About the book: 2021 / The book by the famous Italian medievalist Agostino Paravicini Bagliani is a large-scale excursion into the history of the papacy - the oldest spiritual institution in Europe. The reader will get acquainted with the rituals that accompanied the election and burial of the great pontiffs, find out what sacred principles are hidden behind their bodily shell and how the Curia interpreted the concepts of mortality and eternity. The book is based on the author’s reasoning about the essence of power, about the divine and natural in man. The world of the popes with dreams of longevity and fear of death, disputes about the fragility of the body and the immortality of the soul appears before us in all its diversity. The book was translated into Russian by a Russian medievalist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, specialist in the culture of the medieval West Oleg Voskoboynikov. In PDF format A4 retained publishing layout.