Otto attempted to revive the glory and power of ancient
Rome with himself at the head of a theocratic state. In
996, he came to the aid of
Pope John XV at the pope's request to put down the rebellion of the Roman nobleman
Crescentius II. He was declared
King of the Lombards at
Pavia, but failed to reach Rome before the Pope died. Once in Rome, he engineered the election of his cousin Bruno of Carinthia as Pope
Gregory V, the first German pope. The new pontiff crowned Otto emperor on
May 21, 996, in Rome. Here his main advisors were two of the main characters of this age, his tutor Gerbert of Aurillac and the bishop
Adalbert of Prague. Together with these two visionary men, influenced by the Roman ruins and perhaps by his Byzantine mother, Otto devised a dream of restoration of a universal Empire formed by the union of the Papacy, Byzantium and Rome. He also introduced some court customs in Greek.
However, as soon as Otto had left Rome one year later, the city magnate
Crescentius II deposed Gregory and installed
John XVI as pope. Leaving his aunt, Matilda of Quedlinburg, as regent in Germany, Otto returned to
Italy and retook the city in February
998, storming
Castel Sant'Angelo. Crescentius was executed in the
Castel Sant'Angelo, the antipope mutilated and blinded, and Gregory reinstated.
Otto made Rome the administrative center of his empire and revived elaborate Roman customs and
Byzantine court ceremonies. He took the titles "the servant of
Jesus Christ," "the servant of the
apostles", and "emperor of the world". When Gregory V mysteriously died in
999, Otto arranged for Gerbert to be elected pope as
Sylvester II. The use of this papal name was not casual: it recalled the first
pope of this name, who had allegedly created the "Christian empire" together with
Constantine the Great. Otto therefore was to be seen as the ideal successor to Constantine in the task of reunifying the Roman Empire.
Between
998 and
1000 Otto, being a fervent Christian, made several pilgrimages. He travelled to the
Gargano Peninsula in Southern Italy and to
Gaeta, where he met
Saint Nilus the Younger, then a highly venerated religious figure. Later he left Italy, taking the pro-Byzantine
Duke of Naples, John IV, captive with him, for the tomb of Adalbert of Prague (who in the meantime had been martyred by the pagan
Prussians) at
Gniezno, and during the meeting with
Bolesław I the Brave in the
Congress of Gniezno he founded the archbishopric of
Poland. In Eastern Europe Otto and his entourage strengthened relationships with the
Polish Duchy and with
Stephen of Hungary, who had requested and been granted a crown by Sylvester. Otto was advised by St Romuald, the fervent reforming hermit idealized by Peter Damian in the Vita beati Romualdi. Romuald urged Otto to become a monk.
Another model to which Otto strongly aspired was
Charlemagne. In the year
1000 he visited Charlemagne's tomb in
Aachen, removing relics from it. He had also carried back parts of the body of Adalbert, which he placed in a splendid new church he had built in the
Isola Tiberina in Rome, now
San Bartolomeo all'Isola. Otto also added the skin of
Saint Bartholomew to the relics housed there.
A minor rebellion by the town of
Tibur (Tivoli) in
1001 ended up as his undoing. He retook the town, but spared the inhabitants, which angered the people of Rome, as Tibur was a rival they wanted destroyed. This led to a rebellion by the Roman people, headed by Gregory, Count of
Tusculum; Otto was besieged in his palace and then driven from the city. He withdrew to
Ravenna to do penance in the monastery of
Sant'Apollinare in Classe. After having summoned his army, Otto headed southwards to reconquer Rome, but died in the castle of Paterno, near
Civita Castellana, on
January 24, 1002. A Byzantine princess had just disembarked in
Puglia, on her way to marry him.
rss feed