The Carafa popes

Among many curious details that I had no space to mention in my Gesualdo piece is the fact that Fabrizio Carafa — the legendarily beautiful young man whom Gesualdo murdered in 1590, on the same night that the Prince killed his no less legendarily beautiful wife — was a grandfather of a pope. I have been unable to pin down the date of Fabrizio's birth, but he was probably around thirty when he died. He married very young — his wife, Maria, was only fourteen — and amongst his other activities managed to father five children. After the unfortunate events of 1590, Maria Carafa became devoutly religious, entering the Dominican convent of Santa Maria della Sapienza. Her daughter Porzia, born in 1589, married Francesco Pignatelli, and their son Antonio ascended to the papacy in 1691, as Innocent XII (pictured). He is generally considered to have been a benevolent and reformist pope, noted for his attempts to curtail nepotism. Less cherished in memory is the principal Carafa pope, Paul IV, whose short reign (1555-59) was one of the bleakest in the history of the Vatican. Among Paul IV's first acts was the monstrous papal bull Cum nimis absurdum, which established the Jewish ghetto in Rome and forced Jews to identify themselves by wearing the color yellow. There was a great celebration in the streets when Paul IV died; rioters mockingly disfigured a statue of him by placing a yellow hat on top of it and then lopping off the head. The succeeding pope, Pius IV, pardoned the protesters and ordered the execution of two of the late pope's nephews. Pius IV's niece was, as it happens, Carlo Gesualdo's mother.