Pope Martin’s successor, Cardinal Giacomo Savelli, born…
1285 CE
Pope Martin’s successor, Cardinal Giacomo Savelli, born in Rome into the rich and influential family of the Savelli, had studied at the University of Paris, where he held a prebend and a canonry at the cathedral of Châlons-sur-Marne.
Later he obtained the benefice of rector at the church of Berton in the Diocese of Norwich in England, a nation he never visited.
In 1261 he was created Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin by Pope Urban IV, who also appointed him papal prefect in Tuscany and captain of the papal army.
Cardinal Savelli pursued a diplomatic career.
Pope Clement IV sent him and three other cardinals to invest Charles of Anjou as King of Sicily at Rome on July 28, 1265.
After the long deadlocked vacancy in the papal see after the death of Clement IV, a vacant seat of three years, he was one of the six cardinals who finally elected Pope Gregory X by compromise on September 1, 1271 in a conclave held at Viterbo because conditions in Rome were too turbulent.
He accompanied Gregory X to the Council of Lyon in 1274, where it was established that only four mendicant orders were to be tolerated: Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians and Carmelites.
In July 1276, he was one of the three cardinals whom Pope Adrian V sent to Viterbo with instructions to treat with the German King, Rudolf I of Habsburg, concerning his imperial coronation at Rome and his future relations towards Charles of Anjou, whom papal policy supported.
The death of Adrian V in the following month rendered the negotiations with Rudolf fruitless.
He became Protodeacon of the Sacred College in November 1277 and as such, he crowned Popes Nicholas III on December 26, 1277 and Martin IV on March 23, 1281.
When Martin IV died o March 28, 1285, at Perugia, Cardinal Savelli is unanimously elected Pope on May 20 and takes the name of Honorius IV.
His election is one of the speediest in the history of the papacy.
On the same day that he is elected, he is consecrated bishop and crowned Pope in the Basilica of St. Peter.
Honorius IV is already advanced in age and so severely affected with gout that he can neither stand nor walk.
When saying Mass he is obliged to sit on a stool and at the elevation of the host his hands have to be raised by a mechanical contrivance.
In this year also, Arnolfo di Cambio produces the giant altar canopies (ciboria, or baldachinos) in Rome’s “San Paolo fuori le Mura” (“St. Paul's Outside the Walls”).
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