In the Name of the Pope King

In October 1867, Papal Rome, under Pius IX, is unsettled by a bomb blast that tears through the sewers beneath the barracks of Palazzo Serristori, killing twenty‑three French Papal Zouaves. A countess, la comtesse Flaminia, Carmen Scarpitta, the secret mother of revolutionary Cesare Costa, who is accused with friends Giuseppe Monti Luigi Basagaluppi and Gaetano Tognetti Rosalino Cellamare of organizing this massacre, seeks help from a judge of the Holy See, Bishop of Priverno Colombo Nino Manfredi.

To overcome the Prelate’s resistance, she claims that Colombo is the father of the accused, a result of a brief affair in 1849. The prelate manages to release Cesare by hiding him in his own house, along with his girlfriend Lucia Monti Renata Zamengo. Yet Colombo cannot intervene on behalf of the other two, who are condemned to death by the ecclesiastical court, despite an eloquent speech delivered before the judges. That speech draws a sharp rebuke from the Pope and from the General of the Jesuits, the order then known as “the Black Pope” Salvo Randone.

As the narrative unfolds, Cesare Costa is ultimately felled in an ambush staged by the countess’s husband, who suspects Costa of being his wife’s lover. The tale deepens as Colombo drafts a bitter letter he would like to send to the Pope, yet keeps it to himself, a symbol of his own sorrow and frustration. The drama crescendos when Colombo formally breaks with the General of the Society of Jesus; during a Mass, Colombo refuses to administer the Holy Eucharist to the Jesuit leader, who himself appears in the church to arrest Colombo.

Across this legal and spiritual collision, the film surveys the aging machinery of temporal power in the Papal States. After Colombo’s famed speech, even a sleeping cardinal is roused merely to cast a vote supporting the death sentence for Monti and Tognetti, underscoring the extent to which law and authority bend to religious authority. The gelid momentum of this power will crack only three years later, with the Breach of Porta Pia, when the Italian unification forces break through the city’s defenses and redefine Rome’s political landscape.

In the web of loyalties and betrayals, a broad cast of characters threads through the central crisis. Don Marino [Camillo Milli] lends his presence, as does Perpetuo [Carlo Bagno], while Teresa [Giovannella Grifeo] and Maria Tognetti [Gabriella Giacobbe] punctuate the social ties that pull at the trajectories of power. The two figures who stand at the core of the ecclesiastical proceedings, Il presidente [Nino Dal Fabbro] and the other members of the Sacra Consulta, operate under the gaze of the court’s two judges, Un giudice de la Sacra Consulta Giovanni Cianfriglia and Un giudice de la Sacra Consulta Alessandro Febi, whose roles illuminate the procedural machinery of the era. The fate of Cesare Costa hinges not only on legal maneuvering but on personal loyalties, provincial hierarchies, and the shifting tides of a church and state that stand on the brink of upheaval.

The movie’s atmosphere is steeped in the tension between faith, politics, and a world eager to see old orders toppled. The portrait of Papal Rome’s decrepitude—its laws, its rituals, its insistence on control—forms a murky mirror for events both intimate and public. The characters move within a labyrinth of secrets: a mother’s motive, a son’s rebellion, a judge’s conscience, and a pope’s authority pressed to the breaking point. Yet even amid the betrayals and the looming reformation, the personal costs remain tangible: trust fractures, relationships fracture, and the very idea of justice becomes a contested battlefield.

Throughout, the film maintains a careful, restrained tone, letting the historical atmosphere and the characters’ decisions carry the weight. The dialogue, while compact, carries undercurrents of doubt and moral ambiguity; and when moments of defiance surface—whether in Colombo’s quiet stand at the altar or in the abrupt violence of an ambush—the audience is invited to ponder the price of power and the limits of mercy. By the end, the audience is left with a stark portrayal of a society in transition, where every act of justice or mercy resonates beyond the moment, foreshadowing a city—and a nation—on the edge of a new era.

Last Updated: October 05, 2025 at 12:14