Reading Hadrian the Seventh | Alexandria
Read Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe. Imagining himself as pope, a failed Catholic priest crafts a wild fantasy of redemption where an obscure Englishman becomes Hadrian VII, upending Vatican politics and reshaping Christendom. Rolfe's audacious 1904 novel eerily foreshadows modern obsessions with power, identity, and personal reinvention through an outsider's rise to ultimate religious authority.