A fat and meddling pope died today of his excesses in 1285

[Witt]

On the 28th March 1285 Pope Martin IV died in Perugia, Italy.
He was born in Brie in France, was short and fat and was renowned for eating to excess. He had been pope for 4 years.  He had not accomplished his two objectives: to reunite Christiandom’s two halves under Rome(there was a Byzantine church in Constantinople) and to make the French king’s brother, Charles,King of Naples and Sicily,  ruler in the East. He had been his patron.
Pope Martin excommunicated the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII and made Charles’ invasion a Crusade. Charles’ expedition failed and the Byzantine Empire and its church would last for another 160 years(1453).
As a consequence of his Crusade, King Charles lost his kingdom to the king of Aragon. Pope Martin reacted by excommunicated him too. Charles never regained his kingdom, dying in 1285, aged 59.
Three months later the obese Pope Martin IV died of dyspepsia after eating another of his gargantuan meals. Dante put him in his Inferno along with the other gluttons.

[CWO Marc]

@wittmann:

after eating another of his gargantuan meals.

Interesting choice of adjectives.

[Witt]

Morning Marc.
I try my best to use gargantuan as much as possible these days.
I know it means so much to all of us.

[aequitas-et-veritas]

@wittmann:

I try my best to use gargantuan as much as possible these days.
I know it means so much to all of us.

sounds like a gargantuanish plan to me wittmann… :-)