Pope Gregory XIII (reigned 1572–85) is associated with a dragon. Born Ugo Boncompagni in 1502, he used his family’s coat of arms, which features a dragon, for his papal insignia. As pope, Gregory instituted many church reforms in response to the Protestant Reformation, including changing the existing Julian calendar to the Gregorian one used by most of the world to this day. Although the calendar reform was welcomed by such astronomers as Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe and by the Catholic princes of Europe, many Protestants saw it as the work of the Antichrist and refused to adopt it. The dragon in Gregory’s insignia also fueled anti-Catholic propaganda, which equated the image with the seven-headed beast in the Book of Revelation.
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