Celestine III (CELESTINO III) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. III, p. 735

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

CELESTINO III - C. III grants autonomy to the hospital of S. Maria della Scala. Fresco by Domenico di Bartolo (1443-44) - Siena.

Article illustration — CELESTINO V - Fresco from the 14th century in the hermitage of C. V on Mount Morrone.

of Benevento), of which he was later (1276-79) abbot. Due to an inclination towards solitude, clear throughout his entire life, he retired to Mount Palleno and after three years, having gone to Rome, was ordained a priest. His subsequent dwellings were on Mount Morrone and the Maiella, near Sulmona. On the Maiella he gave rise to the monks later called Celestines (v.). At the time of the long vacancy of the Holy See after the death of Nicholas IV, he lived in the hermitage of S. Onofrio on Morrone where he received the announcement of his elevation to Supreme Pontiff, which took place in Perugia.

The choice of the poor hermit after a troubled period, due principally to the rivalry between the Colonna and the Orsini, both represented in the Sacred College, has always been an enigma for historians. Recent studies have clarified the background: Charles II, king of Naples, with his son Charles Martel in the spring of 1294, came to Perugia and met with the eleven elector cardinals. From there he went to Sulmona where he granted privileges to the Celestines and almost certainly also saw the holy hermit, who shortly afterwards wrote a letter to the cardinals exhorting them to finally give a Shepherd to the Church. Latino Malabranca, cardinal dean, was the first to name the pious hermit and gave him his vote; others followed him, and the remaining ones decided to accede. Other circumstances and spiritual currents (Angelique Pope) may have influenced the election of the inexperienced hermit. Having accepted the election, he went to L'Aquila, where in the presence of a few cardinals, Charles II, and a large crowd, he was crowned on August 29, 1294.

On September 18, he created 12 cardinals, of whom 7 were French and 5 Italian, all agreeable to King Charles, to whose son St. Louis of Anjou, still very young and a hostage for his father in Spain, he later entrusted (October 7 or 9) the administration of the archdiocese of Lyon (Bull. Franc., IV, p. 332). He granted many privileges to the Celestine monks, two of whom were among the twelve cardinals created in L'Aquila. Accompanied by King Charles himself, C. went to Naples, passing through Sulmona and Montecassino, where he obliged the monks to embrace the institute of the Celestines,

a command abrogated, like so many others, by his successor Boniface VIII. In Naples a residence was prepared for him in Castelnuovo, but he was not slow to realize that he was not equal to the sublime dignity; he was badgered by the wranglings of the curialists, and yearned for the solitude of his cell. At the beginning of Advent he wanted to entrust the government of the Church to three cardinals and retire to an isolated cell. Opposed by a cardinal and tormented by scruples, he began to think about abdication. He consulted some cardinals, among whom was Benedetto Caetani (the future Boniface VIII), who at first advised against it, but then declared that it was possible.

Around December 10, C. issued a constitution stating that a Pope can renounce his high dignity (v. SOMMO PONTEFICE), and on December 13, before the cardinals, he read the formula of his own free and spontaneous abdication. He had put the rigid norm of the Conclave back into force, and Boniface VIII (December 24) emerged immediately elected from it, having his predecessor led towards Rome. The latter, however, eluding the vigilance of the papal guards, fled and hid in Apulia, from where he vainly tried to cross the Adriatic. Boniface VIII, fearing that ill-intentioned people would take advantage of C.'s great simplicity, had him searched for and, found at Viesti, had him brought and guarded in the castle of Fumone, near Alatri, where he lived until his death. It is a slander that Boniface VIII resorted to machinations to obtain his resignation and accelerate his end. St. Peter Celestine, whose body was buried at Ferentino, and then in 1327 transported to Collemaggio (L'Aquila), was canonized by Clement V on May 5, 1313. His feast is celebrated on May 19.

The unusual resignation of C. immediately provoked a literature on the subject, in which Olivi, Giles of Rome, and John Quidort took part. Well known are the verses of Dante (Inf., III, 59-60), which, ever since the earliest commentators, have been considered as alluding to C. - See Pl. LXXVI.

