Pope Celestine IV
?–1241 CE · Milan
Born Goffredo Castiglioni at Milan, Celestine IV held the papacy for only about two weeks in late 1241, dying before he could be consecrated. His election came under extraordinary duress: with Emperor Frederick II warring on the papacy, the Roman senator Matteo Rosso Orsini confined the cardinals in squalid conditions to force a decision, an episode often cited as a forerunner of the formal conclave. Already old and frail, the newly chosen pope quickly fell ill and died. His fleeting reign left the throne vacant for more than a year and a half, as a divided and intimidated college struggled to elect his successor amid the imperial conflict.
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MilanItaly
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About Milan
Milan, in the Po plain of northern Italy, is the capital of Lombardy and the country's economic centre. As Roman Mediolanum it served as a capital of the Western Roman Empire from the late third century until 402, and in 313 Constantine issued the Edict of Milan there, granting toleration to Christians and others. Its bishop Ambrose (374-397), the city's patron saint, baptised Augustine. Under the Visconti and Sforza dukes it became a leading Renaissance city, where Leonardo da Vinci worked at court and painted the Last Supper; Spanish and then Austrian rule followed. Jews were expelled in the sixteenth century, but a community re-formed in the nineteenth and opened the city's central synagogue in 1892.
In Milan at the same time
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Pope Celestine IV’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
In the same tradition
Pope Honorius IV, Pope Nicholas III, Pope Innocent IV, Pope Urban III
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Pope Celestine IV’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
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