Pope Urban VI

Bartolomeo Prignano (c. 1318–1389), a Neapolitan canon lawyer, worked in the papal chancery at Avignon, where he was known for simplicity and frugality, and became archbishop of Bari in 1377. He was elected pope as Urban VI on 8 April 1378, the last candidate chosen from outside the College of Cardinals.

French cardinals rejected his reforms and at Fondi on 20 September 1378 elected Robert of Geneva as Clement VII. The resulting Western Schism split Christendom until 1417, with France and its allies backing the Avignon antipope.

He excommunicated Queen Joanna I of Naples and crowned her rival Charles III in 1381; besieged at Nocera in 1384, he executed his cardinal opponents. He died in Rome on 15 October 1389, likely from a fall from his mule.