PAUL AFIARTA. — Cubicularius, antagonist of the primicerius Christopher (v.) in the latter’s efforts to secure Charlemagne’s protection for the Holy See.
While, however, Christopher was swept away at Desiderius’s entry into Rome (771) by the Lombard king’s brief opposition and was killed together with his own son Sergius, P., no less greedy for power and profit than his rival, rose in esteem under Stephen III and especially under his immediate successor Adrian I (772–95), who in 773 employed him as his own envoy to reconcile the now fallen and displaced father of Desiderata, the repudiated wife of the Frankish conqueror Charlemagne.
Bibl.: Lib. Pont., nn. 204–96; O. Bertolini, La caduta del primicerio Cristoforo nelle versioni dei contemporanei e le correnti antichambere e filologobarde 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.