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Pope

Lando
Pope; Lando
Bishop of Rome
Church	Catholic Church
Papacy began	August or September 913
Papacy ended	February or March 914
Predecessor	Anastasius III
Successor	John X
Previous post(s)	Cardinal-Deacon of the Holy Roman Church (910–913)
Personal details
Born	Lando; Sabina, Papal States
Died	March 914; Rome, Papal States

Lando (also known as Landus)^[a]^[1] was the pope from c. September 913 to his death c. March 914.^[2]^[3]^[4] His short pontificate fell during an obscure period in papal and Roman history, the so-called Saeculum obscurum (904–964).

According to the Liber pontificalis, Lando was born in the Sabina (Papal States), and his father was a wealthy Lombard count named Taino^[b] from Fornovo.^[4]^[5]^[6] The Liber also claims that his pontificate lasted only four months and twenty-two days. A different list of popes, appended to a continuation of the Liber pontificalis at the Abbey of Farfa and quoted by Gregory of Catino in his Chronicon Farfense in the twelfth century, gives Lando a pontificate of six months and twenty-six days. This is closer to the duration recorded by Flodoard of Reims, writing in the tenth century, of six months and ten days.^[5] The end of his pontificate can be dated to between 5 February 914, when he is mentioned in a document of Ravenna, and late March or early April, when his successor, John X, was elected.^[5]

Lando is thought to have been the candidate of Count Theophylact I of Tusculum and Senatrix Theodora, who were the most powerful couple in Rome at the time.^[7] The Theophylacti controlled papal finances through their monopoly of the office of vestararius, and also controlled the Roman militia and Senate.^[5] During Lando's reign, Arab raiders, operating from their stronghold on the Garigliano river, destroyed the cathedral of San Salvatore in Vescovio in his native diocese.^[8] No document of Lando's chancery has survived. The only act of his reign that is recorded is a donation to the diocese of Sabina mentioned in a judicial act of 1431.^[5] Lando made the large personal gift in order to restore the cathedral of San Salvatore so that the clergy who were then living at Toffia could return.^[6]^[4]

Lando was the last pope with a unique name and without regnal number until Pope Francis in 2013.^[9]^[10]

Notes

^ In the second declension. Although sometimes less common in Medieval Latin, names ending in -o in Latin tend to be written in third declension (e.g. Landonis, Platonis in genitive case).
^ Ferdinand Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 1897), Vol. 3, p. 238, gives his father's name as Raino.

References

^ Platina, Bartolomeo (1479), The Lives of the Popes from the Time of our Saviour Jesus Christ to the Accession of Gregory VII, vol. I, London: Griffith Farran & Co., p. 245, retrieved 2013-04-25
^ Pietro Fedele, "Ricerche per la storia di Rome e del papato al. sec. X", Archivo della Reale Società Romana di Storia Patria, 33 (1910): 177–247.
^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope Lando" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
^ ^a ^b ^c J. N. D. Kelly and Michael Walsh, "Lando", The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 120.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Umberto Longo, "Landone, papa", Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 63 (2004).
^ ^a ^b Harald Zimmerman, "Lando", in Philippe Levillain, ed., The Papacy: An Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, Gaius–Proxies (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 896.
^ "Lando", The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, ed. J. N. D. Kelly, (Oxford University Press, 1988), 121.
^ Roger Collins, Keepers of the Keys of Heaven: A History of the Papacy, (Basic Books, 2009), 175.
^ Budde, Michael L. (June 2, 2017). New World Pope: Pope Francis and the Future of the Church. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 9781498283724 – via Google Books.
^ Collinge, William J. (August 15, 2021). Historical Dictionary of Catholicism. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781538130186 – via Google Books.