Crescentius was not chastened. A few months after Otto had returned to Germany, Crescentius started trouble. Romans did not like their new German pope, or the foreigners that had been placed in administrative positions in Rome by the emperor. The resulting rebellion caused Gregory to flee to Pavia.
In Pavia, Gregory called a synod and declared Crescentius an excommunicate. Crescentius did not care. He chose the Bishop of Piacenza Johannes Philagathos, who had recently returned from Constantinople, to be pope. Johannes became the antipope John XVI.
Otto marched back to Rome in February 998 with Gregory. The antipope fled, but was soon caught. He was sent to the monastery of Fulda in Germany, but only after his nose and ears were cut off and his eyes and tongue ripped out. He died in 1001.
Crescentius barricaded himself in the Castel Sant'Angelo (pictured above) where he was safe until the castle was taken in April. After execution, his corpse was hanged on one of the hills northwest of Rome, the Monte Mario.
Yesterday's post shared a theory that Otto's death was caused by Crescentius' widow, Stephania. A 1906 historical work has this passage:
Stephania, his widow, concealing her affliction and her resentment for the insults to which she had been exposed, secretly resolved to revenge her husband and herself. On the return of Otho from a pilgrimage to Mount Gargano, which, perhaps, a feeling of remorse had induced him to undertake, she found means to be introduced to him, and to gain his confidence; and a poison administered by her was soon afterwards the cause of his painful death. [Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, vol. i]
Why was Crescentius so determined to ignore the will of the emperor and try to rule Rome? Turns out it was a family trait. I'll explain next time.
