PAOLO AFIARTA. – Cubicularius, NUMAI, CRISTOFORO (v.) in the latter’s struggle to promote Charlemagne’s protection of the Holy See.
While Cristoforo, at Desiderio’s entry into Rome (771), was overwhelmed by the brief opposition of the king of the Lombards and killed together with his son Sergio, P., no less avid for power and profit than his antagonist, gained favor with Stefano III and especially with his immediate successor Adriano I (772–95), who in 773 employed him as his envoy of reconciliation to the by then fallen and dispossessed father of Desiderata, the repudiated wife of the Frankish victor, Charlemagne.
BIBL.: Lib. Pont., nos. 294–96; O. Bertolini, La caduta del primicerio Cristoforo nelle versioni dei contemporanei e le correnti antilongobarde e filolongobarde in Roma alla fine del pontificato di Stefano III (771-72), in Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia, 1 (1947), pp. 227–62, 349–78. Carlo Callovini