[3] Giovanni, the son of Olricus and Rathildis, was a native of Crema, a town 17km northeast of Lodi in Lombardy.
The embassy was captured in the neighborhood of Milan, and brought to the legate, Cardinal Giovanni of San Crisogono.
[8] During the enthronement ceremony, Cencius Frangipani and his supporters broke into the monastery, seized and abused the pope and others, and carried Gelasius off to one of their prisons.
[11] He took part in the Council of Reims in October 1119, where he defended the conduct of Abbot Pons and the monks of Cluny.
[16] An oratory at the church was consecrated on 8 July 1123, by the bishops Petrus of Porto, Vitalis of Albano, and Guilgiemo of Praeneste, in the presence of six cardinals and the holder of the title.
[17] In April 1121, Cardinal Giovanni da Crema led the advance party to establish the siege of Sutri, where the failed antipope, Gregory VIII (Maurice Burdinus) had his headquarters, and from which he was conducting guerilla warfare on the neighborhood.
[18] On 27 April 1121, Pope Calixtus wrote to the bishops of France from Sutri, announcing the capture of Burdinus and the end of the siege.
[19] In January 1122, Pope Calixtus, traveling in the kingdom of Naples, held a synod at Cotrone to settle a boundary dispute between two dioceses.
[24] A modern historian has speculated[25] that this permission was a quid pro quo after Callistus had annulled the marriage to Sibylla of Anjou of William Clito, who was struggling against Henry in Normandy.
There he carried out the pope's mandate, to settle the disputes between the archbishop of York and the bishops of Scotland over jurisdiction, by holding a council.
[32] A contemporary story, a rumour, put about by Henry of Huntingdon,[33] and then mentioned in Roger of Hoveden's compilation,[34] and repeated in David Hume's history,[35] reports that the legate Giovanni had been surprised in bed with a woman, perhaps supplied by the bishop of Durham.
Eight cardinals participated in the election, including bishops Willelmus Praenestinus and Conradus Sabinensis; Petrus Rufus Sancti-Martini in Montibus, Gregorius Papareschi of S. Angelo in Pescheria, and Haimericus Deacon of S. Mariae Novae.
[47] In May 1130, unable to withstand the universal rejection of his cause by the clergy, nobility, and citizens of Rome (even the Frangipani had deserted him for Anacletus II), Innocent boarded ship with all the cardinals who still supported him, and sailed for Pisa.
[51] He was back at the papal court, which was staying at the abbey of Cluny, where he subscribed a bull for Pope Innocent on 2 February 1132.
[52] On 8 March 1132, Giovanni was one of eight cardinals who subscribed Innocent II's letter, written at Valence, to the abbot of Cluny about his controversy with the abbey of S.