POPE JOAN

Past more than 1000 years, the legend of Pope Joan still fascinates us. It is like a thriller from the middle ages, a riddle written on old parchment, the story of a woman who disguised as a man rose to the chair of St. Peter, the heart of the Catholic Church. Pope, a woman, for two and a half years? Named John VIII or even John Anglicus, John the English? There are hints of her  existence, although the Church leadership denies it any credit. However in the dusty chronicles of past centuries many monks speak of her, a tarot card is called the high priestess, a marble relief on a Vatican altar seems to show the face of a woman crowned by the papal tiara, a frieze of the italian Siena cathedral features a list of Popes that in the past included a woman, and especially the most strange detail imaginable, a red porphyry chair perforated in the center where according to tradition and to prevent a new reign of a woman Pope was checked at the ceremony of consecration the sex of the new Popes. The trail of the story, the controversy, the overwhelming skepticism, the uncertainty of scholars ... through the centuries something has transpired. Today Rome tour guides show us the place where the impossible supposedly happened, something never imagined, a Pope who gave birth in the street. Is it a myth, a legend, a true happening? From the Dark Ages comes the wonderful story of a woman who ten centuries ago reportedly occupied the throne of St. Peter himself.