Erotic Novel…Written by a Pope!

By | September 20, 2018

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“The Tale of  The Two Lovers” is an erotic novel, complete with salacious illustrations, about the steamy love between a married woman and her secret Italian lover. This sounds like typical trashy romance novel fare except for one important distinction. The lusty novel was penned in the medieval era…by a Pope!

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“The Tale of Two Lovers” was a medieval bestseller!

A bestseller of its day, “The Tale of Two Lovers” was written in 1444 by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who would later become Pope Pius II. The novel is one of the earliest examples of the epistolary style, the meaning is a series of fictional letters meant be appear as though they were written by the main characters. The early printed editions of “The Tale of Two Lovers”, published by Ulrich Zell of Cologne around 1467, contained several erotic images throughout the tome. A great way to keep the readers’ attention…but not very pope-like.