Pope Adrian I
Adrian or Hadrian I, pope from 772 to 795, was the son of
Theodore, a Roman nobleman.
Soon after his accession the
territory that had been bestowed on the popes by Pepin the short was
invaded by Desiderius, king of the Lombards, and Adrian found
it necessary to invoke the aid of Charlemagne, who entered
Italy with a large army, besieged Desiderius in his capital of
Pavia, took that town, banished the Lombard king to Corbie in
France and united the Lombard kingdom with the other Frankish
possessions. The pope, whose expectations had been aroused,
had to content himself with some additions to the duchy of
Rome, and to the Exarchate, and the Pentapolis. In his
contest with the Greek empire and the Lombard princes of
Benevento, Adrian remained faithful to the Frankish alliance,
and the friendly relations between pope and emperor were
not disturbed by the difference which arose between them on
the question of the veneration of images, to which Charlemagne
and the Gallican Church were strongly opposed, while Adrian
favoured the views of the Eastern Church, and approved the
decree of the second council of Nicaea (787), confirming the practice
and excommunicating the iconoclasts. It was in connexion with
this controversy that Charlemagne wrote the so-called Libri
Carolini, to which Adrian replied by letter, anathematizing
all who refused to venerate the images of Jesus Christ, or [[the
Virgin Mary]], or saints. Notwithstanding this, a synod, held
at Frankfort in 794, anew condemned the practice, and the
dispute remained unsettled at Adrian's death. An epitaph
written by Charlemagne in verse, in which he styles Adrian
"father," is still to be seen at the door of the Vatican
basilica. Adrian restored the ancient aqueducts of Rome,
and governed his little state with a firm and skilful hand.
Text from 1911 encyclopedia, since edited