[2] Members of the Roman aristocracy gathered in the Pantheon, then the church of Santa Maria Rotonda, and elected Maginulf in opposition to Paschal II in November 1105.
[1] Margrave Werner of Ancona, in a letter to the Emperor Henry IV, describes his election as beginning with some clergy who were dissatisfied with Paschal's simoniacal favoritism of the Colonna and Pierleoni families.
According to Werner, there were meetings in Rome attended by bishops and cardinals, after which Maginulf, a man of learning and upright character, was elected pope.
[b] This was a deliberate ploy to garner imperial sympathy, since it hearkened back to Pope Sylvester II, the great ally of the Emperor Otto III a hundred years earlier.
Sylvester's infantry are said to have chased Paschal's cavalry throughout Santa Maria Nova, leaving over sixty horses dead.
[1] Sylvester IV soon ran short on funds to pay his soldiers and left Rome for Tivoli with a bodyguard before finally settling in Osimo under the protection of Margrave Werner.