Adrian I

Adrian was a Roman noble, raised by his uncle Theodotus, a duke; Paul made him subdeacon and Stephen III deacon, and he was an enemy of the Lombard faction. Consecrated on 9 February 772, he began by exiling Paul Afiarta, who was killed at Ravenna before he could be tried. Desiderius answered by seizing Faenza and Ferrara and marching on Rome. Adrian barred the gates and sent to Charlemagne, who crossed the Alps in 773, besieged Pavia through the winter, and in June 774 ended the Lombard kingdom and took its crown. At Easter that year Charlemagne came to Rome for the first time and at Saint Peter's renewed his father's promise of 754.

Adrian nevertheless governed as no pope had. From 781 he dated his documents by his own pontifical years instead of the emperor's and struck coins in his own name; his territory was a state, under a Frankish patrician who visited in 781 and 787 and had Adrian baptize his son. He sent legates to the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, which restored the images, then defended it against Charlemagne's theologians, who condemned it at Frankfurt in 794 on a bad translation, without losing the friendship. Rome he rebuilt: the Aurelian walls, four aqueducts, the Tiber banks, the roof of Saint Peter's, and farms in the Campagna to feed the poor. He died on 25 December 795 after the longest pontificate yet, and Charlemagne, who wept for him as for a brother, sent the marble epitaph still in the portico of Saint Peter's.