THE BOOK OF
GIANTS
Borgia popes and other comediansMachiavelli decides to be nice
Chapter 11
Art and science weren’t the only things that Giants played with in the Renaissance. They also had a lot of fun with jphilosophy, now called religion and politics, which the Giants frequently got mixed up with another old Greek and Roman invention, namely, kcomedy.
2For example, there was a Giant named lLuther who was very interested in religion and politics and thought the church was taking itself much too seriously,
3Which convinced him that what the church really needed was a good joke.
4So he nailed a list of jokes called “The 95 Theses” to the front door of a cathedral and waited for the church to start laughing,
5Which it did,
6Convincing Luther to try an even bigger joke,
7Named “The Reformation,”
8Which consisted of Luther starting his own church,
9mAnd naming it after himself,
10Which turned out to be so much fun that a lot of other Giants did it too,
11nIncluding the nation called England.
12This amused the church—now called the Roman Catholic Church to distinguish it from all the funny new churches—so much that it decided to try some jokes of its own,
13Like the oBorgia popes,
14Who thought it would be hilarious to be a pope who killed people,
15And so they did.
16Nor was this the only joke thought up by the Borgia popes.
17For example, they also thought it would be fun to borrow the concept called p“the divine right of kings” and have popes who were succeeded by their own sons,
18And so they did,
19Which proved to everybody that the Roman Catholic Church was funny enough to stay in business in its own right,
20aIn spite of the Reformation.
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