Toynbee "Orsini, Napoleone"
Napoleone degli Orsini del Monte, member of the illustrious Roman house of that name; created cardinal by Nicholas IV in 1288; died in 1342. On the death of Benedict XI (1304), Napoleone, together with the Cardinal Niccolo da Prato took an active part, as Villani records (Villani. viii. 80) in securing the election of the French Pope Clement V, in opposition to the Gaetani faction
[Clemente_2]
. After the death of Clement V in 1314, D. wrote a letter (
Epist. xi
) to the Italian cardinals in conclave at Carpentras in Provence in July of that year; the cardinals were then only six in number, viz. Napoleone Orsini, Jacopo Colonna, Pietro Colonna Niccolo da Prato, Francesco Gaetani, and Guglielmo dei Longhi. He urged them to elect an Italian pope in succession to the Gascon Clement, and he addressed himself in particular to Napoleone (
tu pre omnibus, Urse
), reproaching him with his share in Clement's election and with his lukewarmness in the matter of the restoration of his colleagues, the Colonna cardinals, Jacopo and Pietro who had been deprived by Boniface VIII,
Epist. xi. 24
[Bonifazio_1:
Colonnesi]
. In the event, in spite of the efforts of the Italian cardinals, and of Napoleone in particular, whom Villani in his account of the election (Villani. ix. 81) speaks of as 'capo di quella setta contro a' Guasconi' another French pope was chosen in the person of Jacques d'Euse, the cobbler's son (as Villani calls him) of Cahors who took the title of John XXII
[Giovanni XXII]
. [
See
R. Morghen 'La lettera di Dante ai Cardinali italiani'
Bull. dell'Ist. Stor. Ital. per il Medio Evo
, vol. 68 (1956), 1-31.]
©Oxford University Press 1968. From A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante by Paget Toynbee (1968) by permission of Oxford University Press
