A new pope is chosen: A look back on the jostling for the papacy and the conclave’s history

Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States is the new pope, succeeding Pope Francis, and taking the name Pope Leo XIV. He’s been elected following a millennium-old ceremony known as the papal conclave. During the conclave, the 135 eligible Cardinal Electors of the Catholic Church sequestered themselves and elected the new pope in isolation.

During that time, they had no contact with the outside world and they voted repeatedly, in written ballots and verbal declarations, until one of them achieved a two-thirds majority. Every failure brings sighs from the crowds in St. Peter’s Square as the votes, burned with a chemical admixture, send up a plume of inky black smoke from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. White smoke, signalling a new pope has been elected, provokes cheers and celebrations and the beginning of a new papal era, as was the case after the election of Leo on May 8, 2025.

Americans from Texas including Cole Wendling (C) celebrate after the newly elected Pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, was announced on May 08, 2025 in Vatican City, Vatican. White smoke was seen over the Vatican early this evening as the Conclave of Cardinals took just two days to elect Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who will be known as Pope Leo (Leone) XIV, as the 267th Supreme Pontiff after the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The history of the conclave, especially during the Italian Renaissance that I teach and research, tells us a lot about how the papacy is both a religious and a political office.

The pope is at once the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church as well as the absolute monarch of Vatican City. He is both bishop of Rome and head of state of the smallest sovereign state in the world.

Read more: Cardinal Robert Prevost elected Pope Leo XIV after white smoke billows from Sistine Chapel.

Politics of the papacy

In the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, the Vatican was the capital of a much-larger Papal State. This territorial buffer around Rome at its height bordered the territories of Florence, Naples, Milan and Venice, and covered much of northern Italy.

Popes wielded great influence in the dramatic politics of famous Italian families like the Medici: it was a Medici pope, Clement VII, who helped negotiate the installation of the first Medici duke in Florence. Apocryphal accounts persist of Julius II, the so-called “Warrior Pope,” leading a charge over the walls of Bologna in 1506.

At the same time popes, and Catholic policy, had profound consequences for European and global politics: Clement’s successor Paul III excommunicated England’s King Henry VIII, cementing the English break with Rome in 1538.

Alexander VI was more audaciously imperial: he sponsored the treaty that arbitrarily divided the entire world outside of Europe between Spain (his home country) and Portugal in 1494. Alexander VI’s historical infamy is perhaps outdone only by his son, Cesare Borgia, made famous by his mention is Niccolo Machiavelli’s book The Prince.

Becoming pope was a big deal for a cardinal and his family. Leading candidates known as papabili (pope-ables) began strategising and negotiating even before popes died.

The newly elected Pontiff, Pope Leo XIV is seen for the first time from the Vatican balcony on May 8, 2025 in Vatican City, Vatican. Cardinal Robert Prevost will be known as Pope Leo XIV. White smoke was seen over the Vatican early this evening as the Conclave of Cardinals took just two days to elect the new Pontiff after the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

When a pontiff died, those cardinals abroad began their travels to Rome, construction began on the temporary cells that would house them all during the sequestration and the real work of electing a pope began.

Enea Silvio Piccolomini left a detailed memoir of his election as Pius II in 1458. In it, he describes a process of negotiating, threatening, cajoling and strategising that makes the scheming in the recent movie Conclave look unsophisticated.

Renaissance Italy wrestled with and ultimately reconciled itself to the political nature of the papacy. Many, including popes such as Pius II, expressed discomfort with the political power of the papacy. While it was a clear factor in the schism of European Christendom that led to the emergence of the Protestant churches in the 16th century, in early modern Italy the political power of the papacy was a reality of the diplomatic milieu.

The empty throne

The conclave marks a special place in early modern history as a time when the ordinary political order was overturned for a brief period known as the sede vacante (the Vacant See).

The Vacant See was a time when identities were swappable and when, as one Paolo di Grassi told a judge in 1559, “in Vacant See [Romans] are the masters. The People are the Masters.” Di Grassi had, during the Vacant See of November 1559, pursued his own longstanding grudges against his enemies and been involved in at least one armed brawl.

While they waited for a new pope, Romans and everyone else might have passed the time with another favourite vice: gambling on the conclave’s outcome.

European princes and other potentates of the church paid close attention to conclaves, tried to smuggle information in and out and steer the conclave in favour of their preferred candidate. In 1730, for instance, Cardinal Lambertini smuggled a letter out of his conclave thanking a benefactor for their donations to his future ordination as Pope Benedict XIV.

The election held everyone’s attention as a rare and unusually impactful event in the Roman calendar.

While Rome’s streets thrummed with tension during the chaotic days of a Vacant See, the conclave proceeded serenely and secretly within the Vatican’s walls.

The use of white smoke to mark the election of a pope only began in the 20th century. During the Renaissance, the sound of bells would be a more effective way to spread the news through Rome, before the new pope was announced to the city and the world.

White smoke rises from the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel indicating that the College of Cardinals have elected a new Pope during their fourth vote on the second day of their secret conclave on May 8, 2025 in Vatican City, Vatican. White smoke was seen over the Vatican early this evening as the Conclave of Cardinals took just two days to elect the new Pontiff after the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Much turns on that announcement now, as much did in previous centuries. The conclave elects both a pope and a head of state. While Vatican City is magnitudes smaller than the Papal State of the past, it remains a sovereign state.

Papal pronouncements shape not just religious thought but political action, through voting, advocacy and more. The crowds who awaited the announcement of the new pope might be less raucous than Renaissance Romans, but they were nonetheless invested in the results. DM 

This story was first published in The Conversation. Colin Rose is an Associate Professor of European and Digital History at Brock University.