Edited by:
Massimo Martini
Pietro was born in 1209 or early 1210 in Molise, into a family of farmers, probably in Sant’Angelo Limosano. Before 1230, he entered the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria di Faifula, in what is now the municipality of Montagano, where he received his religious training. Around 1231, he decided to become a hermit: between 1233 and 1240, he withdrew to Monte Morrone, near Sulmona, living for several years in a cave, and between 1240 and 1245, together with other hermits, he founded the hermitage of S. Spirito on the north-western slopes of the Maiella. His community obtained papal protection from Urban IV in 1263 and was incorporated into the Benedictine Order, with subsequent recognition by Gregory X in 1275: this was the founding act of what would become theOrder of the Celestines.
In 1294, following a conclave that had been deadlocked for over a year, he was elected Pope on 5 July: biographical tradition attributes the election to a specific episode – the account of a vision given by Cardinal Latino Malabranca to a deadlocked College of Cardinals. According to sources, Peter accepted reluctantly, for fear of committing a mortal sin by refusing; he was crowned in L’Aquila on 29 August 1294.
His pontificate lasted five months. Regarding the events that followed, the sources agree on a common basis but differ in their interpretation: verified facts – Celestine began to consider abdication just a few weeks after theelection; he consulted canonists, including Benedetto Caetani and Jean Lemoine; and on 13 December 1294 he formally renounced the papacy at Castelnuovo in Naples, citingact “infirmity” and “lack of knowledge”; Caetani was elected Pope 11 days later, on 24 December, taking the name Boniface VIII. Tradition – subsequent literary scholarship has long identified Celestine V as the anonymous damned soul whom Dante places amongst the slothful in Canto III of theInferno, the author of the “great refusal born of cowardice”: a widespread identification which, however, Dante scholars—by their own admission—have never been able to establish with certainty, so much so that over the centuries the same verse has also been attributed to other historical or biblical figures. Petrarch himself considered the association unfounded and instead extolled the man’s gesture. Modern historiographical interpretations – Peter Herde’s entry in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Biographical Dictionary of Italians) upholds the full legal legitimacy of the abdication, based on a canon law doctrine which, from the 13th century onwards, permitted papal resignation for valid reasons; he also rejects, due to a lack of direct evidence, the contemporary accusations that Boniface VIII had tricked Celestine into abdicating, and emphasises that Peter, thoughfar from being unaware of the affairs of the Curia, had no need to be persuaded: rather, it was a sense of his own inadequacy that prompted him. The most recent historiography describes him, in this light, as a significant and multifaceted transitional pope, who cannot be reduced merely to the image of a misfit hermit.
After his abdication, he attempted to seek refuge in Greece but was intercepted and taken prisoner; he died on the evening of 19 May 1296 in Fumone Castle, where he was being held, at the age of around 87. He was canonised on 5 May 1313 by Clement V – not as Pope Celestine V, but as ‘Saint Peter the Confessor’, under the name he had borne as a hermit. His remains were transferred in 1327 from Ferentino to the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in L’Aquila, the very church that had witnessed his election.
Personal details
name: Pietro Angelerio, known as Pietro da Morrone (Pope under the name of Celestine V) [secular surname not entirely certain in the sources consulted]
birth: 1209 or early 1210 – Molise, probably Sant’Angelo Limosano [place indicated with caution by the main source]
death: 19 May 1296 – Fumone Castle (province of Frosinone)
nationality: Italian [an anachronistic concept for the medieval period, reported in accordance with editorial convention]
occupation: hermit, monk, Pope (5 July – 13 December 1294)
affiliation: founder of the hermitic congregation later incorporated into theBenedictine Order (1263), originally the Order of the Celestines