All day long, Henry, bareheaded, clad in penitential garb, and fasting from morning till night, awaited the sentence of the sovereign pontiff.

His paramount obligations as an archbishop were, according to all the ideas of his age, to the supreme pontiff of Christendom.

Before the commands of the angry Pontiff could reach the heads of the orders in Venice, people, priests, and prelates throughout the dominions were forewarned; they must continue in every accustomed practice of their religion; they might neither receive nor publish any minatory papersthese must be instantly brought to the government, under severest penalties.

of the name of Hildebrand, the most enterprising pontiff that had ever filled that chair, and the least restrained by fear, decency, or moderation.

I put on my sword, and repaired to St. Peter's, where I kissed the feet of the deceased pontiff, and could not refrain from tears.

"Why daily?" said Decius to the grand pontiff, whom he had ordered to follow him and keep at his side in the flight; "'tis given to our race to die to avert public disasters."

This illustrious pontiff feared that the excessive excitability of my feelings would cause me to commit some deadly sin at the moment of my death, after I had received the blessed ointment.

He was left unharmed by the indignant pontiff; but the next day ascending his throne, and in presence of the dignitaries of his Church, thus invoked the assistance of the pretended founder of his empire: "Saint Peter!

as soon as I can!'" replied the irascible Pontiff; "I'll have you flung off your scaffoldings;" and he touched him with his stick.

Lucius Cantilius, secretary of the pontiff, whom they now call the lesser pontiffs, who had debauched Floronia, was beaten by rods in the comitium, by order of the chief pontiff, so that he expired under the stripes.

A meek man and a benevolent prince, Pius IX was, as a pontiff, lofty even to sternness.

This mighty pontiff, Gregory VII, whose real name, Hildebrand, indicates his German descent, was bornthe son of a carpenterin Tuscany, about 1020.

And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble, Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers, Juno and Ceres, Minerva, Apollo, the Muses and Bacchus, Ye unto whom far and near come posting the Christian pilgrims, Ye that are ranged in the halls of the mystic Christian pontiff, Are ye also baptized?

The whole attitude of this presumptuous pontiff, Hello, had leaped from a preface written for this book.

Then the royal pontiff arose from the brazen scaffold on which he had seated himself, and amid clouds of incense and the smoke of burning sacrifice offered unto God the tribute of national praise, and implored His divine protection.

The success of the measure and the solemn homage of Christendom filled with joy and proud confidence the heart of the septuagenarian pontiff.

Although the renascence of learning did not take its rise in Rome, where the intellectual movement and enthusiasm imported from Florence flourished but fitfully, according to the various humours of the successive pontiffs, the papal capital drew within its walls eminent scholars from all the states of the Italian peninsula.

But I might remark here that this vain and capricious pontiff, whose pride and indecision robbed the world of no one can ever say what glorious work from Michelangelo's hand, is the benevolent-looking old man whose portrait by Raphael is in the Pitti and Uffizi in colour, in the Corsini Palace in charcoal, and again in our own National Gallery in colour.

Adrian VI., who succeeded to the Papacy, was a weak pontiff, and Rome became a hot-bed of intrigue and villainy.

They therefore published a proposal for a law, that, whereas there were then four augurs and four pontiffs, and it had been determined that the number of priests should be augmented, the four additional pontiffs and five augurs should all be chosen out of the commons.

Quaff, like a brave man, as he did, Wine and death as heaven pours This is my fate: O ye rulers, O ye pontiffs, what is yours? To wait trembling, lest yon loathly Gallows-shape whereon I die, In strange temples yet unbuilded, Blaze upon an altar high.

But the old basilica of Christendom was too small for this ambitious pontiff's sepulchre, designed by the audacious artist.

He now became the interpreter of his own decrees,an arch-pontiff ruling by divine right.

As a reward, the careless pontiff made him one of the singers of his Sistine Chapel, omitting the usual severe examination, and overlooking as a small matter the fact that Palestrina was so far from being a priest that he was very much married and very much the father, and furthermore had no voice.