Necessary Art

pope at the age of twenty. He chose the name Benedict the Ninth, and as far as we know, became the youngest person to ever hold the title. Of course, this was no coincidence. Two of his uncles had been Pope's as well as his grand uncle and great granduncle. He was part of it unofficial papal dynasty, and his family's connections had been crucial to securing his election. Unsurprisingly,

his papacy was controversial almost from the start. He was accused of making a mockery of Rome, living a hedonistic lifestyle. We have no way of knowing which of these accusations were true and which were politically motivated hearsay, but it's easy enough to conclude that he was not a popular pope. In ten thirty six, just four years later, Benedic found

himself exiled from Rome. He would return shortly after, thanks to the support of Holy Roman Emperor Conrad the Second, but he didn't get any more popular, and rumors of his indiscretions only grew. In ten forty four, he was exiled the second time, and this time local bishops appointed a replacement, Pope Sylvester the Third, But Benedict the ninth was not going to take this line down now in his early thirties, He rallied and returned to Rome the

following year, ousting his replacement. But something had changed in his attitude. We don't know for sure if he was tired of being the pope or if the constant criticism was finally getting to him, but by April of ten forty five, he was considering leaving the papacy behind. Honestly, he just wanted to get married and move on with his life. So he did what few popes have ever done before or since. He resigned, although not before making

a deal that would set him up comfortably. You see, Benedict's godfather, John Gretien, was a well liked priest, Benedict proposed that he would resign and allow Gratzien to take the papacy as long as Gratien paid all the debts that Benedict had incurred during the papal elections. His uncle consented, paid up, and was named Pope Gregory the sixth. This was a huge relief for the Catholic Church at large, who immediately started to press Gregory to root out corruption

amongst the priesthood. However, this wasn't a solution to the problems created by Benedict's time in the Holy See. In fact, it only made things more complicated. A year into his retirement, Benedict started to regret his decision. In July of ten forty six, he came back and demanded his proper place as Pope, much to the annoyance of his godfather, and around the same time, Sylvester the Third started speaking up,

claiming that he was the rightful pope. So, for those who are keeping track at home, by ten forty six there were three different popes, all claiming the title in Rome, but nobody in Rome was powerful enough to do anything about it. That November, the new Holy Roman Emperor Henry the third traveled to Rome to meet the pope in arrange for his coronation, so he spoke to Gregory the sixth, only to learn that that guy was part of a

trinity who were squabbling over power. He learned that Gregory himself got the title by paying off the previous pope, who himself was part of a dynasty of corrupt popes. It was more than a little outrageous. On December twentieth of ten forty six, Henry the Third gathered a council of bishops to address this chaos. All three popes were invited too, but only Sylvester the Iird and Gregory the

sixth showed up. The bishops determined that soil l vest the third was not a proper pope, and both Benedict and Gregory had obtained their titles illegitimately. So after the council, Henry deposed all three popes, appointing Clement the Second in their place to return stability to the Roman Catholic Church. Which is enough to make your head spin. Right, we have four guys now who all claimed to want to

wear the point he had, So what happened to the others? Well, Sylvester returned to Sabina, where he served as a bishop for the rest of his life. Gregory left for Germany and died only a few years later. Benedict, however, never learned his lesson. After Clement the second died, Bennedict seized the papal throne yet again, resulting in the Church fully

excommunicating him. His final fate is actually unknown, but he went down in history as the only pope to ever sell the title and the only one to reign three times nonconsecutively, no matter how hard he fought for it. Though, it really seemed like he didn't take the job all that seriously, which is perhaps even more damning than anything

he was accused of while he was in power. In twenty seven hundred BC, a time so ancient its people might seem completely alien to us today, the Egyptian architect and priest Imhotep was performing a delicate operation on a stone tablet beneath a single shaft of light. The light shone down from a hole cut into the stone roof above It allowed Imhotep to see every detail of his work in the otherwise dark palace. He made subtle observations tweaking things here and there he had his assistance record

