Lando (also known as Landus) was the

pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

from September 913 to his death March 914.J. N. D. Kelly and Michael Walsh, "Lando", ''The Oxford Dictionary of Popes'', 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 120. His short pontificate fell during an obscure period in papal and Roman history, the so-called '' Saeculum obscurum'' (904–964). According to the ''

Liber pontificalis The ''Liber Pontificalis'' (Latin for 'pontifical book' or ''Book of the Popes'') is a book of biography, biographies of popes from Saint Peter until the 15th century. The original publication of the ''Liber Pontificalis'' stopped with Pope Adr ...

'', Lando was born in the Sabina (

Papal States The Papal States ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...

), and his father was a wealthy Lombard count named Taino from Fornovo.Umberto Longo
"Landone, papa"
''Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani'' 63 (2004).Harald Zimmerman, "Lando", in Philippe Levillain, ed., ''The Papacy: An Encyclopedia'', Vol. 2, Gaius–Proxies (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 896. The ''Liber'' also claims that his pontificate lasted only four months and twenty-two days. A different list of popes, appended to a continuation of the ''Liber pontificalis'' at the Abbey of Farfa and quoted by Gregory of Catino in his ''Chronicon Farfense'' in the twelfth century, gives Lando a pontificate of six months and twenty-six days. This is closer to the duration recorded by Flodoard of Reims, writing in the tenth century, of six months and ten days. The end of his pontificate can be dated to between 5 February 914, when he is mentioned in a document of

Ravenna Ravenna ( ; , also ; ) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire during the 5th century until its Fall of Rome, collapse in 476, after which ...

, and late March or early April, when his successor, John X, was elected. Lando is thought to have been the candidate of Count Theophylact I of Tusculum and Senatrix Theodora, who were the most powerful couple in Rome at the time. The Theophylacti controlled papal finances through their monopoly of the office of '' vestararius'', and also controlled the Roman militia and

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

. During Lando's reign, Arab raiders, operating from their stronghold on the Garigliano river, destroyed the cathedral of San Salvatore in Vescovio in his native diocese. No document of Lando's chancery has survived. The only act of his reign that is recorded is a donation to the diocese of Sabina mentioned in a judicial act of 1431. Lando made the large personal gift in order to restore the cathedral of San Salvatore so that the clergy who were then living at Toffia could return. Lando was the last pope with a

papal name A papal name or pontifical name is the regnal name taken by a pope. Both the head of the Catholic Church, usually known as the pope, and the pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (Coptic pope) choose papal names. , Leo XIV is the C ...

never used before until Pope John Paul I in 1978 and the last with a unique name requiring no regnal number until

Pope Francis Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 13 March 2013 until Death and funeral of Pope Francis, his death in 2025. He was the fi ...

in 2013.

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Catholic Forum:
Pope Lando

Pope Lando {{DEFAULTSORT:Lando Popes Italian popes People from Lazio 914 deaths Year of birth unknown 10th-century popes Burials at St. Peter's Basilica