By Dan Fox
Derek Jacobi in the 1995 production of Peter Luke's 'Hadrian VII' (based on the novel by Frederick Rolfe)
This week saw the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, the first to abdicate as leader of the Roman Catholic Church since Gregory VII in 1415. Soon, the Papal Conclave – a meeting of the College of Cardinals – will gather behind locked doors to decide who will be the next Pontiff. (It used to meet in a bricked-up room, to prevent lobbyists trying to influence the decision process, and to ensure that the cardinals would concentrate on the matter in hand.) When their decision has been made, the ballot papers used by the Cardinals will be burned, the smoke – visible from St Peter’s Square – signalling that a new Pope has been elected.
What, you are probably wondering, does this medieval pantomime have to do with a contemporary art magazine? Well, Benedict XVI’s resignation falls on the 100 year anniversary of the death of Frederick Rolfe, an obscure British artist and writer who, in 1904, published a peculiar revenge fantasy about the election of an English pope, titled Hadrian the Seventh.
Rolfe was a marginal figure in 19th century British bohemia. A writer, painter and photographer, he was also, by many accounts, a troubled and often deeply unpleasant man who alienated many close to him. Rolfe went by many names, the best known of which was Baron Corvo; he claimed that the Duchess Sforza Cesarini – a minor aristocrat and patron of Rolfe – had bestowed the title on him. Rolfe’s other pseudonyms included Frederick Austin, Frank English, A. Crab Maid and Fr. Rolfe, the clerical ambiguity of the latter no doubt a way of assuaging his resentment at being expelled in 1889 from the Scots College in Rome whilst training to be a Catholic priest.
Frederick Rolfe (c.1889)
He wrote short stories for The Yellow Book– the London-based literary journal famous for its Aubrey Beardsley illustrations and associations with fin de siècle decadence – and dabbled with painting and homoerotic photography. Hardly an exceptional artistic talent – his painting was formally naïve and deeply religious in subject matter – Rolfe nonetheless was notable for making very early experiments in both colour and underwater photography. Unusually for his time, Rolfe was open about his homosexuality. He was strongly attracted to adolescent boys, and his desires were often expressed in mawkish and borderline pornographic terms in correspondences with friends. Given Rolfe’s obsession with Catholicism, his life echoes in peculiar ways around the abuse scandals, indefensible cover-ups and antediluvian homophobia that rocks the Vatican today. Rolfe’s life was later documented by the co-founder of the International Wine and Food Society, A.J.A. Symons, in his ‘experiment in biography’, The Quest for Corvo (1934), a book that not only tells Rolfe’s life but gives a meta-commentary about Symons’ own experiences writing it.
A.J.A. Symons, ‘The Quest for Corvo’ (1934)
Hadrian the Seventh (which in 1968 formed the basis of a stage play by Peter Luke, Hadrian VII) tells the story of George Arthur Rose, an unashamedly transparent avatar for Rolfe. The chain-smoking Rose is a failed writer, living in poverty in a London garret with no one other than his imperious cat Flavio for company, and nursing bitterness at having been rejected from the Catholic priesthood. One night he is visited by two envoys from the Vatican, including a Cardinal Archbishop. They inform him that the Papal Conclave has been in session to elect a new Pope, but the discussions have reached stalemate. By a strange twist in events, the Conclave has decided to offer the Papacy to Rose, which he accepts, taking on the name Hadrian VII in homage to Nicholas Brakespear, the last and only English Pope, Hadrian IV, in the 12th century.
Poster for 1969 stage production of ‘Hadrian VII’ at the New Tivoli Theatre, Sydney, Australia
Rose travels to Rome and, once ordained, sets about exacting revenge against every person and institution that has ever crossed him or disagrees with him, and dragging the Roman Catholic church through a set of reforms. Pope Hadrian wants to redesign the crucifix, re-decorate the Vatican and redraw the boundaries of various European nations. Oddly, his decrees do not include lifting the church’s ban on homosexuality, and Hadrian rails against socialism despite deciding to re-distribute the Vatican’s wealth to the poor. The story ends with Rose assassinated by an anti-Catholic Scotsman.
Frederick Rolfe, ‘Hadrian the Seventh’ (Cover of 1963 Penguin edition)
Hadrian the Seventh is, in many ways, a dreadful book. Rolfe uses it as a platform for venomous screeds about all the injustices (perceived and imagined) that vex him, passages that drag on for pages and pages. With its almost absurdly vituperative tone and fantastical, Dan Brown-esque plot it nonetheless remains a curio in a long strain of English writers who have over-aestheticized and romanticized the theatre of Roman Catholicism, including Anthony Burgess, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Evelyn Waugh. It also contains a strong message: do not elect an artist as Pope.