A fact from 1277 papal election appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 10 July 2007. The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that the smallest papal election since the expansion of suffrage to all cardinals was undertaken by only six cardinal electors? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/July.

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Cardinal Goffredo da Alatri was not a French but an Italian from the city Alatri, although he was an ally of king Charles I of Naples. See an article in Italian Wikipedia it:Gottifredo di Raynaldo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.22.83.190 ( talk) 23:13, 14 December 2007 (UTC) reply

The Chronicon de rebus in Italia gestis, p. 366 (edited by J.L.A. Huillard-Bréholles Paris: Plon 1856)says that there were seven electors, and that they were led by the Cardinal Bishop of Sabina--whether he was Bertrand de St. Martin or the Visconti for whom there is no evidence:

Eodem tempore maxima discordia erat inter cardinales Rom(a)e de electione pastoris in civitate Viterbii, et ibi sunt tantum VII cardinales: tres tenent unam viam scilicet dominus Johannes Gaytanus [Orsini], Jacobus de Sivello et Mattheus Rubeus [Orsini]; alii tres scilicet dominus Anserius [Pantaleoni], Symonus de Tursso [Simon Monpitie de Brie] et dominus Guillelmus cardinales tenent aliam viam.... Episcopus vero Sabinensis cardinalis tenet mediam viam nec declinat ad unam nec ad aliam.

The Chronicon de rebus Italia gestis seems not to be very reliable in this case. The list included in the article is based on the research made by Konrad Eubel, published in his Hierarchia Catholica, vol. 1, p. 9 (ed. Monasterii, Sumptibus et Typis Librariae Regensbergianae, 1913). The account in Chronicon... entirely ommits Goffredo da Alatri. Cardinal Simon de Brion was legate in France from 1274 until 1279 and certainly did not attend the election. CarlosPn ( talk) 21:15, 21 February 2009 (CET)

The Chronicon is backed up by the Annales of Piacenza (MGH 18, 569), which is a standard source for Italy in the 13th century. Also, Richard Sternfeld, Der Kardinal Johann Gaetan Orsini (Papst Nikolaus III.) 1244-1277 (Berlin: E. Ebering 1905) 287-300, accepts the authority of the Annales Placentini and states that there were seven electors (pp. 288-289); he chooses, however, to substitute the name of Goffredo de Alatri for that of Simon of Santa Cecilia (289, n. 3). He wrote a generation after the good Father Eubel, who was NOT gifted with infallibility (I must admit I find arguments ex auctoritate embarassing; I always think of Pythagoras and 'Ipse dixit'). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.190.73.47 ( talk) 16:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC) reply

Of course, Eubel was not infallible, and it is possible to find errors in his work. But in the case of papal election in 1277 he is rather accurate. With the reference to the account of Annales and Chronicon of Piacenza, there is a serious problem with the alleged participation of cardinal-bishop Bertrand of Sabina. According to Sternfeld, p. 288 f. and 296 he participated in the election and died during sede vacante (May—November 1277). But the contemporary necrologies agree that Bertrand died in March - necrology of St.-Andre in Avignon gives March 28 [1], necrology of the diocese of Frejus March 29 [2]. Both Eubel, p. 9 and 38, and Sternfeld, p. 200 n. 35, agree that Bertrand died in 1277. Concerning the electoral proceedings, on the one hand, we've got account from Piacenza, that Bertrand participated in the election, but we know that this account is not very accurate (vide the case of Simon of S. Cecilia); on the other hand, we've got two necrologies of the churches strongly connected with Bertrand (at St-Andre in Avignon he was a monk, in Frejus he was a bishop), which have registered his death in March, and the only possible year is 1277, because Bertrand is attested as living person in register of Pope John XXI, who was elected in September 1276 (cf. R. Stapper, Papst Johannes XXI, Kirchengeschichtliche Studien, Munster 1898, p. 35-36 n. 3), and at the beginning of 1278 he was already dead (Sternfeld, p. 296). Therefore, Bertrand almost certainly died before the death of John XXI (May 20, 1277) and could not have participated in the election of his successor.

It is probable that these accounts from Piacenza are connected with some legend originated in the ecclesiastical circles of this city. According to them, Pope Gregory X named his nephew Giovanni Visconti from Piacenza to the suburbicarian see of Sabina in 1275, in replacement of Bertrand, who ostensibly had died during the Second Council of Lyon. It should be noted, that the name of cardinal-bishop of Sabina is not mentioned in the accounts of election of 1277. If we place there the name of Giovanni Visconti, we would have the following picture: cardinal from Piacenza was the only one who did not engage himself in the scandalous quarrel between Roman and French factions, which lead to the half-year vacancy. That cardinal Giovanni Visconti of Sabina never existed, has been proved by R. Stapper, Papst Johannes XXI, Kirchengeschichtliche Studien, Munster 1898, p. 34-36; both Eubel, p. 9 n. 3 and Sternfeld, p. 200 n. 35 also reject his existence.

At the end, just a parentethic note - Eubel and Sternfeld were contemporary to each other (Eubel was older by 16 years), and the 2nd edition of Hierarchia Catholica has been published in 1913, after Sternfeld had published his monography abbout Pope Nicholas III. CarlosPn ( talk) 21:40, 10 June 2009 (CET)