everything on pages of papyrus. They needed to preserve what they learned. After all, any knowledge gleaned was from the creator God Ptah himself. That being said, Imhotep began his career as a priest of Ra, the sun god. He owed everything to Ra. Although im Hotel had been born a commoner, this time as a priest had exposed him to all kinds of learning. He became a master of architecture, poetry, astronomy,

and mathematics. His designs for a new kind of building, to whom he called a pyramid, were much grander than the plain rectangles the pharaohs and other important Egyptians were buried in at the time. This had soon captured the attention of the current pharaoh, and he immediately had Imhotep build him a pyramid, even allowing m Hotep to carve his name into one of the stones. Afterward, m Hotep became his chief adviser, and although he was a master of the arts, there was one art that he now

valued above all the others. Architecture no longer held any mysteries the heavens They've all been mapped. Now he was exploring a new frontier, an art form that wasn't just fascinating but also necessary. In fact, im Hotep had taken to calling it the necessary art. Today, though we call it medicine. Unlike architecture and poets, medicine didn't just exist for its own sake. It existed to save lives. Motep

felt that there was no greater art than that. He tried to help anyone he could who was suffering from injury or illness. He considered his treatments a gift from the god thought and recorded his findings as thoughts teachings. Any physicians who deviated from these treatments was committing a punishable crime. And that may sound ignorant, but it was actually incredibly progressive for the time. You see, up until

this point, medicine was entirely based on superstition. This or that herb was believed to cure this or that illness, not out of testing or evidence, but out of passed down traditions. If that herb didn't work, it was the patient's fault for displeasing the gods. Imhotep, though believed his treatments were from the gods, but he didn't believe that they failed because of the patient. Instead, he believed that the gods were telling him that he needed to try

something different. He was essentially inventing what we would call today empiricism, the idea that knowledge is gained through other observation, not intuition or superstition. It is the underpinning idea behind the modern scientific method. Take Imhotep's current patient. With that in mind, let's return to his patient at the moment, the one mentioned at the beginning of this story. His latest project laid out on the stone table. The man

had been mauled by a hippo. One leg had been torn to shreds, the other was badly broken and had a bone sticking out. He was covered in lacerations, and there was a strange swelling in his abdomen. Imhotep used trial and error. He applied a thick paste to the mangled leg, but it was not enough. He next tried a reed splint, which worked on the snapped leg, but not the mangled one. He considered a plaster linen cast,

but worried that the bleeding was too great. Instead, he had his assistants hold down the man and while he screamed. Impo Tep used a saw to cut off the leg, but then Imhotep retrieved a hot poker from a nearby fire, which he used to cauterize the wound, because he thought that this might finally stopped the bleeding, and it did

a new discovery for his book of medicine. Next, he treated the lacerations with an oiled eel's head, wrapping the wounds up with bandages afterward, and upon closely examining the swollen abdomen, he made an incision with his scalpel, a small fine blade that he had invented for work. Just like this, black blood began to pour from the abdomen,

and then it stopped and the swelling went down. By observing what worked and what didn't, Imhotep could learn how to effectively treat a variety of injuries and diseases and force other doctors in Egypt to do the same rather than rely on superstition. His methods were so effective that even two thousand years after his death, the Egyptians were still using his teachings on others. Imhotep was one of the few Egyptians to be raised to the status of godhood.

His work was so influential that it crossed the ocean to Greece, where a man named Hippocrates was inspired by it. He went on to become known as the father of modern metas, and his Hippocratic oath do no harm is still sworn by doctors today. Curiously, the real father of modern medicine lived a couple thousand years prior. His methods might seem rough today, but like his pyramid designs, they laid the foundation for something magnificent. I hope you enjoyed

today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was created by me Aaron Manke in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and the people who make it over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking

for an ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over at patreon dot com. Slash rim and mild and until next time, stay curious m HM.