Pope Clement III

Born Paolo Scolari in 1130, he ascended to the papacy on 19 December 1187 at a moment when Rome and the Church were estranged. The conflict had driven the Papacy into exile; Clement ended it by allowing the city to elect its own magistrates, a concession that let him return. Facing a college of cardinals gutted by attrition, he created thirty-one new cardinals over three years — the most aggressive expansion since Adrian IV. He died 20 March 1191, three years into the job, and Celestine III took the chair almost immediately.