Avignon

Press, Issue 31095, 25 June 1966, Page 4

Avignon

Avignon in Flower. By Marzieh Gail. Gollancz, 324 pp.

Avignon is part of the legend of Europe, as generations of schoolchildren learn the familiar little jingle about its famous bridge. This book tells of its heyday in the 14th century, when the Popes ruled in Avignon instead of Rome, and the city became a centre of commerce and politics, profiteering and bribery. Of the seven Popes who reigned there as undisputed Head of the Church only one, Urban V, showed a genuine respect for the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Gold florins flowed into the treasury from innumerable fees and “gifts”: many seeped out again to buy off rebels or brigands who threatened the city, and most were spent on building and adorning the great Papal palace. For fifty years or so the conduct of the Papal court was observed and criticised by that most illustrious writer Ser Francesco Petrarch, but neither he nor anyone else of that time could foresee the consequences of this transfer of the seat of spiritual power. After the death in Rome of Gregory XI, there were for a time two Popes and then three, a situation that helped toward the Reformation protest against having any Pope at all. Miss Gail writes elegantly and judiciously, whether treating of in-fighting among ecclesiastics or of Petrarch and the mystery of his brilliant-eyed Laura. A chronological table and index are included, and the work is decorated with pleasant vignettes in medieval style.