Cardinal Lamberto left Rome with a large sum of money and several documents. Fearing that their corruption will be exposed, Keinszig, Lucchesi, and Gilday plot to murder the Pope. Gilday poisons the pontiff's tea, killing him in his sleep. The character of Lamberto and the film's depiction of the events which led to his murder are based upon one of the conspiracy theories surrounding the sudden death of the real-life Pope John Paul I, Albino Luciani. Like the Lamberto character, Luciani was discovered dead in his bed in 1978, 33 days after his election to the papacy. Various theories, such as the
Pope Liberius Arian party. He died on 24 September 366. Some historians have postulated that Liberius resigned the papacy in 365, in order to make sense of the reign of Antipope Felix II. That view is overwhelmingly outnumbered by the writings of historians and scholars which document Liberius' staunch orthodoxy through the end of his pontificate ended by his death. Pope Pius IX noted in "Quartus Supra" that Liberius was falsely accused by the Arians and he had refused to condemn Athanasius of Alexandria. In his encyclical "Principi Apostolorum Petro", Pope Benedict XV noted that Pope Liberius went fearlessly into exile in