"Napoleon met an obstinate opponent to some of his pretensions in Pope Plus VII ... and stormed as he paced the polished floor, while Pius VII, sat in a large eagle-studded chair, attentive ...

As Secretary of State his achievements have been less spectacular than those of such predecessors as Cardinal Consalvi who wangled a concordat from Napoleon for Pope Pius VII or even Cardinal ...

Directors of historical feature films face a difficult task. How can they make the characters familiar to an audience without ...

Military reverses forced Napoleon to release the Pope, and on May 24th 1814, Pius VII returned in triumph to Rome. Twelve months later, the Pope decreed that the feast of Mary Help of Christians ...

8. Napoleon crowned Joséphine Empress himself. The coronation took place at Notre-Dame cathedral on December 2, 1804, in the ...

It was spruced up in time for Napoleon to be crowned emperor there in 1804, with Pope Pius VII in attendance. He chose the venue over the cathedral in Reims, where French kings were traditionally ...

If Napoleon was alive today, he would undoubtedly be on social media. In his era, projecting the right image was all about rituals (his coronation as emperor in 1804), gestures (crowning himself, ...

It was an unholy alliance. In the 1920s and ’30s, Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini relied on and used each other in their quest to preserve and protect their respective institutions, the Catholic ...

How should you greet a pope? For centuries, it was Catholic tradition to kiss the papal foot. Nowadays, many faithful choose to bow and kiss the papal ring. Conservative Catholics, who routinely ...

The new pope seems perfect, but he conceals secrets and a certain fragility. And he immediately understands that it will not be easy to replace the charismatic Pius XIII: hanging between life and ...

As Pope Pius XIII hangs between life and death in a coma, charming and sophisticated moderate English aristocrat Sir John Brannox is placed on the papal throne and adopts the name John Paul III.