Alexader, the name of eight popes. I. Saint, a Roman by birth, according to ecclesiastical tradition, governed the church from 108 to 119, and was beheaded by order of the emperor Hadrian. A beautiful church has been erected over his tomb.

II. Anselmo Badagio, born in Milan, was bishop of Lucca, became pope through the influence of Hildebrand (afterward Gregory VII.), and reigned from 1061 to 1073. The first few years of his reign were troubled by a contest with an anti-pope named Cadalous, who took the name of Honorius II. He carried out with great vigor and ability the measures of the reforming party in the church of which Hildebrand was the life and soul, against simony and concubinage among the clergy, and the intrusion of unworthy bishops into the episcopal sees through the influence of princes and nobles. By the advice of Hildebrand, he pronounced in favor of the claims of William of Normandy to the crown of England, as successor to Edward the Confessor. After the success of William's arms, in 1066, he sent as legate into England Bishop Ermenfroi, and the cardinals Peter and John, who crowned King William, and afterward held a council at Winchester, in which Stigand, the excommunicated archbishop of Canterbury, who had intruded himself into that see during the lifetime of the archbishop Robert, was deposed.

The celebrated Lanfrane, formerly the preceptor of Alexander, was placed in that see, and afterward received by the pope with great honor at Rome. Alexander maintained close relations with the Byzantine empire, and sent a legate to the Greek court. A number of his epistles are extant, among which is one addressed to the bishops of France, in which he condemns in the strongest terms the cruelties practised by some Christians on the Jews.

III. Rolando Bandinelli, born in Siena, elected Sept. 7, 1159, died Aug. 1, 1181. He had to sustain a long conflict with Frederick Barbarossa and four successive anti-popes, one of whom, styling himself Calixtus III., came to him at Frascati in 1178, threw himself at his feet, and demanded absolution, which Pope Alexander granted immediately, inviting him to his own table. The emperor, who had been excommunicated, submitted after a protracted struggle in 1177, and was absolved from his excommunication at Venice. On this occasion he paid the ordinary homage to the pope by kissing his foot, and leading the mule on which he rode; but the story that the pope put his foot on his neck appears to rest on no historical foundation. Alexander entered into correspondence with the Greek emperor Manuel, with the view of inducing him to consent to a project, much favored at that time in Italy, of transferring the imperial throne to Rome, and thus effecting a permanent reconciliation of the Greeks to the Roman church. These negotiations, however, had no result.

He also held at Tours in France, where he had taken refuge in the early part of his pontificate, a council against the Albigenses. Supported by him, Thomas a Becket carried on the ecclesiastical struggle with King Henry II. of England, Becket and St. Bernard were canonized by Alexander III., a right which he first reserved exclusively to the holy see by a decree promulgated at the council of Tours. It was this pope who instituted the ceremony of the espousal of the Adriatic by the doge of Venice. The last remarkable act of his life was the celebration of the third general council of Lateran at Rome, in 1179.

IV. Rinaldo di Segni, a Roman, nephew of Gregory IX., and cardinal bishop of Ostia, elected at Naples, Dec. 12, 1254, died at Vi-terbo, May 25, 1261. During his reign the states of the church were devastated by Manfred, the natural son of the emperor Frederick II. He declared a crusade against Manfred, which proved unsuccessful, even with the aid of Henry III. of England, to whose second son Edmund he gave, in quality of suzerain, the investiture of the kingdom of Sicily. During his reign occurred also the crusade and captivity of St. Louis of France. By request of this prince, the inquisition was established in France in 1255. This pontiff was compelled to pass the latter part of his life at Viterbo, on account of seditions among the Roman populace. He labored to reunite the Greek to the Roman church, and to combine the Christian nations against the Moslems. The hostility of the Venetians and Genoese prevented the success of his plans, and the chagrin which he experienced in consequence is said to have caused his death.

V. Pietro Filargo, born in Candia, elected by the general council of Pisa, June 26, 1409, died May 3, 1410. He was originally a beggar, and was educated by a charitable Franciscan, and sent to Oxford and Paris, where he greatly distinguished himself. On his return he became private tutor to the duke of Milan, and afterward archbishop of that city. Innocent VII. made him cardinal and papal legate in Lombardy. After his elevation to the pontificate, he resided at Bologna.

