History of Pope Joan, by Agostino Paravicini Bagliano: the English woman who would have been pope. In the middle of the 13th century a legend appeared according to which a woman of great culture was elected pope before being unmasked.
French travelers of the past, who admired the choir of the Duomo of Siena, were struck by a strange bust. They knew from the notes of the famous Nouveau Voyage d'Italie that, among all these portraits made between 1497 and 1502, the one supposed to represent "Pope Zacharias" would in reality be that of "Joannes VIII, femina de Anglia"