Tirami sù: Pope Benedict XIV and the Beatification of the Flying Saint Giuseppe da Copertino

In 1741 the champion of Enlightenment philosophy par excellence, François-Marie Arouet, who is better known as Voltaire, wrote a play entitled Mahomet; tragédie. A few years later he decided to dedicate this piece to the then reigning pope Prospero Lambertini (1675-1758), alias Benedict XIV (1740-58), using the lofty phrase: ‘Au chef de la véritable religion un écrit contre le fondateur d’une religion fausse et barbare’.