The Old Order Passes

I wrote in a recent entry that there is no reason that the College of Cardinals could not include women.  That provoked a rash of responses telling me just why the Sacred College is limited to men and that only demonstrates that the issue of admitting women to Sacred Orders in the Catholic Church is not a theological matter but is driven by a fear of allowing women access to power.  There may or may not be theological reasons not to ordain women,  Speaking as a historian, I am not convinced of theological reasons.  I think that poor theology is being used to mask blatant misogyny.  I say this because whatever the reasons that may or may not be valid for ordaining women there is absolutely no theological reason why women cannot be created Cardinals and entrusted with major administrative responsibilities in the Church.  The College of Cardinals is totally a matter of man-made (and I am using that in a gender specific way) traditions. 
The modern role of the Cardinals developed in the eleventh century from the principal clergy of the Diocese of Rome.  The Cardinal Priests were the pastors of the principal parish churches in the city.  The Cardinal Deacons were the deacons of the principal diaconal churches of the city.  The diaconal churches were not parishes but were centers where people could come for food and other social services in times of famine or need.  You notice that I keep using the word “principal”—that is actually a good translation for the word cardinal.  Cardinal comes from the Latin “cardo,” the word for “hinge.”  A hinge is a crucial element because doors swing open and shut on the hinge.  There are also Cardinal bishops—they are the titular bishops of the seven ancient dioceses that surrounded the city of Rome—Ostia, Porto Santo Rufino, Sabina-Poggio Mirteto, Velletri-Segni, Frascati, and Palestrina. 
Today cardinals still break down into Cardinal Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.  Each Cardinal carries the title of Bishop of a suburbican see, or priest of a particular church, or deacon of a particular diaconal church.  And today, by canon law, a Cardinal must be a priest and unless he has a papal dispensation, must be or become a bishop.  But these are human regulations.  The last cardinal not to be a priest died in 1899.  Teodolfo Mertel was a layman when created Cardinal by Pius IX in 1859 and two months later was ordained deacon so that he could have his titular church. He never advanced to the priesthood. 
There were throughout the history of the Sacred College a number of Cardinals who never received major orders and remained laymen their entire lives.  Since the College of Cardinals is entirely of Church design and not a matter of divine law, there can be no theological reason why it cannot be structured to admit women.  And there are certainly women in the Church who would bring honor to the College.  As honor is somewhat in need of being restored to Church institutions these days that may not be such a bad idea.  There is Lesley-Anne Knight who served as general secretary of Caritas International.  She would be great in the Sacred College.  Mary Ann Glendon is a respected legal scholar who is certainly conservative enough to please the most loyal Vatican enthusiast and yet has demonstrated a noteworthy intellectual ability that would raise the collective IQ of the Sacred College.  While Sisters Simone Campbell or Joan Chittester might be a bit too radical for some (though not for me) and unfortunately Elizabeth Johnson is probably out of the running for the same reasons,  Patricia McDermott, President of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, has demonstrated good leadership and excellent administrative skills that could be put at the service of the larger Church.  Dr. Mary Lyons, president of the University of San Diego would be another great addition.  I wish I knew more about the Church in some other parts of the globe to be familiar with women from Latin America or Africa or Asia who might make this sort of contribution.  (Lesley-Anne Knight is, of course, from Africa, but I do not know any others.)  But I think it is time that cardinal’s robes came in a feminine cut as well as a masculine.  Well, actually, when I look at the brussels lace, I am  not sure they do come in a masculine tailoring.  Let me put it this way, if the guys think they look good in all that red, think how smashing the ladies will be.             
There has been some talk about this conclave turning to an American for Pope.  Given the complexity of world politics and the Church’s need to keep its neutrality highly visible, I would not have thought of the possibility of an American Pope, but reports from Rome are that the talk is genuine.  Three Americans are being looked at—I still think they are longshots—as possible men for the task: Cardinals Sean O’Malley of Boston, Timothy Dolan of New York and Donald Wuerl of Washington.  Their (still remote) likelihood is given in that order. 
Well this is as far as I got before my brother telephoned to tell me that there was white smoke and I went to the television and everything began to unfold.  An Argentine—and a Jesuit!  The first Jesuit pope!  And the name Francis—boy does that say a lot.  Moreover in making his apperanceon the balcony he had refused the Master of Ceremonies’ “invitation” to wear the velvet fur-lined mozetta and he kept his simple silver cross around his neck.  He is sending signals about not only a new sheriff but a new style in the Vatican.  Hmm.  More soon.
p.s. Chris--sorry you lost out on ballot 9 in the lottery.  I would have thought you had the ideal number but what do I know?

Trouble Right Here in River (Tiber) City II

Melozzo da Forli: Angel Playing a Lute
The only angels in the Vatican are in the
the art museum

Yesterday’s posting was an interesting article by Philip Pullella and published by Reuters claiming that there is an internal war, or as Pullella puts it “a sinister power struggle”  going on in the Vatican for control of the Catholic Church.  It talks of corruption, intrigue, financial irregularities, prelates backstabbing one another, plots to control the next papal election and even a possible attempt on the pope’s life.  If you have read various entries on this blog—especially about the medieval and renaissance papacies (see entries for  January 15, April 18, June 6, 9, 18,  2011)—you will know as we pray: sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper in saecula saeculorum, or in the vulgar tongue: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. 

      At the root of the problem seems to be a deep ideological division between Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the current Secretary of State and Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the previous Secretary of State.  (Papal Secretaries of State are more like Prime Ministers in terms of the power they hold; they are not just Foreign Ministers as in our country.) 

     Sodano ran a notoriously corrupt machine when he was in office.  He protected Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, from his accusers who were charging him with sexual abuse of seminarians. In the event the Maciel saga was far more sordid than anyone had ever thought. (see entries for June 2, Sept 22, October 27, 28, 2011)  Not only were the charges of abuse against young men substantiated, but Maciel apparently fathered two illegitimate children.  Maciel threw vast amounts of money at Vatican officials to not only shield himself from investigation but to enhance his reputation and influence.  Cardinal Sodano was a key player in this scheme, protecting the wayward priest even from the reaches of Cardinal Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) who was one of the few in the Vatican who seemed genuinely interested in cleaning up the sex abuse crisis and restoring the Church’s reputation.  Bertone’s appointment to replace Sodano was seen as an attempt to clean up the Vatican, but as power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, Bertone now seems to be no better than his predecessor. 

      As Benedict has aged word has it that Bertone has eased the reins of power from the pope’s hands into his own.  The debacle surrounding the Vatican’s turning down the re-election of Dr. Lesley-Anne Knight as Executive Secretary of Caritas International (see entry for June 7, 2011) shows just how much power the Holy Father has ceded, willingly or unwillingly, to Cardinal Bertone.  According to Pullella (and common gossip in Rome) Bertone is stacking the College of Cardinals with his cronies as he readies for the next papal election.   He certainly has pushed forward a disproportionate number of his fellow Salesians (the Religious Congregation to which he belongs) to various posts in the hierarchy.  It’s Bertone’s Church these days.  

      I remember when Benedict was elected that a priest being interviewed from Rome by RTE (The Irish National Television Station) referred to the Curia as “That rats’ nest of pezzi grossi monsignors.”  It evoked a reaction from several commentators but to those of us who live in Rome, it was an understatement, almost an euphemism.  We had hoped that the change of regime would sweep it clean.  Benedict, or rather Cardinal Ratzinger, was—for all his harshness—one of the few prelates with an unquestioned integrity.   Nevertheless, I have thought from the get-go that the election of Benedict was a poor choice.  Despite stories to the contrary, he wanted the election and he worked hard to get it.  I was living in Rome during the final years of John Paul’s papacy and one could see then-Cardinal Ratzinger slowly and patiently (and much less conspicuously than Bertone today)  constructing the machine that would carry a conclave in his favor.  I said that Cardinal Ratzinger was a man of integrity and I don’t believe he was seeking the papacy for power but rather that I think he believed that John Paul had taken the Church down some paths that needed to be corrected, if not reversed.   He was painfully aware that John Paul was weak theologically.  He saw John Paul as far too open both to other religions and to other Churches within the Christian fold.  (As a historian, I prefer not to use the theological distinction between “churches” and “ecclesial communities.”  It may be theologically precise, but it’s snotty.)  I think Benedict had some ideas on Liturgical Reform he wanted to implement as well. He seems to have wanted to restore a Pius XII sort of mysterious majesty to the papacy after the grandfatherly John XXIII and John Paul I, the Hamlet Paul VI, and the ol’ soft-shoe John Paul II.   And he was more ready than John Paul to give room—or I should say “even more room” to the “Traditionalists” who rejected Vatican II in an attempt to corral them back into the Petrine fold.  At the same time, I think he wanted to be somewhat less polarizing than John Paul and use a more dialogical model of reconciliation.  Like most academics, Benedict was naïve and I think he achieved very little of his agenda.  The Church is no better off at the end of his regime than it was when he became Pope.  In fact, I think it is considerably worse.  His olive branch to the Traditionalists has been met with only more demands from them.  His rigidity on ecumenism and interreligious dialogue has only isolated Catholicism more at a time when secularism has taken up its holy war against the public face of any and all religion.  His liturgical plans have not materialized (and for that I am grateful).  Instead of austere majesty, the Papacy is just sinking into archaic irrelevance.  And even as a lean and hungry Benedict once stood next to an aging and increasingly ineffective John Paul II, now the lean and hungry Bertone  guides the tremulous hand of Benedict.  The Church deserves better.  I don’t mean the Curia Romana or the Papacy deserve better.  Pullella’s article makes it clear that much as in Catherine of Siena’s day, the Curia Romana and its ambitious officials deserve the stench and fury of the everlasting fires.  I mean the Church—you and me, the People of God—we deserve  better. 

