Gregoire X

Tebaldo Visconti (1210, Pleasure - January 10th 1276, Arezzo), elected 182e pope on September 1st 1271 under the name of Gregoire X . “ Angiunus to vir ” in the Prophecy of saint Malachie.

Its life is little known. It was an extremely severe man and of a great dignity, friend of Saint Thomas d' Aquin and confidant of kings de France and of England. He was archdeacon of Liege and left this station to withdraw himself out of Holy Land, reproaching the bishop of this town of for transforming the episcopal palate into den of iniquity. He accompanied the Ottoboni cardinal travels from there in England, then Edouard of England in Pèlerinage in Palestine with the head of an army of crusaders.

Whereas it was with Saint-Jean-in Acre, it was convened by the Conclave which lasted for ever since the death of Clément IV in 1268. It succeeds in negotiating a truce between Génois and the Venetian ones, and persuaded the nobility of the town of cooperate with prince Edouard of England but it did not have an authority sufficient nor to be able to further carry out the negotiation to save the kingdom. The situation was then blocked by a dissension between the Italians and the French who wanted each one a pope of their country because of political situation around Charles I {{er}} of Sicily.

The situation was resolved when the inhabitants of Viterbe, where the cardinals were assembled, decided to lock up them by leaving them only bread and water and removed the roof of the building “in order to allow the divine influences to go down more freely on their deliberations”. This unusual way to cause the action of the Holy Spirit gained an astonishing success. The cardinals delegated their power décisionnaire to six of them which, in a hurry to leave, the very same day élirent Tebaldo, three days after its arrival with Viterbe in February 1272. He learned the news from his election whereas he was neither cardinal, nor even priest and this event turned to the international scandal. He accepted the Tiare under the name of Gregoire X.

Gregoire included/understood whereas the only hope which remained with the crusaders was to sign a pact with the Mongols, them also enemy of the Egyptians. This alliance got a strategic advantage to him; moreover, the noise ran that Kublai Khan seemed increasingly inclined to embrace Christianity. That did not have anything incredible. The Mongolian army counted many Eastern Christians and a military alliance had already been concluded between Bohémond, prince d' Antioche, and Hulagu, Mongolian prince of Persia. It thus hoped to convert the Mongols with Christianity and to turn into Large Khan Kubilai the spiritual son of the Roman pontiff. The Mongolian empire extended from Euphrate to the Pacific Ocean; it was vastest which there ever was in the world. Gregoire thought that if it could make a Christian country of them, the days of Islam would be counted and the kingdom of the crusaders, saved.

The first act of Gregoire, once become pope, was to convene with Saint-Jean-in Acre a Venetian galère which had just arrived at Ayas to Asia Mineure. There were on board two Venetian brothers, Niccolo and Matteo Polo, as well as the 17 year old son of Niccolo, fore-mentioned Marco. He sought to reconcile the Guelfes and the Gibelins. Moreover, the October 7th 1272, it signed a bubble requiring the protection of the Jews living in Christendom.

In front of the resistance of Florence, it excommunicated the city. At the time of the imperial election of 1273, it supported Rodolphe de Habsbourg with the detriment of Alphonse X of Castille. He convened the IIe council of Lyon, open on May 1st 1274. In 1274, the king Philippe III yielded the Comtat Venaissin to him, bases future establishment of papacy with Avignon at the 14th century.

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