Benedetto Caetani (Anagni, circa 1235 – Rome, 1303) was elected Pope with the name Boniface VIII, at the Naples conclave of 1294, following the abdication of Celestine V. From the outset, his papacy was strongly pro-Anjou, and a strongly theocratic orientation emphasizing the absolute supremacy of ecclesiastic power. In keeping with this overall approach were his decision to institute the first Jubilee and his influence on Florentine politics. Under an alliance with the Black Guelfs, he succeeded in exerting considerable control over the city government. In November 1301, he secured entry to the city as peacemaker for Charles de Valois, brother of the French King. With Charles’s support, the Blacks took control from the Whites, sentencing them in their absence, in many cases condemning them to exile. Together with two other Florentine ambassadors, Dante was in Rome in 1301, having gone there to dissuade the Pope from intervening in the political life of Florence. Possibly encouraged to remain in Rome by the Pope himself, he was a prime victim of the Blacks’ strategy.
In Dante’s work, the Pope is a sinister shadow, alluded to repeatedly. At the time of the journey narrated in the Commedia, Boniface was still alive, but the whole of hell awaited him, since he did not hesitate to tòrre a ’nganno / la bella donna, e poi di farne strazio (Inf., XIX 57-58: “take by cunning the beautiful lady [i.e. the Church] and then do her outrage”). Subjected to an anticipatory damnation of sorts, the gran prete (Inf., XXVII 70: “Great Priest”) is indirectly placed, even before his death, among the sinners guilty of simony, although his name rings out through all the circles of hell. From Dante’s perspective, the cunning, disloyal and unscrupulous behaviour which turned Boniface into lo principe d’i novi Farisei (ivi, 85: “the prince of the new Pharisees”), was the main cause of the social, spiritual and political crisis afflicting the entire peninsula of Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Boniface VIII: lo principe d’i novi Farisei
