The Mistery of Belicena Villca him with death , while his men covered him with insults . And finally , the betrayal of his hometown , shamelessly plundering his palace , allying with his enemies who were the enemies of the Golen Church , the Church of the One Creator God of the Universe , of the God of whom he , the Priest Maximus , was a living manifestation : Oh One God , what ingratitude on the part of his people ! perhaps that aggression of his own , for being less important but more affective , hurt more than the previous offenses . And naturally within that pain , the anguish of having been stripped of the gold and silver , from his art treasures of unparalleled beauty gathered in a lifetime of acquisitions , many of them inherited or belonging to the Gaetani family . The weight of failure was unloaded without mitigating , crushing in a few hours Boniface VIII . Too many emotions together , even for a Golen of legendary cruelty , those that afflicted the 69-year-old Pope .
When he was rescued by the people of Anagni his consciousness had situated out of reality and , although many promised to return what was stolen , Boniface was in no condition to understand it . He mechanically requested to be taken to the Lateran Palace . There the Orsini Cardinals , when checking his insane status , kept him apart from the Romans . With wild eyes he exclaimed : Bafoel ! Bafoel ! Aliquem ad astra fero ! In some moments of lucidity he exploded in requests for revenge against his enemies and augured the ruin of those who had betrayed him . But then his mind would go dark and he suffered continued fits of rage in which he howled , he foamed at the mouth , and he tried to bite those who cared for him . In the end , on October 13 , 1303 , he died turned into a raging beast , thus fulfilling Celestine V ' s prophecy . The Saint had said : -- “ you have risen like a fox , you will reign like a lion , and you will die like a dog ”.
Forty-First Day
The way Boniface VIII died , and the certainty that King Charles II remained indifferent to his downfall , caused great fear among the Guelph Cardinals . Since no one wanted to suffer the same fate , or even worse , nine days later the Sacred College agrees on the identity of the new Pope : on October 22 , 1303 they elect Cardinal Nicola Boccasini , who takes the name of Benedict XI and was General of the Dominicans . The new Pontiff , who although he was not a Domini Canis was strongly influenced by the Initiates of his Order , tries to carry out a conciliatory policy with the King of France and begin the reform of the scandalous Golen customs that reigned in the high clergy , but he is poisoned with figs before completing a year . As in the case of Celestine V , the deceased had been a solution of convenience between irreconcilable ecclesiastical parties : both sides were intimately confident of dominating the Pope . His death will engulf the Cardinals in a 10-month long discussion under the now inevitable pressure of Philip the Fair .
The King of France offers gold , and protection against the revenge of the Golen , and is getting many Guelph Cardinals to sell their vote . Finally , an arrangement is reached : a cleric non-belonging to the Sacred College will be invested . Philip the Fair meets with Bertrand de Got , Archbishop of Bordeaux , in Saint Jean d ' Angely . The Archbishop is a Lord of the Dog and the King of France requests his collaboration : he wants him to accept the papal investiture and take eight measures that will ensure the Kingdom ' s Strategy ; he does not hide from him that the mission will be extremely dangerous as the Golen will attempt to assassinate him by any means . However , Bertrand de Got agrees . He will also fulfill what he promised : proof of this are the countless slanders that synarchist historians have affirmed on his memory ; neverthess , as in the case of Philip the Fair , all calumnies lose consistency and disintegrate when the Strategy that governed and gave meaning to his actions is known . Be that as it may , the Archbishop agrees to fulfill the mission proposed by the King : first , to condemn the work of Boniface VIII ; second , to lift the excommunication of Philip IV ; third , that the Church does not receive for five
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