The Reform of Papal Elections, Part 2

A medieval manuscript from Krakow shows

a pope surrounded by members of his court, or

in Latin, his Curia

In our last posting we looked at the evolution of the papal election process from the second century up through the tenth.  Rome, like other local Churches, elected their bishops—the clergy (priests and deacons) voting, first presenting the candidate to the faithful for their approval and then presenting the bishop-elect to the surrounding bishops for consecration.  Those neighboring bishops could refuse consecration to the bishop-elect if they had serious question about his orthodoxy, his morals, or other suitability issues.  As we have seen in a number of postings, the system ceased working well in Rome by the ninth century when the “faithful” turned into mobs controlled by Rome’s leading families who were vying to place their candidates on the papal throne in order to control the wealth and the power of the Church for their own family benefit.  This led to a succession of notably bad Roman bishops in the ninth and tenth centuries.  There were exceptions—Nicholas I (858-867), Adrian III (884-885), Theodore II (897), John IX (898-900) and Benedict IV (900-903), but by and large this was a time of tremendous scandals in the papacy.  (check out entries for January 15^th, June 5^th, 6^th, 9^th, August 5^th among others) with stories of papal adultery, gay popes, murders to become pope, conspiracies and even the exhumation and  posthumous trial of a dead pope.   The Ottonian Emperors cleaned it up, but only by usurping the traditional privilege of papal election and appointing their candidates.  At first this was done with the façade of election, but then—as we saw in the reign of Henry III—it became mere appointment (see entry of August 13^th).  Imperial appointment actually gave the Church a number of excellent popes but it also created a dangerous precedent.  In the first place it clearly subordinated the Church to the political power.  Had this not been corrected the Catholic Church would have found itself in the same position that first the Greek Church and then the Russian Church found itself in with regard to the Byzantine Emperors and Russian Tsars respectively.  The popes would have ended up meaning no more than mere chaplains to the Emperors and the Emperors would have been the heads of the Church.  Indeed, as we shall see in a future post, Henry VIII would make the claim that since “the Crown of England is and ought by right to be a Crown Imperial” that he, the wearer of that crown, was by right head of the Church in his “imperial” realm.  But that is for later.  No sooner had the Emperors cleaned up the papacy than that very reformed papacy knew it had to break the imperial power over the Church.  That would lead to the investiture conflict, but before we go there let’s stay focused to the matter of papal elections.  Nicholas II in the papal bull, In Nomine Domini, moved to establish a definite protocol of election.  In the first place the Emperor was given no right of nomination.  The process began with the Cardinal Bishops as Nicholas empowered the seven Cardinal Bishops to select a candidate to be presented to the Cardinal Priests and Cardinal Deacons for their “election.”  This candidate would then be presented to the Roman people for their acclamation.  Only then did the Emperor have voice, having a right of confirmation; but the process was so structured that power remained with the Cardinals and their choice; there was no practical way for the Emperor to overturn the fait accompli.  By the end of the eleventh century, the separate roles of the Cardinal Bishops on the one hand and the Cardinal Deacons and Priests on the other melded so that all Cardinals participated equally in the election.  This was almost inevitable given the relatively small size of the Sacred College—rarely as many as thirty and often only a dozen or so. Remember too that at this stage of history, the Cardinal Bishops, Priests, and Deacons were all actual bishops, pastors and deacons of the Diocese of Rome who (normally) lived there and were key in administering the local Church.  They were not the international assortment they are now. 
     The Emperors were not happy with losing their right of nomination and, in fact, it was only in 1122 at the Council of Worms that they conceded the loss of that right.  As late as 1903 in the election that produced Pope Saint Pius X the Emperor (by then of Austria—the Holy Roman Empire having been terminated in 1806 when Francis I of Austria abdicated the throne of the Holy Roman Empire (where he had been Francis II) following defeat by Napoleon and loss of territories to France) Franz-Josef vetoed the impending election of Cardinal Mariano Rampolla.  Pius abolished the imperial right of veto as one of the first acts of his pontificate.  We will look more at this problem of Imperial interference in papal elections in our next posting.  For now, let’s go back to the election process.
     The right of the Roman people to “acclaim” the election persisted well into the Middle Ages but it gradually ceased to have any determinative role in determining the legitimacy of the papal selection.  The fact that in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries any number of papal elections were held outside Rome whether at Perugia, Viterbo, Naples, or Avignon and that automatically excluded the Roman crowd from participation.   Nevertheless, remember that when the papacy returned to Rome after the Avignon “Babylonian Captivity” in 1378 it was still deemed necessary to present a candidate acceptable to the Roman Populace.  By a century later that would no longer be any concern and the Roman populace was openly hostile to various popes in the sixteenth century. 
     The custom of the conclave began in the thirteenth century when, on occasion, prolonged meetings of the Cardinals failed to produce a candidate due to internal divisions among the electors.  Sometimes the papal office was left empty for over a year!  Upon the death of Innocent III in 1216 the city of Perugia—where the election was being held—blockaded the cardinals into the bishop’s palace until they came up with a pope.  After the death of Celestine IV in 1241, civil officials in Rome did the same to the cardinal electors when after 19 months they had not made a choice.  Clement IV died in 1268 and two years and ten months passed before the Cardinals came up with a pope.  The citizens of Viterbo not only barricaded the cardinals inside but first tore the roof from the building and then permitted only bread and water to be passed to the electors within.  The pope elected at that conclave, Gregory X, established the norm that the Cardinals would be secluded under relatively austere conditions until an election was forthcoming.  It didn’t always work but that is for future postings. 
    The key point we want to observe is that the Church broke the imperial hold on the selection of popes.  This was an important step in freeing the papacy from political power.  At times, it would find itself again beneath the thumb of some emperor or king but for the most part, the pope has played at least as an equal to the political forces in the world around him.  the next task would be to free the bishops from imperial and royal control.     

