Italian
It is the most famous episode of outrage against a pope. We are in the Middle Ages, during a usual international and personal dispute. The Pope, Boniface VIII, is in Anagni, his preferred residence because it is part of his family’s possessions: the Caetani, a powerful Roman patrician family originally from Gaeta. Bordering the Pope’s personal domains are his historical antagonists, equally powerful: the Colonna.
ANAGNI. At that time, the Popes came from the great Roman patrician families. The conclaves were not only prayers and invocations to the Holy Spirit, but also intrigues and bloody conflicts. Neither words nor the use of weapons, if necessary, were spared. The world was definitely smaller, but no less conflicted than today. Besides the Pope, there were the Emperor and the Kings: a context in which war was constant, made up of struggles for power and supremacy, but also of personal and family interests.
In this context, the episode of the slap takes place. The protagonists are the Pope and Sciarra Colonna, ally of Philip the Fair, King of France and sworn enemy of the Pontiff. It was neither the first nor the last time that Popes have been humiliated and insulted. Just remember the invasion of the papal territories by the Savoy, or, even earlier, Napoleon and the Roman Republic of Mazzini. Our entire Risorgimento involved a repeated violation of international law.
We should not be shocked by what is happening today. Political events are complex and difficult to assess with objectivity and reason because, as Napoleon said, it is History that reasons, not Man. The “slap,” after all, is a constant that only changes interpreters.
