Why didn't they ever teach me about these in my 12ish years of Catholic education? You know, basically the real reason there were like 8 schisms during the Renaissance?
Pope Alexander VI (aka Rodrigo Borgia) - Well, let it be said that he's apparently not even the worst member of the Borgia clan. They're apparently cited as one of the first sort of examples of organized crime. He was, however, allegedly sleeping with what was probably the worst member of the clan. . .his daughter. Anyway, to the good stuff. From a notorious party this Pope held, this is an official account from the Vatican history:
Fifty prostitutes or courtesans were in attendance for the entertainment of the banquet guests. After the food was eaten, lampstands holding lighted candles were placed on the floor and chestnuts strewn about. The courtesans' clothes were auctioned; then they and the prostitutes crawled naked between the candelabras to pick up the chestnuts. Immediately following the spectacle, members of the clergy and other party guests together engaged the prostitutes in sexual activity. According to Burchard, "prizes were offered - silken doublets, pairs of shoes, hats and other garments - for those men who were most successful with the prostitutes"
According to William Manchester, "Servants kept score of each man's orgasms, for the pope greatly admired virility and measured a man's machismo by his ejaculative capacity."
There are also some AWESOME papal stories from a period that is officially known as THE PORNOCRACY. A lot of those stories might not be true, though, because it was from like the 10th century, when there was a new pope basically every other month. The best story involves one Pope having the previous pope exhumed, putting the corpse on trial, and throwing the corpse in the river. People then started reporting that the corpse came to life and began performing miracles; yes, that gives us a ZOMBIE POPE OF THE PORNOCRACY. And then later they put the same corpse on trial again and decapitated it.
And then there were two popes (IN A ROW) that got caught fucking some other dude's wife, and murdered for it.
Basically, Catholicism used to be a religion that had values I could really get behind, but sometime over the past 1000 years it has really lost its way. We need more papal fucking, and sex, and putting corpses on trial:
WWJD, Evilbore? WWJD?
Also, from accounts of Borgia's death:
Alexander VI's stomach became swollen and turned to liquid, while his face became wine-coloured and his skin began to peel off. Finally his stomach and bowels bled profusely. After more than a week of intestinal bleeding and convulsive fevers, and after accepting last rites and making a confession, the despairing Alexander VI expired on 18 August 1503 at the age of 72.
"The face was very dark, the colour of a dirty rag or a mulberry, and was covered all over with bruise-coloured marks. The nose was swollen; the tongue had bent over in the mouth, completely double, and was pushing out the lips which were, themselves, swollen. The mouth was open and so ghastly that people who saw it said they had never seen anything like it before."
Burchard described how the Pope's mouth foamed like a kettle over a fire and how the body began to swell so much that it became as wide as it was long. The Venetian ambassador reported that Alexander VI's body was "the ugliest, most monstrous and horrible dead body that was ever seen, without any form or likeness of humanity".[5] Finally the body began to release sulphurous gasses from every orifice. Burchard records that he had to jump on the body to jam it into the undersized coffin and covered it with an old carpet, the only surviving furnishing in the room.
CATHOLICISM! FUCK YEAH!