Roots of Reform XXII: Otto I and Otto II --Father to Son

Christ blesses the Emperor

Otto II and his wife, the

Empress Theophanu in this 10th

century ivory panel. 

We mentioned yesterday that with the election of John XIII in 965, Otto I was able to bring some stability to the papacy.  However, at the pope’s death in 972 the internecine warfare broke out in an effort to control the papacy.  John had been a member of the powerful Crescenti family but unlike the others in that clan was willing to work with Otto.  The Crescenti and the other Roman families resented the imperial control of the papacy; they were used to controlling it.   This strife over the papacy between the Roman families and the Imperial court is the origins of the Guelph and Ghibelline strife that would trouble Italy throughout the Central and into the High Middle Ages, but at this time perhaps it is more accurate to speak of a Nationalist and an Imperial party.  When Otto I selected the deacon Benedict to succeed John XIII, he was installed as Benedict VI in January 973.  Otto died in May of that same year and the Crescenti lost no time in organizing a mob that overthrew Benedict and imprisoned him in the Castle San Angelo where he was strangled in August 974 to prevent his release and restoration by the Imperial Envoy, Sicco, sent by the new emperor, Otto II.  The papal murder was ordered by Crescentius I, the head of the Crescenti family and was possibly carried out by the deacon Franco Ferucci whom Crescentius and his party named to the papacy as Boniface VII.  Count Sicco intervened, however, and named the imperial candidate to the papacy as Benedict VII.  Boniface looted the Vatican treasury (which was not so much cash as the precious objects such as chalices, crosses, reliquaries, candelabra, and other cultic objects made of gold and silver and set with precious stones) and fled to Constantinople.  But don’t worry—he will be back and back more than once.

