The Pope Who Averted a Slaughter

The name Attila the Hun (406–453 AD) is synonymous with destruction, slaughter, and pillage. He broke things, lots of things.

He was a Central Asian nomad—Turkish, Mongolian, Hungarian in origin, or a mixture of them all—but no one really knows for sure. When his father died, he and his brother inherited a large kingdom that stretched from the European Alps to modern day Turkey, and of course, being barbarians, they ruled with an iron fist.

He murdered his brother in 445 to make sure he didn’t have to share his kingdom with anyone. In fact, his brutal rampages across Eastern and Western Europe, earned him the title Scourge of God. You may be getting the sense that he was not a nice man.

(I’m told he is the patron saint of modern barbarians called Antifa, but I’m waiting for the fact-checkers to tell me what to think about this.) Anyway…

Attila was one of the barbarian rulers who helped carve up the dying Roman Empire before its final demise in 476 AD. So, when he ravaged parts of northern Italy and showed up at the gates of Mantua in 452, the entire peninsula quaked in its boots.

Incidentally, it is said that Attila indirectly led to the formation of the city of Venice because all the people fled the mainland to an island off the coast where they could be safe from the invading hordes.

Pope Leo the Great

Fortunately for Italy, Leo I was the pope in Rome at that time. He reigned from 440-461 AD, and he was one of the most consequential figures of church history.

While the Roman Empire was in the process of decaying, Leo was shoring up the Church as the only institution that would actually survive the Fall of Rome. (His pontificate is the story of one marvel after another, which you can read in summary form here. He well earned the title, “The Great”.)

It was Leo who first coined the term “Servant of the Servants of God” (servus servorum dei) for the papal office.

As for Attila, the pope made the nearly-300-mile trip to Mantua to negotiate or just plead with him not to pillage Rome as he had done with so many other cities during his violent conquests. The sack Rome is often attributed to Attila, but he did not invade further into Italy thanks in large part to Pope Leo’s timely intervention.

Two other barbarians actually sacked Rome: Alaric the Visigoth in 410 AD and Genseric the Vandal in 455. The latter did so while Leo was still pope, but Leo persuaded him not to kill anyone or burn the city. (They just “vandal-ized” things!)

Miraculous or Natural?

Ancient and Medieval historians universally attributed Attila’s sudden departure from Italy to Leo as well as to a miraculous intervention of the holy apostles Peter and Paul from heaven during the same encounter with Attila.

Maybe.

Modern historians, more skeptical of faith claims, think it may have been something more prosaic; namely, that

1. Attila was so impressed by Leo’s diplomacy that he voluntarily withdrew. (With Rome, Florence, and Naples in his sights, it’s hard to imagine the barbarian could be so easily swayed.)

2. A plague broke out among Attila’s troops, and they were running short on food.

3. The end of the year was approaching, and they believed they would be trapped in central/southern Italy during the winter.

4. An army of the Eastern Roman Empire showed up to challenge the Huns (this actually happened at that time and entered into the equation).

5. He believed, superstitiously, that he might die if he destroyed Rome (it didn’t go well for Alaric in 410, who died very soon after he sacked the holy city).

6. A very large sum of money change hands and convinced Attila to withdraw.

I’m going with #6.

Leo was such an astute judge of character that money is a very likely explanation, but it may have been a combination of all the above.

The Intervention of Heaven

Before Hollywood could get their hooks into the story, the Renaissance and Baroque artists had already painted the drama in very bold colors, literally. Rafaello plastered one of the walls in the Vatican Apostolic Palace in 1513 with a massive fresco depicting the encounter, painting the face of Pope Julius II (his sponsor) on Leo. The artist was also an astute judge of character.

But the most famous depiction of this scene is a Baroque masterpiece by Alessandro Algardi, who carved a marble relief sculpture called the The Flight of Attila around 1650 for St Peter's Basilica.

(A “relief” is not a free-standing sculpture but a carving on a flat piece of marble that seems to rise off the surface, like the figures on our coins.)

The coins are nearly flat so they are “low relief” but Algardi’s image is very high relief due to the way the figures almost jump off the wall at the viewer, as we will see.

That’s part of what makes it such a remarkable work. It depicts this very encounter of Pope Leo with Attila at the gates of Mantua, and it’s brilliantly done. Here it is.

A Few Fun Facts

While the sculpture speaks for itself, I’d just like to point out a few details to enhance your appreciation and enjoyment of this masterpiece.

1. Appropriate to the size of its setting in St. Peter’s Basilica, it’s massive: nearly 25 feet tall and about 12 feet wide! (See the perspective picture below.)

2. Leo (bottom left) and Attila (bottom right) are the main figures that come so fully off the wall that they are almost, but not quite, free-standing. That is an artistic method of drawing the viewer’s attention to the central drama between the two men.

3. The twin figures of St. Paul (top left) and St. Peter (top right) seem to descend from heaven in fighting mode with swords drawn and protruding off the wall at various angles to create dramatic effect. (They are so pronounced that you can see the shadows of the swords and figures on the background.)

4. Leo is seen pointing to the Apostles with his left hand while Attila’s right arm is raised almost as if he is warding off those menacing figures roaring out of the sky at him. He is visibly frightened and turns as if to flee their wrath! (Hence, the title, “Flight” of Attila.)

5. There are angels in the clouds above the saints and at least two bishops behind Pope Leo (you can see their pointed miters on the far left.) The bishops with Leo are juxtaposed with the pagan warriors behind and above Attila.

It’s important to remember that this was carved from one single slab of marble and cut away to reveal swords sticking out, drapery flowing all over the place, and figures in motion depicted in extreme detail.

There is one very nice image of this sculpture on Flickr that you can view and enlarge to get a clearer sense of details if you wish.

Maybe this image will give you a better sense of perspective. The figures of the sculpture are far larger than the priest at the altar!

Leo the Great was truly great in so many ways, but in the popular mind he will always be immortalized as the pope who turned Attila the Hun away from the holy city and averted a slaughter—with a little help from the Apostles, of course.

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Photo Credits via Wikimedia: Map of Mantua; Museum Figure of Attila (A.Berger); Fuga d’Attila (Alessandro Algardi); Priest at altar (Peytonlow); Far view (Jiouk Design); Feature Image (Edyta Stawiarska from Pixabay).