DEATH POPE is the tale of Roberto Spaccio, a young man elected to be Pope in the year 1522. His ascendancy is clearly a political compromise between two factions of powerful Italian cardinals, one of which is headed by his father, but it also serves to mask his father’s true intentions for the Church and European politics. The setting is Renaissance Rome, a city on the rise after a thousand years of medieval slum life. Unlike his native Verona, Roberto finds too soon that Rome is a rough place full of bawdy houses and men who will kill you for nothing.

Tucked away across the Tiber, the Vatican stands as the capitol of Christendom, besieged by threat of foreign interference and the rise of northern reformers, all while struggling to avoid bankruptcy due to its largest building project in history, St. Peter’s Basilica. The political elites in control of the Church are notoriously corrupt, and far more concerned by their greed and infighting than the plight of the people.

Roberto struggles with his role as a political puppet as his naiveté is confronted time and again. Realization of his complicity in the barbarity and abuses of power crushes Roberto, that is, until he finds his true calling as an agent of the Angel of Death. While maintaining the guise of the oblivious pawn by day, he begins to move through the night, setting out to sweep the Church clean in order to redeem himself to God and to those whose blood stains his conscience.

They made him the Holy Father. Now, he’ll make them pay.

DEATH POPE is a pulpy action and political thriller. A religious Robin Hood with a touch of Tarantino.