Pope John VIII
?–882 CE · Rome
A vigorous and politically astute Roman, John VIII reigned during the disintegration of the Carolingian order and mounting Saracen raids on southern Italy and the coast near Rome. He crowned Charles the Bald and later Charles the Fat as emperor, fortified Rome, and even built a papal fleet, becoming the first pope to organize naval defense against the Muslims. He navigated the Photian controversy pragmatically, recognizing Photius as patriarch. Sources report he died violently—possibly poisoned then clubbed—making him, by some accounts, the first pope to be assassinated. His extensive surviving register illuminates ninth-century papal diplomacy.
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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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