Otto had his hands full establishing his power in Germany and so he needed a powerful representative in Rome to protect his papal nominee from the Roman nobility and their thugs.  Benedict managed to hang on to the papacy for nine years and in that time he convoked several reform synods for the Diocese of Rome, in particular outlawing simony—the buying and selling of church positions—a common practice at the time. Part of his success in avoiding the sort of fate that met his predecessor was that he was a member of the family of the counts of Tusculum which provided some balance to the power of the Crescenti.  It was only in 981 that Otto was finally able to come to Rome himself.  Benedict died in July 983, Otto died five months later.  Upon Benedict’s death, Otto named his chancellor, Pietro Canepanova as Pope John XIV.  It was the chancellor’s death sentence as without the Emperor he had no protection from the anti-imperial party and their mobs.

Otto’s death left a political vacuum.  His heir was his three year old son, Otto III.  Otto II’s widow, the Greek Princess, Theophanu, was regent.  The child Emperor was kidnapped by a German Duke in the spring of 984 and the Empress-Regent was preoccupied in regaining custody of her son, leaving Rome open to more trouble.  The Romans resented the imperial nominee pope, John XIV, and anti-pope Boniface VII returned and imprisoned John in the Castle San Angelo where he was murdered.  He was succeeded by John XV, the son of a Roman priest named Leo.  (Clerical marriage was still the norm for the secular clergy.   The Crescenti were opposed to him, but the Empress Regent, Theophanu, resided in Rome during much of his reign and protected him.  John is noteworthy for a variety of reasons, so we will end this entry here and pick up with him in a day or two.     

Before we sign off, however, a final word about Boniface VII.  Having murdered Benedict VI and John XIV, he himself met a most unpleasant death.  He seized the papacy, annulled the papacies of his two predecessors Benedict VII and John XIV.  However, he himself died suddenly in 985, possibly murdered.  He was so hated that his corpse was seized and dragged naked through the streets of Rome and left abandoned at the foot of the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius.  Not a nice guy; not a nice end.

Today he is considered an anti-pope but for centuries he was recognized as legitimate and the next pope to take the name Boniface (a character of somewhat mixed moral fiber himself) took the name Boniface VIII.   

Note two things.  The first is the imperial power to name popes.  Political theory of the time saw the Emperor as the Vicar of Christ and as the earthly head of the Church.  The pope was its spiritual overlord, but subject in temporal affairs, including the temporal affairs of the Church, to the authority of the Emperor.  The Emperor was seen as having the responsibility for the integrity of the Church. 

The second thing to note is the chaotic way in which popes were elected—the roman nobility, the mobs, and the emperor all had some say.  The Emperor’s attempts to control the election of the popes was an attempt to bring some order out of the chaos and violence that too oftenmarked papal transitions.  One of the most important reforms would be the establishment of the system of election by the cardinal clergy of the diocese of Rome.  But that is still away off.    More on that in the future.

Papal Elections

Yesterday I wrote about the Sistine Chapel and other sites of papal conclaves because many people think that the Sistine Chapel has “always” been the site of papal elections. Part of the problem here is that moderns, and especially Americans, have no sense of history. If something has been done twice in the last fifty years, it is a “tradition” and one presumes that it comes directly from Jesus to the Apostles. We need to develop some good historical sense.
Let’s talk today a bit about papal elections because you may be a bit surprised about how that procedure has evolved and also because it ties into the issue of electing bishops which is something else I would really like to explore. When St. Peter was martyred in 64 AD, the Cardinals did not gather and lock themselves into the Sistine Chapel and then proceed to dump their ballots into a golden chalice placed on the altar from which they would then be counted until one had enough votes for white smoke to signal the waiting crowds that “habemus papam” we had a pope. Indeed, there were no cardinals, no Sistine Chapel, probably no golden chalice, and really not even a “pope.” As for the crowds—hey, this was a time of persecution and the small Christian community in Rome was hiding out to protect their lives. In the early centuries, Rome chose its bishop like other local Churches. The clergy met with neighboring bishops and an assembly of the faithful to elect the bishop. They usually elected one of the principle deacons of the Church, or on occasion a priest. The neighboring bishops would then lay hands on the bishop-elect, consecrating him to his new office. They did not elect a bishop to the post as through most of the early history of the Church, once a man was made bishop of a diocese he could not transfer to another diocese. A bishop was considered “married” to his diocese. This prevented the sort of ambition and careerism which has often been a problem in the Church. As American monsignori joke “no one want to be buried in the Cathedral of Peoria” meaning that many bishops always have their eye on a more important diocese.
It was Pope Nicholas II who at a synod of bishops in 1059 mandated the election of the Pope would be limited to the cardinals. It really wasn’t a departure from the practice of the time when popes were elected by the principal clergy of the diocese of Rome and the bishops of the seven suburbican dioceses. The Cardinal Deacons were the 14 principal deacons of the City of Rome—deacons of churches whose primary function was not a parish but a food distribution point for the needy or, in times of famine, for the general population. The major role of a deacon was not liturgical, but rather care for the poor and the suffering. The Cardinal priests were the parish priests (pastors) of the principal Roman Churches. The Cardinal bishops were (and are) the bishops of those seven sees that surround Rome. Up to this point an important (and actually essential) part of the election of the bishop of Rome was not only the election by the priests and deacons of the diocese, and the confirmation of the surrounding bishops, but the assent of the faithful. The clergy would meet, choose their candidate and receive the approval of the bishops and then present the newly elected bishop for the assent of the faithful. Crowds are fickle, however, and were often manipulated by the various factions—rival family/political groups vying for power—which would sway the election. This left the papacy at the mercy either of the Imperial faction (later called the Ghibellines) or what might be termed the “nationalist” party of the Counts of Tusculum or other local nobility (later called the Guelfs). Nicholas’s reform was primarily to eliminate the influence of the Roman rabble in order to bring stability and good decision making to the process—and it worked. He also wanted, as far as possible, to keep the influence of the Emperor to a minimum. This was part of what historians call the “Gregorian Reform” (after Pope Gregory VII, elected 1073 and the successor but one to Nicholas). By the twelfth century good order had been restored to the papacy and indeed the Gregorian Reform would see some of the best popes in the history of the Church, culminating with Innocent III who, in some respects, may have been the greatest pope in the history of the Church, and certainly one of the most significant.

