War with the papacy, from which they had seized Bologna and other fiefs of the Holy See, was the Visconti’s major activity. When excommunicated by the Pope in the course of the war, Bernabò compelled the legate who brought him the Bull of Excommunication to eat it, including silken cord and seals of lead. He was supposed to have had four nuns burned and an Augustinian monk roasted alive in an iron cage for no known reason unless it was malice toward the Church.
