepulchre of the Great Schism in the church and the last Papal tomb which is outside Rome itself". The tomb monument's design included three Virtues, Coscia's family arms, a gilded bronze effigy supported above an inscription-bearing sarcophagus, a Madonna and Child in a half-lunette, and a canopy. At the time of its completion, the monument was the tallest sculpture in Florence, and one of very few tombs within the Baptistry or the neighboring Duomo. The tomb monument was the first of several collaborations between Donatello and Michelozzo, and the attribution of its various elements to each of them has been debated by art historians, as have the interpretations of its design and iconography. (more...)

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The Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood is a fresco by Paolo Uccello, commemorating English condottiero John Hawkwood, commissioned in 1436 for the Florence Cathedral. The fresco is an important example of art commemorating a soldier-for-hire in the Italian peninsula and is a seminal work in the development of perspective. The politics of the commissioning and recommissioning of the fresco have been analyzed and debated by historians. The fresco is often cited as a form of "Florentine propaganda" for its appropriation of a foreign soldier of fortune as a Florentine hero and for its implied promise to other condottieri of the potential rewards of serving Florence. The fresco has also been interpreted as a product of internal political competition between the Albizzi and Medici factions in Renaissance Florence, due to the latter's modification of the work's symbolism and iconography during its recommissioning. The fresco is the oldest extant and authenticated work of Uccello, and from a relatively well-known aspect of his career compared to the periods before and after its creation. The fresco has been restored (once by Lorenzo di Credi, who added the frame) and is now detached from the wall; it has been repositioned twice in modern times. (more...)

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Did You Know?

• ...that the Habakkuk Commentary of the Dead Sea scrolls accused the "Wicked Priest" of neglecting to circumcise the "foreskin of his heart"?
• ...that the papal election, 1292–1294 was the last election of a pope which did not take the form of a conclave?
• ...that the Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood (pictured) is the oldest authenticated and extant work of Paolo Uccello?
• ...that Bargil Pixner's identification of the biblical location of Bethsaida was based on artifacts found in trenches used by Syria in the Six-Day War?
• ...that Luigi Sturzo, a Roman Catholic priest and founder of the Italian People's Party (1919–1926), collaborated with the OSS while in exile in the United States?
• ...that a symbolic April 1995 boat trip—celebrating the foundation of the Mekong River Commission—was unable to cross the Mekong River because China was filling the reservoir of its Manwan Dam?
• ...that Coluccio Salutati, Chancellor of Florence during the War of the Eight Saints, disseminated Republican propaganda throughout the Papal States?
• ...that Olimpia Maidalchini, the sister-in-law of Pope Innocent X (pictured) spent three days looting the papal palace before his body was found?
• ...that all of the publications of 17th century Milanese historian Gregorio Leti were listed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum?
• ...that papal conclaves from the 14th to 17th centuries attempted to use capitulations to influence the popes they elected in matters from the appointment of cardinal-nephews to papal travel and construction projects?
• ...that Rabanus Maurus's attribution of the Liber Pontificalis to Saint Jerome was the prevailing view throughout the Middle Ages?
• ...that the papal election of 1061, the first carried out solely by cardinal bishops, resulted in a war between Pope Alexander II and Antipope Honorius II?
• ...that the smallest papal election since the expansion of suffrage to all cardinals was undertaken by only six cardinal electors?
• ...that only two of the fourteen French cardinals were in Italy at the start of the papal conclave, 1549-1550 because a clause of the Concordat of Bologna allowed the pope to redistribute their benefices if they died in Rome?
• ...that In Nomine Domini, promulgated by Pope Nicholas II in 1059, established cardinal-bishops as the sole electors of the pope?
• ...that in an attempt to speed up the longest papal election in history, the magistrates of Viterbo removed the roof of the Papal Palace?
• ...that capital punishment in the Vatican City was legal (but not carried out) between 1929 and 1969?
• ...that "Giovinezza" (pictured), the official hymn of Mussolini's National Fascist Party, was played by the Palatine Guard at the coronation of Pope Pius XII?
• ...that although Pope Gregory XVI condemned railroads as "the road to hell," Vatican City includes the world's shortest national railway system?
• ...that the crown-cardinals of Austria, France, and Spain could exercise the jus exclusivae during papal conclaves from the 16th to 20th centuries?
• ...that nine of the twenty-three Cardinal electors in the 1492 papal conclave—which elected Rodrigo Borja as Pope Alexander VI —were nephews of the popes that elevated them?
• ...that Augusto Genina's Lo squadrone bianco (1936), released during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, lionized the Italian colonization of Libya?
• ...that Dum Diversas, promulgated by Pope Nicholas V in 1452, authorized Afonso V of Portugal to enslave indefinitely Saracens, pagans, and other "enemies of Christ"?
• ...Summis desiderantes affectibus, a papal bull promulgated by Innocent VIII in 1484, was re-published as the preface to Malleus Maleficarum?
• ...that Mussolini's Quota 90 fixed the lira exchange rate against the pound sterling at the prevailing rate from five years earlier, when he assumed power?
• ...that Pope Pius XII tried to prevent the bombing of Rome in World War II?
• ...that the illustrated children's book Hot House Flowers, an allegory for illegal immigration, was written by a Brooklyn criminal court judge?
• ...that the See of Sardis, an episcopal see once held by Melito, continued to be held by titular archbishops for centuries after the Ottoman Turks conquered Sardis?
• ...that Vix Pervenit, an encyclical promulgated by Pope Benedict XIV (pictured) in 1745, condemned the charging of interest on loans as "illicit and usurious"?
• ...that Pope Pius XII's cousin, Ernesto Pacelli, was a financial adviser to Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius X, and Pope Benedict XV?
• ...that the slogan Juan Valdez drinks Costa Rican coffee, popular on bumper stickers in Costa Rica, prompted a lawsuit from Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia?