Giovanni Colonna (cardinal, around 1170)

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Cardinal Giovanni Colonna (the Younger)

Giovanni Colonna (* around 1170; † January 28, 1245 ) was an Italian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church in the 13th century. He came from the ancient Roman Colonna family . He is occasionally also called "the younger" to distinguish it from Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo († around 1214), who is often related to the Colonna family.

Life

Colonna was on May 27, 1206 by Pope Innocent III. appointed cardinal deacon of Santi Cosma e Damiano and then (probably on February 18, 1217) by Honorius III. Cardinal priest of Santa Prassede . In 1216 he donated a hospital on the Lateran and in July of that year took part in the election of Cencio Savelli as Pope Honorius III. part. In April 1217 the Pope in Rome crowned the French nobleman Peter von Courtenay as Emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople . Colonna was appointed papal legate for the empire and then accompanied the emperor on his journey to Constantinople . On Venetian ships they crossed the Adriatic to Epirus , where Emperor Peter took up the siege of Durazzo , but had to give it up soon. As a result, however, they had made the Byzantine despot of Epirus , Theodoros I Angelos , their enemy, by whom they were surprised and taken prisoner on their further land trip. After diplomatic pressure from the Pope, Colonna was soon released; Emperor Peter, however, died in captivity.

Colonna was able to travel on to Constantinople, where he took over the reign of the Empire no later than the spring of 1220 after the death of Conon de Béthune . Together with the Patriarch Gervasius , he led the organization of the Latin church hierarchy in the Byzantine-Greek area conquered by the crusaders of the fourth crusade a few years earlier . Among other things, he pronounced the excommunication of the Grand Lord of Athens , Otto de la Roche , and occupied his country with the interdict . In March 1221 Robert von Courtenay , the son of Peter, arrived in Constantinople and was crowned emperor by Patriarch Matthew .

The Flagellation Column of Christ in the Zeno Chapel of Santa Prassede, Rome.

Colonna did not return to Rome until 1223. With him he carried a stone made of jasper marble , which supposedly came from the Praetorium of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem and is part of the column on which Jesus Christ was scourged. Colonna found a place for this relic in the Zeno Chapel of Santa Prassede , which significantly increased the prestige of the Colonnesi. According to legend, Colonna came into possession of the flagellation column after an adventure in the holy land. He took part in the Damiette crusade in 1219 and was captured by the Saracens during the fighting in front of the Egyptian port city . By them he was brought to Jerusalem, where he was to be quartered. When his executioners wanted to go to work, however, he was surrounded by a brightly shining nimbus , whereupon the unbelievers refrained from execution out of awe. In addition to freedom, they gave Colonna the scourging column as a gift, which immediately saved his life in a storm on the boat trip back to Rome. The truth of this story as well as the authenticity of the column (Italian: Colonna ) are ultimately doubtful, the column is probably actually a fragment of an ancient balustrade .

At the election of Ugolinos dei Conti di Segni as Pope Gregory IX. on March 19, 1227 Colonna did not take part because he worked in Spoleto as papal rector. In the following years he took a more moderate stance in the conflict between the church and Kaiser Friedrich II and tried several times to mediate. In the summer of 1240 he negotiated an armistice between the Pope and the Emperor, which the Pope soon canceled. As a result, his personal honor injured, Colonna openly converted to the emperor's side in the spring of 1241, establishing a long-lasting Ghibelline tradition of the Colonnesi. Together with his nephew Oddone Colonna, who was the senator of Rome, he had a strong position in Rome and prepared the city for an invasion of the emperor, who at that time was already passing through the surrounding area, including the fortification of the Augustus mausoleum . But on August 22, 1241 Pope Gregory IX died, whereupon Emperor Friedrich II decided not to enter Rome. Control in the city was now taken over by the Guelfi party under Senator Matteo Rosso Orsini , who locked Colonna in a dungeon. From this captivity, however, he was released again in the spring of 1243, so that he could still participate in the Anagni conclave , where on June 25, 1243 the Genoese Sinibaldo Fiesco was elected Pope Innocent IV .

literature

  • Werner Maleczek: Pope and College of Cardinals from 1191 to 1216: the cardinals under Celestine III. and Innocent III. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1984, pp. 154–162.
  • Kenneth M. Setton: The Papacy and the Levant: The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Volume 1 in: Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society. American Philosophical Society, 1991.
  • Bernd Roeck: Murderers, painters and patrons: Piero della Francesca's “Flagellation”: an art-historical crime story. CH Beck, 2006.
  • Wolfgang Stürner : Friedrich II. Primus-Verlag, 2009.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. See on this Maleczek, pp. 154–155, 157–158. The statement by K. Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica , Vol. 1, Münster 1913, pp. 4 and 45, that he was appointed cardinal priest of S. Prassede as early as 1212 is based on confusion with Cardinal Giovanni da Ferentino , the cardinal deacon of S. Maria in Via Lata from 1204-1212 and then cardinal priest of S. Prassede from 1212 to 1215 (cf. Maleczek, pp. 146-147).
  2. It is documented as such in Spoleto between October 4, 1224 and April 16, 1227. Not until April 19, 1227 is he attested again at the curia. See Maleczek, pp. 159-160.