Pope Joan... What if it were all true? IN-CONTRO/STORIA presents "LE PAGINE STRAPPATE" by Pietro Ratto

The so-called “legend” of Pope Joan might not be a medieval tale. Since more than a millennium the story of a woman ascended to the papal throne during the ninth century, disguising herself as a man, is passed off as a fabrication whose purpose was to throw discredit upon the Catholic Church. According to this “tale”, after two years of pontificate Joan would have been unmasked because of the premature birth of her baby, occurred while she was leading a procession through the roads of Rome and then stoned to death by the faithful that were attending the ceremony. Roughly one thousand two hundred years later, Pietro Ratto - teacher of history and philosophy, journalist and writer - publishes his striking Le Pagine strappate - Ripped pages (editor Elmi’s World). This original book narrates about Ratto’s fascinating research on a copy in vernacular of Delle vite dei Pontefici (About Popes lives) dated 1552 by Bartolomeo Sacchi known as “Platina”, and his comparative analysis of this ancient text and two later versions of the same book: one dated 1562, written in latin and the other one dated 1650, written in vernacular, both subject to the revision of the Vatican’s Library director, Onofrio Panvinio. Thanks to the comparison of the three editions Ratto discovers the evidence of the deceit - such as the revision of dates and Popes’ names of the two following centuries - used by the Catholic Church to make thinner and thinner the differences between the 1552 version and the 1650 one starting from the death of Lion IV (885) till the final realignment of the chronologies, obtained with the consecration of Benedict IX, in December 1032. All measures taken in order to reabsorb Joan’s two-years pontificate in an attempt to erase from history the unbearable outrage of a woman on the papal throne.