Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Power & Corruption
The exercise of power has long gone hand in hand with corruption. And no one enjoyed
greater power than Rome's ancient emperors and Renaissance popes.
Caligula
Of all Rome's cruel and insane leaders, few are as notorious as Caligula. A byword for de-
pravity, he was hailed as a saviour when as a 25 year-old he inherited the empire from his
hated great-uncle Tiberius in AD 37.
Their optimism was to prove ill-founded. After a bout of serious illness, Caligula began
showing disturbing signs of mental instability. He made his senators worship him as a deity
and infamously tried to make his horse, Incitatus, a senator. He was accused of all sorts of
perversions and progressively alienated himself from all those around him. By AD 41 his
Praetorian Guard had had enough and on 24 January its leader, Cassius Chaerea, stabbed
him to death.
Papal Foibles
Debauchery on such a scale was rare in the Renaissance papacy, but corruption was no
stranger to the corridors of ecclesiastical power. It was not uncommon for popes to father
illegitimate children and nepotism was rife. The Borgia pope Alexander VI (r 1492−1503)
fathered two illegitimate children with the first of his two high-profile mistresses. The
second mistress, Giulia Farnese, was the sister of the cardinal who was later to become
Pope Paul III (r 1534−59), himself no stranger to earthly pleasures. When not persecuting
heretics during the Counter-Reformation, the Farnese pontiff managed to sire four children.
Tangentopoli
Corruption has also featured in modern Italian politics, most famously during the 1990s
Tangentopoli
(Kickback City) scandal. Against a backdrop of steady economic growth, the
controversy broke in Milan in 1992 when a routine corruption case - accepting bribes in
exchange for public works contracts - blew up into a nationwide crusade against corrup-
tion.
Led by the 'reluctant hero', magistrate Antonio di Pietro, the
Mani Pulite
(Clean Hands)
investigations exposed a political and business system riddled with corruption. Politicians,
public officials and business people were investigated and for once no one was spared, not
