The Short Guide to Catholic Church History notes the worst Renaissance Pope was Bragghimento dei Crudelissimi, who took the name of Sporus VI [St. Fidgeta & Other Parodies, 53-7].
Election
Fifteen prelates were in attendance at his election – eight certainly senile and one, Cardinal Balbo of Genoa, was questionable (kept spilling ink during the balloting and constantly referred to the cardinal next to him as 'Rosa'). Cardinal Schotto of Mainz broke his pen during the balloting and "could not secure another from the proctors, whom he accused (loudly) of being in the pay of the Italians." Ultimately he never got a pen. During this outburst Schotto encountered Scataphorus, the 98-year-old Patriarch of Alexandria, "who was trying (in a general way) to find the bathroom."
Papal Reign
Upon his election in 1540, his reign was prone to numerous scandals - including the acknowledgement of "three mistresses, a concubine, and fourteen illegitimate children, supporting this move with his campaign slogan, 'Honesty in the Church'" and "the series of attempts he and Cardinal Bobbo made to poison each other." Sporus VI evidentially won by throwing the cardinal down a well.
A patron of the arts; patron of Sandro di Garagiola, a painter of numerous frescos involving Pope Sporus VI. "Not even art could preserve Pope Sporus from the recurrent attacks of mal de siècle that sent him, in the twilight of his reign, more and more frequently to Capri.
During a high wind in October 1565 he was blown off Tiberius' Leap and drowned.
Sporus has classical antecedents: the name of a boy the emperor Nero emasculated in an attempt to coerce (and thusly mentioned in the play, The Tragedy of Nero), and the name poet Alexander Pope used to berate an English nobleman. Pope’s satirical poem, Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot (1734), describes nobleman John Hervey as handsome but corrupt, possibly hermaphroditic, and also as malevolent:
Let Sporus tremble –"What? that thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?"
Bellairs’ allusion probably comes from this reference, corruption being relevant to the subject of Bad Popes, and using a name from classical literature that carried with it unsavory connotations.
Bowen does not immediately recognize bragghimento in his dictionary; "the family name dei Crudelissimi means literally 'of the cruelest ones.'"
There not much to add about the fictitious preists, Balbo and Bobbo. While Myers says there could be a veiled Tolkien influence, a la Bilbo Baggins, chances are the names were just made-up. Scataphorus is a variant of the word scatological; "the Greek derivation of the name means shit-carrier. Make of that what you will," says Bowen.
Mal de siècle is the pain of the century, a phrase popularized by French intellectuals toward the end of the nineteenth century. "It involved ennui, listlessness, and a sense that things were drifting aimlessly in the wrong direction," says Bowen, "and since WWI lay ahead, who can say they were wrong?" The phrase may have its origins in the phrase fin se siècle - end of the century.
