As these engaging papal biographies of 100 most interesting popes show power comes with great temptations, particularly in the time up to World War II.
There has been almost any imaginable type of pope. They have been married, wicked, sex-obsessed, wanton, possessed by genius and madness, brainwashed, deposed and murdered. Here you will find, for example, the the Borgia popes, Pope Julius II, the Renaissance pornographer pope who wrote saucy novels and whacked people he didnt like with his papal staff, or the more recent Pius XII whose embalming in 1958 failed miserably causing appalling eructations from his coffin and a stench that made people faint.
