One theory to explain the prophecy's creation, put forward by 17th-century French priest and encyclopaedist Louis Moréri, among others, is that it was spread by supporters of Cardinal Girolamo Simoncelli in support of his bid to become pope during the 1590 conclave to replace Urban VII. In the prophecy, the pope following Urban VII is given the description ""Ex antiquitate Urbis"" ("from the old city"), and Simoncelli was from Orvieto, which in Latin is "Urbevetanum", old city. Moréri and others proposed the prophecy was created in an unsuccessful attempt to demonstrate that Simoncelli was destined to be pope. However, the discovery of a reference to the prophecy in a 1587 letter has cast doubt on this theory. In this document the entourage of the Cardinal Giovanni Girolamo Albani interprets the motto ""De rore coeli"" ("From the dew of the sky") as a reference to their master, on the base of the link between ""alba"" ("dawn") and Albani, and the dew, as a typical morning atmospheric phenomenon.