When Pope Clement V moved the papal seat to Avignon, creating the “Great Schism” in the 14th century, it undermined Boniface’s Uman Sanctam – His “two swords” theory – in that Pope Clement V ultimately reversed what Boniface VIII wanted; the unity of the church and the defense against hostile nation-states. When Clement V made a new papal seat in Avignon, it separated the Church between old Roman rule and the new rule, resulting in many kingdoms splitting their allegiance between the two. This leads into the discussion on Revelations 17, which connects the corruption that was occuring within the Avignon papacy to figures within the passage.
Revelation 17 describes an angel, a woman wearing purple and scarlet clothing adorned with jewelry and gold, and she is sitting on a beast with seven heads and ten horns. The angel is one of seven who are responsible for seven bowls, which represent God’s wrath and the apocalypse. The woman has an inscription written on her forehead, “Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations,” and is also drunk with “the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus,” with a golden cup that represents her impurities from fornication. As the angel notes in Revelations 17, “The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.” The beast with seven heads and ten horns represents kings and mountains;
The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; also, they are seven kings, of whom five have fallen, one is living, and the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain for only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction. And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast. These are united in yielding their power and authority to the beast; they will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful (Bible; New Testament, Revelations 17).
To summarize Revelations 17, the passage is illustrating the corruption that was brought upon the world by seduction and fornication, and how that has affected the kings and the realms they rule. In short, it is detailing the dominion corruption has to the earthly realm, and how it will bring up the apocalypse.
Petrarch uses Revelation 17 as a metaphor for interpreting the Avignon papacy. His letter has a long passage that connects the Avignon papacy to the woman illustrated in Revelation 17 in the New Testament;
I say you are the same and no other: Sitting upon many waters, whether bound on the shore by three rivers of whether in a crowd of perishable riches on which you sit lascivious and without care, forgetful of eternal gods, or whether as he who saw thus expressed it – the peoples and tribes and nations are the waters upon which the prostitute sits. Recall the scene – “And the woman was clothed round about with purple and scarlet, and gilt with gold, and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand, full of the abomination and filthiness of her fornication.” Do you not know yourself, Babylon? Unless perhaps he made an error – but on the forehead one was written, “The Great Babylon.” But indeed you are the small Babylon. You are small, it is true, by the circuit of your walls; but by the vices, the ambition, and infinite cupidity, by the heaping up of all evils you are not only great, but the greatest, you are immense. (Babylon on the Rhone, p. 92)
The passage illustrates the sins the Avignon papacy were committing; greed, simony, prostitution, and fornication of power. It also points out the immorality of the church, a “small Babylon,” in that Avignon resembles Babylon from Revelations 17; it is small but holds dominion over many kings and people.
Petrarch chose to interpret the Avignon papacy through an apocalyptic lens in order to connect the “Great Schism” that was occurring in the late 14th century, of which the Avignon papacy was formed. Petrarch thinks that learning about this sinful age can have a positive effect on a good Christian’s spiritual growth because it will determine who is rightly just for Christendom; it will separate the evil from good.