Located at Piazza Cavour, in the heart of Rimini, is this statue of Pope Paul V (1550-1621) who held his Papal role from 1605 until 1621. This statue was designed by Nicola Cordier and cast by Sebastiano Sebastian in 1613.
I don’t know how long the marble base has been here, but some subtle repair work can be noted by the trained eye.
When Napoleon’s forces began making their enthusiastically unwelcome way through Italy, the denizens of Rimini took one look at their proudly papal statue and thought, perhaps quite reasonably, that it might not be the wisest thing to leave on public display. In an act of civic self preservation, they quietly removed Pope Paul V’s papal insignia and replaced it with more neutral decorations, effectively giving him a little political makeover in the hope that French troops wouldn’t take offence and reduce him to rubble. It was a cunning plan which worked well and the statue is still here today.
But, back to Pope Paul V, this great man of peace was merrily ordering assassinations on his opponents and also handing out key roles to his family members. Like many other Popes, he made his nephew a cardinal and the Italian word for nephew is ‘nepos’. And, that’s where the word nepotism comes from, the Popes handing out trophies to their family members, although it’s thought that a good number of Popes actually pretended their sons were their nephews (to get around that celibacy thing they demanded of others). It took until Pope Innocent XII (1615-1700) thought that this power grab by families was a little, well, sub-optimal and he started the fightback against nepotism.