(Held my breath long enough for a copy / paste)
It had long been a tradition in Eastern Christianity for priests to have beards. In the 11th century following the Great East-West Schism, Rome made it against canon law for priests in the west to have beards, although there was continued debate about it for many centuries.
Although Bessarion had accepted the ecclesiological role of Rome, he wanted to keep for himself various Orthodox customs that weren’t contrary to the faith. And apparently he had been allowed to do so up until that time.
But now that he was being considered for the papacy, cardinals who were displeased with his eastern Christian practices started voicing their disapproval. One french cardinal reportedly pleaded with the whole group of cardinals:
Shall we select for Pope, for head of the Latin Church, a Greek, a mere interloper? Bessarion still wears his beard—and forsooth, he is to be our Lord! How poor, then, must be our Latin Church, if we can find no worthy man in it, but must needs resort to a Greek, and to one, too, who but yesterday attacked the Roman faith! And because he has now returned shall he be our master and the leader of the Christian army? Behold, such is the poverty of the Latin Church that she cannot find an apostolic sovereign without resorting to a Greek! Oh, Fathers! Do what you think fit; but for myself and those who think with me, we will never consent to a Greek head of the Church!”
In other words, the fact that he still had a beard was taken to symbolize that he wasn’t Roman enough to be pope.
Bessarion made no attempt to defend himself, saying that he wasn’t interested in being pope anyway. The cardinals ended up electing Pope Callixtus III, the Church’s first Spanish pope.
Though he lost the 1455 conclave, Bessarion remained well-respected among many of the cardinals and was also a strong papal candidate in the 1464 papal conclave.
But he never did shave that beard.
Fascinating.
It kind of makes me wonder whether Presbyterians ever got into flusters over beards, or whether they had some other marker-issue to manifest their intercultural conflicts and prejudices.
"I will not live in the same rooms as the Borgias lived. He (Alexander VI, the other Borgia pope) desecrated the Holy Church as none before. He usurped the papal power by the devil's aid, and I forbid under the pain of excommunication anyone to speak or think of Borgia again. His name and memory must be forgotten. It must be crossed out of every document and memorial. His reign must be obliterated. All paintings made of the Borgias or for them must be covered over with black crepe. All the tombs of the Borgias must be opened and their bodies sent back to where they belong - to Spain."
The Borgias' apartments remained sealed until the 19th Century