The image today is the 13th century statue of Saint Peter attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio in Saint Peter's Basilica. It is usually dressed in Pontifical Robes twice a year June 29 the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (with the triregnum tiara) and February 22 (Hey, George Washington's birthday, what a coincidence) the feast of the Chair of Saint Peter (usually without the triregnum)

Papal Conclaves

I was walking home last evening after dinner with some friends and as I passed the manica lunga of the Quirinale palace it struck me that most people think that papal elections have always taken place in the Sistine Chapel when, in fact, the regular use of the Sistine for papal conclaves is rather recent. The 1800 conclave was held in the Benedictine abbey of San Giorgio in Venice due to the French occupation of Rome. The elections of 1823, 1829, 1831, and 1846 were all held in the Pauline Chapel of the Quirinale Palace, then the principal papal residence in Rome. (At the fall of the Papal States, Pius IX abandoned the Quirinale to take up residence at the Vatican and the Quirinale became the official residence of the Italian Kings and later, with the establishment of the Italian Republic, the Presidents of Italy.
While many of the popes of the sixteenth-through the eighteenth centuries had been elected in conclaves held in the Vatican Palace, the actual elections were not necessarily in the Sistine Chapel. The Pauline Chapel (The Capella Paolina) was also used for conclaves. I have also read that the small chapel frescoed by Fra Angelico, the Chapel of Nicholas V, was used at least for the 1464 and 1534 conclaves but I find this hard to believe as the chapel probably could not hold ten cardinals standing in their underwear much less even the small number of participants (15-25) typical in that period seated in their full regalia. Before the sixteenth century popes had been elected in the Dominican convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, in the Lateran, in Santa Maria Maggiore, in Santa Sabina, in Santa Maria in Cosmedin, San Pietro in Vincoli, San Gregorio Magno, San Marco, San Pancrazio, and a ramshackle palace on the Palatine called the Septizodium. In the High Middle Ages—the 12th, 13, and 14th centuries—when the papacy was notoriously peripatetic, conclaves had been held in Perugia, Viterbo, Naples, Agnani, Bologna, Ferrara, and Pisa. Some conclaves were even outside Italy—the Abbey of Cluny and in Lyon (both in France), along with Konstanz (in Switzerland) and of course Avignon where conclaves were held in 1334, 1342, 1352, 1362, and 1370.
Paul VI had residential facilities constructed for the Cardinals participating in future conclaves rather than the makeshift accommodations that had been arranged ever since the conclaves had been moved to the Vatican from the Quirinale in the conclave of 1878. He also had a potential voting hall incorporated in the Audience Hall which he had designed by Italian architect Pier Luigi Nervi, but in the interregnum after his death, the Cardinals decided that they would prefer to retain the Sistine Chapel as the place for elections.

The photo is the Quirinale Palace taken from the Castle San Angelo. From this perspective it bears an uncanny resemblance to the Potala