BONIFACE VIII (Benedetto Gaetani, c. 1235–1303), pope of the Roman Catholic church (1294–1303). Connected by family relationship not only with the earlier popes Alexander IV and Nicholas III but also with the Orsini and Colonna families, Gaetani studied law at Bologna, worked as a notary at the Curia Romana, served on embassies to France and England, discharged the office of papal legate in France, and by 1291 had become cardinal priest of San Martino. A capable, experienced, and energetic administrator, he was by temperament bold, hardheaded, formidably stubborn, and, at least in his latter years, prone to damaging outbursts of irascibility that some have attributed in part to painful bouts with "the stone." Unfortunately, the juxtaposition of his energetic pontificate with the brief (and chaotic) reign of his predecessor, the devout hermit-pope Celestine V, proved to be a case of the wrong men in a crucial role at the...