Pope Celestine III
?–1198 CE · Rome
Born Giacinto Bobone, a Roman, Celestine III was nearly ninety when elected in 1191 after a long career as cardinal-deacon and diplomat, in which he had once defended the philosopher Abelard. Days after his election he crowned Henry VI emperor, beginning a tense relationship as the Hohenstaufen ruler pressed claims to the Kingdom of Sicily, uniting it dangerously with the empire around the Papal States. Celestine protested Henry's harsh measures and the imprisonment of crusader-king Richard the Lionheart, yet his leverage was limited. Aged and cautious, he is said to have wished to resign near the end. He died in 1198, succeeded by the formidable Innocent III.
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RomeרומאItaly
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Rome in this era
Between the 8th and 15th centuries Rome was the seat of the popes and capital of the Papal States, which grew from the Frankish king Pepin's grant of 756; Charlemagne was crowned emperor in St Peter's in 800. The city shrank far below its ancient size, and from 1309 to 1377 the popes resided at Avignon before returning to Rome.
About Rome
Rome, on the Tiber in central Italy, grew from an Iron Age settlement into the capital of the Roman Republic and then of an empire that by the 1st century CE ruled the whole Mediterranean. Its Jewish community, attested from the 2nd century BCE, is among the oldest in Europe. Christian tradition holds that the apostles Peter and Paul died there, and the city became the seat of the popes. After the Western Empire ended in 476 it passed to Gothic kings, to Byzantium and then to papal rule as capital of the Papal States, until it became the capital of unified Italy in 1871. Vatican City, independent since 1929, lies within it.
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