Pope Nicholas III
Pope from 1277 to 1280
- Fame58.0
- Momentum0.0
- Religious Figures rank#162
Source-basedFalling
- Fame58.0
- Momentum0.0
- Religious Figures rank#162
- Wikipedia6.5K
Lived 1215–1280, aged 65Italy
ItalySummary
Updated 2026-06-08
Giovanni Gaetano Orsini climbed through eight papacies before family pull delivered him the throne itself. He lasted three years, but Dante landed him headfirst in hell — simony, nepotism, the works — and the literary damnation stuck harder than anything he did in life.
Biography
About
Born around 1225 into Roman nobility, Giovanni Gaetano Orsini spent decades moving through the papal machinery: Cardinal-Deacon under Innocent IV, protector of the Franciscans under Alexander IV, inquisitor-general under Urban IV. After a six-month vacancy following John XXI's death in 1277, family influence secured his election in November. He ruled the Papal States for less than three years, dying on 22 August 1280. What followed shaped his afterlife more than his reign: Dante placed him in the Inferno's eighth circle, buried upside-down among the simoniacs, and that poetic sentence became h…
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Fame
Falling58.0
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Historical23.6
Source confidence60.0
Completeness70.0
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- WikipediaHigh confidencewikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
- WikidataHigh confidencewikidata · wikidata.org
- Pantheon 2.0High confidencedatabase · pantheon.world
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