His Holiness Pious III — the sitting head of the Western Church, elected Summer 1734. Two years into his reign, his knights dissolved the Order of the Owl and executed its members. He shares a surname with the author of a book that summons false angels.
What We Know (all GM)
- Baldessare Malipiero, Archprelate of La Serenissima (Cardacci) — one of the ten Arch Prelates of major dioceses, and thus a Prelate Elector on the Divine Council.
- Summer 1734: elected Most Holy at the convocation called after Boniface III’s death, taking the name Pious III. Serves for life; he holds the office now (1739).
- Spring 1736: the Order of the Phoenix — the order sworn to protect the Most Holy’s person, and empowered since the Third Crusade to root out the Arts of the Corrupted — accuses the Order of the Owl of having fallen to the Deceiver. The Owl is dissolved and its members questioned and executed.
- The interrogation records of that purge are, in all probability, the papers in the party’s possession.
The Name — Answered (S6)
In Fall 1732, two years before this election, Owl Knights in southern Morrschatten recovered a tome — On the Summoning of Guardian Spirits — that promises to summon Celestials and instead produced an unformed demon of warped white radiance. Its signed author is Benedicto Malipiero.
CONFIRMED (S6): Benedicto is his younger brother
Per Uncle’s Men: Benedicto Malipiero is the younger brother of the current Most Holy, convicted of heresy and condemned by his own family around 1710, on a charge of dealing with the infernal. He had mastered both the divine and the logos arts, and was officially executed — though Uncle and Ismad themselves doubt it (GM). The Malipieros are a church dynasty of centuries’ standing, comparable to House Balventia.
The wiki’s long-held caution — “no evidence the two men are related, hold the honest position” — is now retired. They are brothers.
So: the Order of the Owl spent the last four years of its existence holding a signed demonological tract written by the Most Holy’s condemned brother, and was then destroyed — wholesale, with executions — by that Most Holy’s personal order, two years into his reign. The interrogation record of that destruction is in the party’s hands.
That does not prove Pious III ordered anything. It does mean the “corruption by sanctums” charge is no longer the only motive on the table, and the party is carrying a document with a very specific value to a very specific man.
Speculation
He condemned his brother — or his family did — twenty-four years before the election. Which is either a house dealing honestly with a heretic, or a house clearing its record early. Either way it means Baldessare has known since about 1710 that his family name sits on the wrong side of a heresy charge, and has had twenty-nine years to think about who else might notice.
Speculation
The disgrace was public, and the family made it public. So the Owl finding a book signed Benedicto Malipiero in 1732 was not the discovery of a secret — it was the discovery that a known, condemned heretic’s work was still in circulation and still summoning things, at a moment when his brother was about to stand for the Church’s highest office. The scandal isn’t the name. The scandal is that the book still works.
Speculation
Note what the party is actually carrying. If Pious III’s Phoenix went to the trouble of killing every man who could speak to the Owl’s findings, the written record of those findings is the one thing they would still want — and Gandolfini was bringing it into Hazad, out of the Most Holy’s reach. See Why Did the Phoenix Knights Come to Hazad.
Relationships
- Boniface III — his predecessor.
- Order of the Phoenix — sworn to his person; the instrument of the Owl’s dissolution.
- Benedicto Malipiero — his younger brother, condemned for heresy ~1710 and officially executed. (S6)
- Jehanne d’Allais · Louis d’Allissy — sat on the Divine Council that elected him.