A pope and three World Cups
Life is unfair (reading time: 3 minutes)
No Dutchman ever set foot on the moon.
No Dutch soccer team ever won the World cup (although we were finalists on three occasions, and if the world were fair, we would have won at least one).
There has never been a Dutch president of the United States (although one spoke Dutch at home).1
But at least there has been a Dutch pope.
His name was Adrian VI. He was born in 1459 in Utrecht, 500 meters from where I am writing this. His father was a humble carpenter who left him an orphan at the tender age of nine, after which his uncle took him under his wings. He became a University professor in Leuven when he was 30, rector magnificus (president) of the University at the age of 34, mentor of the future emperor Charles V, and ruler over Spain. Finally, in 1522 he became pope. How about that for social mobility?
He was pope for one year only, though, because he was Dutch.
“ How come?”
Because everyone else in Rome was Italian.
“Huh?”
Let me explain.
The Romans had liked the pope before him, Leo X, a lot: he organized great parades through the streets of Rome and sprinkled gold coins on the street for the poor.
Adrian, on the other hand, was Dutch: he was stingy and cheap. He lived on one ducat a day. His predecessor had spent 5 million ducats in 7 years, or 2000 gold ducats per day, and left Adrian with an enormous debt.
The pope before him was an immoral party animal who loved teenage boys.
Adrian, being Dutch, was as celibate as they come and liked to go to bed early and alone.
Leo X organized great dinner parties that cost fortunes (and depleted the papal coffers). He died after one of his huge dinners when he caught a cold.
Adrian liked to eat by himself. His old Flemish servant cooked for him, she cleaned his house and did all his laundry.
Leo X loved the arts and was the patron of Michelangelo and Rafael.
Adrian wanted to paint over Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sixtine Chapel. Being Dutch. he despised excess. He believed in the old Dutch wisdom: “Acting normal is crazy enough for me” (Doe maar gewoon dan ben je al gek genoeg).
You understand why the Italians hated him: he was a cheap, boring, moralistic barbarian from the north. They were happy when he died after a year. Rumor has it that he was poisoned (which would have been a very Italian thing to do).
All the cardinals came together in the Vatican to elect a new pope, as tradition demanded. They thought: no more foreigners and chose a regular, corrupt, lascivious, overspending Italian for a pope.
And they continued to do so for more than three centuries. Only 376 years after Adrian's untimely death, another non-Italian became pope, John-Paul II.
The Italians killed our pope.
But even worse: they won the World Cup 4 times.
Martin van Buuren, who was president from 1837 to 1841. Dutch was the first language for both him and his wife. He was born in a town called Kinderhook (children’s corner in Dutch), where most people spoke Dutch at the time. He only learned to speak English in school.
I think Roosevelt is a Dutch name, isn’t it?