VI. Rodrigo Lenznolo, or Borgia, born in Valencia, Spain, in 1431, elected pope Aug. 11, 1492, died Aug. 18, 1503. His mother was a Borgia and the sister of Pope Calixtus III. His father was an officer of rank, and Rodrigo passed his youth first in the study of law and in civil offices, and afterward in the profession of arms, for which he displayed considerable talent. He formed a criminal relation with a widow, and after her death took for his mistress her daughter, Rosa Vanozza, by whom he had five children, one of whom was CAesar Borgia, and another Lucretia, afterward duchess of Este. When his uncle became pope, Rodrigo was summoned to Rome. He went with reluctance; hut whatever unwillingness he may have felt to abandon his pleasures in Spain was overcome by the generosity of the pontiff, who hastened to appoint him archbishop of Valencia, cardinal deacon, and vice chancellor of the church, and gave him a revenue of 28,000 crowns a year. Without breaking off his connection with Vanozza, he now assumed an exterior of piety and humility, visited the hospitals, gave much to the poor, and acquired a reputation for extraordinary virtue. Under Popes Pius II. and Paul II., who wore the tiara after Calixtus, little is known of his life.

He was high in the favor of Sixtus IV., who sent him as legate to Aragon and Portugal; but he is said to have caused some scandal at the court of Lisbon by his licentious behavior. After the accession of Innocent VIII. (1484) he brought his mistress secretly to Rome, and furnished her with an ostensible husband, in the person of a Spaniard who had been her majordomo. Under the protection of this pseudo count, the cardinal was enabled to visit Vanozza without suspicion. On the death of Innocent in 1492 he bought the suffrages of the adherents of Cardinals Sforza, Orsino, Riario, and Oolonna, and, having been thereupon elected to the pontificate, delivered an edifying discourse in which he urged the sacred college to reform their lives, and denounced with especial severity the crimes of avarice and simony. His eldest son, Francesco, was appointed commander of the papal troops; his second son, CAesar, was made archbishop of Valencia, and a year later cardinal. The Papal States were at this time in a very disturbed condition, and Alexander's first care was to strengthen the temporal power by crushing the turbulent lords of Ferrara, Bologna, Rimini, Faenza, Ostia, and Urbino, forming a league against Naples with Venice and Milan, and then a league with Naples against France. Unable to prevent the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII, he made his peace with the French king at an interview in the Vatican; and after Charles had taken possession of Naples he instigated a new confederation against him, composed of the republic of Venice, the duke of Milan, and the other princes of Italy, and succeeded at last in ridding the peninsula of the invaders.

He allied himself with Charles's successor, Louis XII., in an attack upon Milan, granted the king a divorce, and obtained for his son CAesar a splendid position at the French court. He was a party to the treachery by which Ferdinand of Spain first betrayed the cause of his relative Frederick of Naples by partitioning that kingdom between Louis XII. and himself, and then betrayed Louis by seizing the whole conquest. Caesar had accompanied the French to Milan, and thence waged incessant war upon the Italian princes, the pope's purpose being not only to consolidate his own temporal power, but to elevate his family to the dignities of the dispossessed barons. Vile as the means were by which he accumulated wealth, he spent it in such a way within his dominions, restoring order and reviving trade, that he was popular with his subjects. He carried simony to a point never before dreamed of, and a contemporary pasquinade began with the lines, Vendit Alexander claves, altaria,. Christum; Vendere jure potest, emerat ille prius.

The crimes of wholesale poisoning and other murders commonly laid to his charge are not all supported by sufficient evidence, but enough is known to entitle him to remembrance as the worst of all the popes. His death is said by some historians to have been caused by poison which he intended for a large party of cardinals whom he had invited to a banquet.

VII. Fabio Chigi, born of an illustrious family at Siena, Feb. 13, 1599, elected April 7, 1655, died May 22, 1667. Before his election he filled several of the highest offices of the Roman church with credit. During his pontificate he was zealous in the reformation of discipline. He confirmed the bull of Innocent X. against the five propositions of Jansenius, and prescribed a formulary condemning the principles of Jansenism, which all persons concerned were required to sign. He finished the college of Sapienza, commenced by Leo X. after designs of Michel Angelo, and constructed the beautiful colonnade in the piazza of St. Peter's.

VIII. Marco Cttobeni, son of the grand chancellor of Venice, where he was born, April 19, 1610, elected Oct. 6, 1689, died Feb. 1, 1691. He studied at Padua and Rome, was successively bishop of Brescia and Frascati, and cardinal. He condemned the four articles of the Gallican assembly, and assisted the emperor Leopold I. and the Venetians with large sums in the wars against the Turks. He possessed a high degree of prudence, moderation, and political sagacity, and was very benevolent to the poor, but too much inclined to favor his own relations.