You Gotta Know These Popes

c.30 – c.68

The leader of the Twelve Apostles, he first Bishop of Rome and thus the first pope.

590–604

One of the “Latin Fathers” of the church, he is considered the founder of the medieval papacy. He famously remarked that some English boys he saw at a slave market were “not Angles, but angels”

1088–1099

Ordered the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont by declaring "Deus Vult" or "God wills it"

1198–1216

He ordered the disastrous Fourth Crusade and excommunicated Venetian crusaders who changed course from Jerusalem to sack Constantinople

1492–1503

Prominent member of the Borgia family and the father of Cesare and Lucrezia. He excommunicated the Florentine friar Savonarola in 1498

1503–1513

He was nicknamed the “Warrior Pope” for his military ambition in expanding the Papal States. He also instituted the Swiss Guard and commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling

1513–1521

The son of Lorenzo de Medici whose papacy included the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. He revived the unpopular sale of indulgences to fund the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica

1846–1878

The longest-reigning pope in history, he reigned during Italian unification and remained a “prisoner in the Vatican” after the annexation of the Papal States

1978–2005

He was from Poland, making him the first non-Italian pope in over 400 years. In 1981, he was shot by Mehmet Ali Agca, a member of the Turkish terrorist group Grey Wolves

2013–present

He is the first Jesuit pope, the first pope from the Americas, and the first pope from outside of Europe since Gregory III in the 8th century