John XVI, Antipope

GIOVANNI XVI, ANTIPOPE. — Born in Rossano in Calabria, he died in 1013 (?). G. Filagato, a Greek from an obscure family who, through the favor of the empress Teofano, became abbot of Nonantola, coadjutor and then bishop of Pavia, and Otto III’s envoy to Constantinople, was, on returning from this mission and in the Emperor’s absence, elevated to the papal See, perhaps against his will, by Giovanni Crescenzo, in opposition to the fugitive imperial pope Gregorio V (April 997). Upon the Emperor’s return, G. was blinded, horribly mutilated, and confined to a monastery. He died, it seems, in the abbey of Fulda.