THEODORA AND MAROZIA
As they passed the Castel Sant’ Angelo, Cæsar began to tell the story of Theodora and her daughter Marozia, the two women who lived there and who, for forty odd years, changed the Popes as one changes cooks.
“You know the history of those women?” asked Cæsar.
“I don’t,” said the Canon.
“Nor I,” added Don Calixto.
“Then I will tell it to you before we get to Saint Peter’s. Theodora, an influential lady, fell in love with a young priest of Ravenna, and had him elected Pope, by the name of John X. Her daughter Marozia, a young girl and a virgin, gave herself to Pope Sergius III, a capricious, fantastic man, who had once had the witty idea of digging up Pope Formosus and subjecting him, putrefied as he was, to the judgment of a Synod. By this eccentric man Marozia had a son, and afterwards was married three times more. She exercised an omnipotent sway over the Holy See. John X, her mother’s lover, she deposed and sent to die in prison. With his successor, Leo VI, whom she herself had appointed Pope, she did the same. The following Pope, Stephen VII, died of illness, twenty months after his reign began, and then Marozia gave the Papal crown to the son she had had by Sergius III, who took the name of John XI. This Pope and his brother Alberic, began to feel their mother’s influence rather heavy, and during a popular revolt they decided to get Marozia into their power, and they seized her and buried her alive in the in pace of a convent.”
“But is all this authentic?” asked the Canon, completely stupefied.
“Absolutely authentic.”
The Canon made a gesture of resignation and looked at Don Calixto in astonishment.
While Cæsar was telling the story, the carriage had passed down a narrow and rather deserted street, called Borgo Vecchio, in whose windows clothes were hanging out to dry, and then they came out in the Piazza di San Pietro. They drove around one edge of this enormous square. The sky was blue. A fountain was throwing water, which changed to a cloud in the air and produced a brilliant rainbow.