In 1757, Antonio Canova, Italian neo-classical sculptor whose works include the tombs of Pope Clement XIV and Clement XIII, was born.

CNN: Saturday,

France's King Philip the Fair sought to destroy the chivalric order to obtain its financial wealth, while the Knights' strongest defender was Pope Clement V.

WSJ: Lux in Arcana | Capitoline Museum | The Papacy's Private Papers | By Francis X. Rocca

More than 80 red wax seals hang down like an exotic beaded curtain from the bottom of a 1530 petition from English parliamentarians to Pope Clement VII.

WSJ: Lux in Arcana | Capitoline Museum | The Papacy's Private Papers | By Francis X. Rocca

But within a few years of Boniface's death in 1303, Pope Clement V, his successor, moved the papacy to Avignon, France, repudiated Boniface and quickly began canonization proceedings for the soon-to-be St.

CNN: Echoes of past in pope's resignation

Pope Clement VII's 1530 bull approving the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V might seem an assertion of papal supremacy until one notes that it followed the 1527 sack of Rome by Charles's mutinous troops, many of them German Lutherans.

WSJ: Lux in Arcana | Capitoline Museum | The Papacy's Private Papers | By Francis X. Rocca