11. Pius II Wrote Pornography
Born into the Italian elite, Enea Piccolomini’s early life was anything but what his regnal name indicates. Before he took holy orders, he traveled to Europe as a representative of the Church, enjoying the pleasures of life. Cardinal Albergati, the papal legate of Pope Eugenius IV, sent Piccolomini to King James I’s court in Scotland to push the king into a ceasefire that would end the Hundred Years’ War. The trip permanently damaged Piccolomini’s health, but that did not stop him from indulging in women. He fathered illegitimate children with two mistresses, during his assignments in Scotland and Strasbourg.
An accomplished writer, Piccolomini lived at the court of King Frederick III of Germany as the monarch’s poet laureate. In 1444, he wrote The Tale of Two Lovers, which became one of the most popular books in the fifteenth century. The work is one of the first epistolary novels, centering on the exchange of letters between a servant and his married lover. With multiple references to erotic imagery, The Tale of Two Lovers is the medieval equivalent to today’s erotic novels. By the time of its publication, Piccolomini acknowledged several illegitimate children by his many mistresses.
To his credit, Piccolomini turned away from his former life after his election as Pope Pius II in 1458. Becoming a faithful servant of the morality of the Church, he openly criticized members of the College of Cardinals who ignored their vows of celibacy. In June 1460, Pius wrote a scathing letter to his Vice-Chancellor of the Church, Rodrigo Borgia, the future Alexander VI. Upon learning of Borgia’s preference for orgies and prostitutes, the pope chastised Borgia, claiming that a “Cardinal should be beyond reproach.”