Pope Paul I

Paul was born in 700 and served as a Roman deacon under his brother, Pope Stephen II, who sent him again and again to bargain with the Lombard kings pressing down on the city. When Stephen died in 757, Paul took the papal throne on 29 May and ruled the emerging Papal States for the next ten years. The diplomatic work never stopped: the Lombards still wanted Rome, and Paul spent his papacy in the same careful dance his brother had choreographed. He died on 28 June 767, after a decade of holding the line.