This is an image of Pope Sixtus IV who was pope back in the 1400s.

The reason he’s here is because he is the first pope mentioned in a book that brought our word nepotism into English.

In the painting the pope is seated with five other guys milling around him. These five guys are his nephews.

It was the habit of popes in those days to give good jobs to their nephews. Two of the guys hanging out with him there were made cardinals and one of those two went on to become Pope Julius II.

This I guess wasn’t as good as being king where you could

1. have kids, and
2. pass the kingdom on to those kids

but it was the next best thing as far as keeping the family business in the right hands. These were certainly the days when kings thought they were chosen by God so you gotta figure that the pope had a pretty high opinion of himself as well—you were even more God’s chosen one.

Anyway, the Italian word for “nephew” was nipotismo and in 1667 an Italian guy named Gregorio Leti was so mad at the church that he published a book called Il Nipotismo di Roma.

Since books that call down the powers that be and point out all their flaws are always popular, this one was translating in a flash into as many languages as there were possible to have people snickering in their armchairs by the fire. We learn about it through a note in the diary of Samuel Pepys where he says he came home and his wife read it out loud to him to their great mutual enjoyment.

And thus the word for “nephew” in Italian came to be nepotism in English with a meaning of favoritism especially in hiring family members.

At first it only referred to popes appointing nephews, but before 100 years were out it had crept out to other church officials appointing family, and then to the general non-clergy and their families until finally by the 1850s it could be applied not only to family members but others you might like to invite to the party.

According to Wikipedia that original Italian author was either so annoyed at the Catholic church or felt so unwelcome in Rome that he eventually found himself in England and converted to Protestantism. His happiness in England was not to last however; once a troublemaker always a troublemaker I guess because he evidently wrote something that sent King Charles II into a rage and had to flee England.

It’s interesting to note that his uncle was a bishop. Maybe he was mad that he didn’t get in on the action; who knows?

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