People More Awful than Pete? BELIEVE IT!

OK, I'll admit it. Maybe Pete's not the biggest asshole ever the history of the world. I did a little checking up and found our collective past is littered with examples that, yes, even outshine Pete with their stupendous cockgobblery. I've decided to profile some of these jerks right here in the hopes that through academic investigation, we may better understand the motivations of all assholes, fuckwads and pricks.

Right. Lets do this!

This first guy was guy so widely despised that after he died, he was allowed to decompose to such a degree that to get his bloated corpse into a coffin, it was necessary for someone to jump repeatedly on the lid forcing it down long enough so it could be nailed shut. Did I mention he was the Pope?



That's him (look at this guy, "aaauuuhhh I'm so holy" HAH!), Pope Alexander VI (6th). Born to the infamous Spanish Borgias that scandalized much of the early enlightenment, our friend here got to be Pope the old fashioned way, he paid for it. Once officially God's emissary on Earth, he became well practiced at simony and would even dismiss the entire College of Cardinals to appoint new ones that ponied up the desired cash. He instigated wars on behalf of his friends and when they died or were defeated in battle, he'd snap up their stuff and throw the loved ones he didn't have killed penniless into the street. Orgies, murder, betrayal, despotism, nepotism, yes sir good times at the Holy See for a stretch there. Somewhere after the birth of the 7th child he fathered whilst Pope, folks started to get wise and even grumble a bit. He ordered those people promptly burned alive (Most notably a rabble rousing priest named Savonorola, one of history's more complete assholes in his own right).

Of those kids, his daughter Lucrezia is of particular interest. Alexander sold his daughter to well connected rich dudes not once but 3 different times to benefit himself (getting ahold of those tricky pre-Reformation annulments a cinch when you are the only dude on earth authorized to do so). Not surprisingly, she developed a habit of poisoning people she didn't like. At one point, Alexander was so busy pillaging central Italy with his sons that he actually left Lucrezia in charge at the Vatican as Pope (below).
(click here for bigger)
Things started getting dicey for Al when the King of France decided that he'd like to have Italy all to himself. After duping most of the divided principalities to unite for their common survival, he turned around and suggested the French take Sardinia first, which they did. By now Italy was filled with two things, death and people who fucking hated Pope Alexander VI. The despots he merely deposed instead of dispatched began to start some trouble and before setting off to do some more killin' and stealin' he had dinner with one them. Al and his most ruthless son, Cesare, sat down with Cardinal Adriano da Corneto and shortly after both became gravely ill and old Al died. Hm. No one's really sure what happened, but accounts of the illness survive and are, um, graphic:

"According to Burchard, Alexander VI's stomach became swollen and turned to liquid, while his face became wine-coloured and his skin began to peel off. Finally his stomach and bowels bled profusely. After more than a week of intestinal bleeding and convulsive fevers, and after accepting last rites and making a confession, the despairing Alexander VI expired on 18 August 1503 at the age of 72. He is said to have uttered the last words "Wait a minute" before expiring."

and here's that bit I mentioned above:

Burchard described how the Pope's mouth foamed like a kettle over a fire and how the body began to swell so much that it became as wide as it was long. The Venetian Ambassador reported that Alexander VI's body was "the ugliest, most monstrous and horrible dead body that was ever seen, without any form or likeness of humanity". Finally the body began to release sulphurous gasses from every orifice. Burchard records that he had to jump on the body to jam it into the undersized coffin and covered it with an old carpet, the only surviving furnishing in the room.

There you have it folks. On the patented "Pete-o-meter" scale of jerkosity, I got ol' Al coming in at a whopping 6 (out of a possible 7).