Several years ago, in the cosy bosom of Soho’s Academy Club, Patrick Reyntiens the preeminent stained glass artist and devout Catholic, stood on a chair (despite his 85 years) and delivered an impromptu reading from Ludwig von Pastor’s History of the Popes. Eventually he was halted mid-sentence by a piece of flying bread. It’s that kind of club.
Reyntiens's enthusiasm sent me back to Pastor, whom I first read in the library of Oscott College where I was once a seminarian. Papal history is a mighty tapestry: resplendent and blood-stained with holiness and martyrdom; defiled and moth-eaten by tyranny and corruption. Its narrators are an ill-assorted ragtag of chroniclers, hagiographers, and occasional historians.
