Pope Victor III
head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1086 to 1087
Pope Victor III (c. 1026 – 16 September 1087), born Dauferio Epifani Del Zotto, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 24 May 1086 to his death. He was the successor of Pope Gregory VII. Prior to becoming pope he had held the important post of abbot of the great monastery of Montecassino, under his monastic name of Desiderius and during those years played a historically important role.
He is the most recent lawfully elected pope to have taken the pontifical name "Victor".
In contrast with his early public life, as Pope Victor, as he had become, he made a less significant contribution. His failing health was the chief factor that made him so reluctant to accept election as pope and that his health was in fact seriously impaired was clear when he fell ill during the ceremony of his coronation as pope.
Family
Daufer was born in c. 1026. The Catholic Encyclopedia states his father died in 1047 in battle. He obtained permission to enter the monastery of St.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Pope Victor III” is head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1086 to 1087. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Pope, Victor and head, not as a finished interpretation.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q227724. VIAF identifies the subject as 264988483. The Library of Congress control number is n83198138. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1026, 1087, 1086 and 1047.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pope Victor III” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.