The Bad Popes

Let yourself be swept up by this colorful, panoramic story of seven men who ruled the Church of Rome at seven critical periods in the 600 years leading up to the Reformation. During this age of grandeur and corruption, popes led armies, made love and war, conspired for power, and armed themselves with the techniques of assassination and seduction while clothed with the authority of the Church. Dramatic accounts of these papal bad boys include: Urban VI, the wild man from Naples, whose grotesque savageries widened and maintained the scandalous gap of the Great Schism; Alexander VI, who brought to the See of Peter the intrigues of the Borgia; and Clement VII, the unskillful fox, whose fall brought down Rome itself. Profusely illustrated with architectural photographs and contemporary art from both Catholic and Protestant sources, this absorbing work vividly depicts the ecclesiastical corruptions which changed the course of history.