Pope Leo X: Did you mean...?

Portrait of Pope Pius VII, oil on panel by Jacques-Louis David, 1805. Louvre Museum, Paris.

Stained glass window in York Minster depicting Pope Celestine III (1191-1198 CE)

A 1526 CE portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo of Pope Clement VII (r. 1523-1534 CE). (National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples, Italy)

Statue of St. Gregory the Great in the Oratory of St. Barbara on the Caelian Hill, Rome.

Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546) was a German priest, monk, and theologian who became the central figure of the religious and cultural movement known as the Protestant Reformation. Even though earlier reformers had expressed Luther's views, his...

The Great Palace of Constantinople was the magnificent residence of Byzantine emperors and their court officials which included a golden throne room with wondrous mechanical devices, reception halls, chapels, treasury, and gardens. In use...

The government of the Byzantine Empire was headed and dominated by the emperor, but there were many other important officials who assisted in operating the finances, judiciary, military, and bureaucracy of a huge territory. Without elections...

Exsurge Domine (“Arise, O Lord” in Latin) is a papal bull issued 15 June 1520 by Pope Leo X (served 1513-1521) condemning Martin Luther’s 95 Theses as heresy along with any other works by Luther or those who supported him. Luther burned the...

Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536 CE) was a Spanish princess who famously became the Queen of England and the first wife of Henry VIII of England (r. 1509-1547 CE). When the marriage did not produce a male heir, Henry VIII became desperate to...

Pope Francis is facing calls to rescind a centuries-old policy called the ‘Doctrine of Discovery,’ stemming from a series of edicts, known as papal bulls, dating back to the 15th century, which states that white European nations "discovered"...