Le jugement du pape Formose

In the year 897 the corpse of Pope Formose was exhumed, dressed in papal vestments, and propped on a throne in the Lateran basilica to answer the charges of his successor Stephen VI — the Cadaver Synod, one of the most macabre scenes in the history of the papacy. Jean-Paul Laurens, the painter who devoted his career to the dark hours of the Middle Ages, sets the trial before the assembled clergy of Rome: the dead pope sways on his throne while the living prelates recoil in horror. The painting is held in the Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris.