Of all the contenders to be the next pope, Danny Kind might not be an obvious choice. His shaggy hair is tinted green, and the other day he was wearing a Korn T-shirt under his ceremonial robes.
“I’m an Ashkenazi Jew from Orlando, so I’m not very Catholic,” he said. There’s also that.
None of this is disqualifying in a class at the University of Chicago called “The Italian Renaissance: Dante, Machiavelli, and the Wars of Popes and Kings,” better known by students as “pope class” or “pope LARP” (as in live-action role play). The centerpiece of the class is a simulation of the conclave of 1492, an historical gathering rife with accusations of scandal and corruption.
This is the 15th year since Prof. Ada Palmer began running the simulation, but the first time that it has been interrupted by the death of an actual pope. Pope Francis died on April 21, the same day that the students were set to vote in their own conclave.
The class arrived that day at Rockefeller Chapel, a Gothic Revival structure on campus that stands in for the Sistine Chapel, with a surreal sense of the weight of their decision.
“I’m a Catholic so it kind of sucked for me, but there was a lot of excitement,” said Joseph DePaula, 21, a third-year student who took the class two years ago and returned this year as a volunteer.
When Mr. Kind from Orlando — Cardinal Ascanio Sforza in the simulation — was elected on the fifth ballot, volunteers waved white flags from a balcony, symbolizing the smoke that billows from the Sistine Chapel when the cardinals have chosen a new pope.
Dr. Palmer, a historian and novelist, compared the class to the history version of a language immersion class. And the approach does more than help students recall names and dates. It is also a lesson in “plural power,” where anyone can change the course of history.
In the simulation, “everybody has power but nobody has control,” Dr. Palmer said. “Even the most powerful people don’t actually manage to control things enough to get the outcome they want, and even the least powerful people, when they work at it, can affect and influence what happens in the end.”
By last week, the final stretch of the simulation, some students had a hard time differentiating their real lives from their 15th-century identities.
Elsa Cukierman, who portrayed the nobleman Franceschetto Cybo, said she once accidentally called her real-life boyfriend by the name of her character’s wife. Others frantically responded to reports of a rival’s treachery on their phones at a nightclub at 3 a.m.
“Don’t eat, don’t speak, just pope,” said Julia Morales, who painted her nails baby blue to match the dress she wore as Lucrezia Borgia, the illegitimate daughter of the real Pope Alexander VI. (Events evolved differently in this year’s simulation.)
“We’re great friends in real life,” chimed in Emily Curran, dressed in the red robes of Cardinal Ardicino della Porta Jr., who opposed the Borgia family’s aspirations. “We just haven’t been able to hang out because we can’t talk about anything else but pope class.”
On April 30, the final day of the simulation, the students arrived in a bustle of excitement. They rifled through the racks of clothing that Dr. Palmer has procured over the years from sources like Renaissance fairs and the BBC’s costume department. She has alerts on Etsy and eBay for the phrase “used Shakespeare costume.”
The pope opened the proceedings with a moment of silence. At one point he assented to a petition to give an Italian cardinal control over a town in Bologna with an enthusiastic “hell, yeah!”
A duel broke out between Michael Tarchaniota Marullus and Pandolfo IV Malatesta. Then the pope himself threw off his robes to initiate his own duel with Cesare Borgia. (Borgia immediately surrendered, to the pope’s apparent disappointment.)
In real life, the 1492 conclave ended with the selection of Rodrigo Borgia as Pope Alexander VI, an outcome so heavily influenced by bribery that it inspired new rules against simony, or the selling of church offices.
But the class is a simulation, not a re-enactment, Dr. Palmer explained. That means that while students portray (mostly) real-life historical figures, they are set loose to make their own decisions.
Thus the 2025 election of Ascanio Sforza, a figure who did exist, as Pope Ambrose, who did not.
The recent success of the movie “Conclave” added to the feeling that the simulation was relevant to the real world this year. One group went to the theater in cardinal costumes, on loan from Dr. Palmer. As for the real conclave in Rome this week, Mr. Kind and several others said they were rooting for Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle, a contender from the Philippines who is often called the “Asian Francis.”
At the end of the final simulation, students bought art and made hasty marriage arrangements, rushing to fulfill as many of their characters’ objectives as possible. Then they took off their costumes and made their way to a classroom, where they debriefed and revealed various schemes and misunderstandings.
Cesare Borgia arrived toting a skateboard. Mr. Kind opened up his laptop and put on a playlist including Joy Division and Modest Mouse. A cluster of gods and angels snacked on Oreos.
For Mr. Kind, his election as Pope Ambrose was the culmination of years of dreaming. He heard about the class from a high-school history teacher, and wrote his admissions essay to the university about his desire to participate. Right before the vote, he kissed his grandfather’s small silver mezuza, which he wears around his neck.
Mr. Kind is not the first Jewish pope, Dr. Palmer said. There have also been two Muslim popes and a transgender pope. “We haven’t yet had a Catholic pope,” she said.
Mr. Kind broke down in tears when he removed his red cardinal vestments to don the white and gold robes of the Vicar of Christ. The experience was almost intoxicating. “Last Monday I got to excommunicate a guy,” he recounted. And given the circumstances swirling outside campus, it was hard not to muse about the possibility of real power.
“As far as I know, I’m the only person in the world claiming to be the pope right now,” Mr. Kind said. “I think that technically makes me pope.”