BIBL.: Sources: F. X. Seppelt, Monumenta Coelestiniana (Quellen und Forschungen of the Görres Society, 19), Paderborn 1921; embraces the Opus metricum of Card. G. G. Stefaneschi, finished in 1319, the lives of St. C. by Pierre d'Ailly (c. 1408) and Maffeo Vegio (1445); the canonization trial (1306). The Opus metricum is also found in Acta SS. Maii, IV, Paris 1866, pp. 437-486, and in L. A. Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script., III, 1, pp. 613-68. The Life by P. d'Ailly was edited (reworked) by D. Faber, Paris 1539; by Surinus, De probatis Sanctorum historiis, III, Cologne 1572, pp. 337-55. A life by the Celestines, disciples of the Saint, exists in three recensions edited in the Anal. Boll., 9 (1890), pp. 147-200; 10 (1891), pp. 385-92; 16 (1897), pp. 393-432, the latter being the most genuine. A purported autobiography was published by C. Telera, S. Petri Coelestini PP. V opuscula omnia, Naples 1640, pp. XLIX-LXVII, and in M. de la Bigne, Maxima bibliotheca veterum Patrum, XXV, Lyon 1677, pp. 765-69; but modern criticism rejects it, like all the pamphlets. Cf. S. Pierre Celestin et ses premiers biographes, in Anal. Boll., 16 (1897), pp. 365-92. Two rhythmic liturgical offices: G. M. Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, 28 (1818), pp. 127-34. Studies: L. Marino, Vita e miracoli di s. Pietro del Morrone già C. papa V., Milan 1630 (with many texts inserted); V. Spinelli, Vita di s. Pietro del Morrone, Rome 1664; P. Arnone, Pietro du Morrone anacoreta e papa, Cosenza 1881; B. Cantera, Cenni storici-biografici riguardanti s. Pier C., Naples 1892; id., Nuovi documenti riguardanti s. P. C., ibidem 1893; C. V ed il VI centenario della sua incoronazione, L'Aquila 1894 (series of 15 studies); G. Pansa, C. V e i solitari del monte Maiella, Teramo 1894; G. Celidonio, Vita di s. Pietro del Morrone, 4 vols. or fasc. Sulmona 1896 (critical study); id., La non autenticità degli Opuscula Coelestina, ibidem 1896 (identical to fasc. IV above, with a small addition); P. M. Baumgarten, Il regesto di C. V., Chieti 1896 (from L'Abruzzo Cattolico, 4 [1896], pp. 2-14); G. Crocioni, Pel Gran rifiuto di C. V., Casalborgino 1898 (with a critical review on the question: from Rassegna Abruzzese, 3 [1898], ibidem); F. X. Seppelt, Studien zum Pontifikat Coelestins V. (Abhandlungen zur mittleren und neueren Geschichte, 27), Berlin-Leipzig 1911; L. Oliger, Petri Johannis Olivi De renuntiatione papae Coelestini V Quaestio et Epistola, in Arch. Franc. hist., 11 (1918), pp. 309-73; J. Hollsteiner, Die Autobiographie Coelestins V., in Römische Quartalschrift, 31 (1923), pp. 29-40; A. Mercati, Il decreto e la lettera dei cardinali per l'elezione di C. V., in Bull. dell'Istituto stor. ital., 47 (1931); F. Baethgen, Beiträge zur Geschichte Coelestins V., Halle 1934; P. Barbaini, C. V anacoreta e papa, Milan 1936 (popular in character); P. Laurelli, Dante e C. V., Isernia 1939; J. Leclercq, La renonciation de

Célestin V et l'opinion théologique en France du vivant de Boniface VIII, in Revue d'histoire de l'Église de France, 25 (1939), pp. 183-92; S. Garcias Palou, El beato Ramón Llull y la cuestión de la renunciabilidad de la sede romana, in Aurora Sacra Tarraconensia, 17 (1944), pp. 67-96. Livario Oliger