Renaissance in Italy Volume VI Part 5

Menaces, meanwhile, had been astutely mingled with cajoleries. The French and the Imperial Courts were growing anxious on the subject of reform in secular establishments. Pius had threatened to raise the whole question of national Churches and the monarch's right of interfering in their administration. This was tantamount to flinging a burning torch into the powder-magazine of Huguenot and Lutheran grievances. In order to save themselves from the disaster of explosion, they urged harmonious action with the Papacy upon their envoys. The Spanish Court, through Pescara, De Luna, and D'Avalos, wrote dispatches of like tenor. It was now debated whether a congress of Crowned heads should not be held to terminate the Council in accordance with the Papal programme. This would have suited Pius. It was the point to which his policy had led. Yet no such measure could be lightly hazarded. A congress while the Council was yet sitting, would have been too palpable and cynical a declaration of the Papal game. As events showed, it was not even necessary. When Lorraine returned to Trent, the French opposition came to an end. The Spanish had been already neutralized by the firm persistent exhibition of Philip's will to work for Roman absolutism.[48] There was nothing left but to settle details, to formulate the terms of ecclesiastical reform, and to close the Council of Trent with a unanimous vote of confidence in his Holiness. The main outlines of dogma and discipline were quickly drawn. Numerous details were referred to the Pope for definition. The Council terminated in December with an act of submission, which placed all its decrees at the pleasure of the Papal sanction. Pius was wise enough to pa.s.s and ratify the decrees of the Tridentine fathers by a Bull dated on December 26, 1563, reserving to the Papal sovereign the sole right of interpreting them in doubtful or disputed cases. This he could well afford to do; for not an article had been penned without his concurrence, and not a stipulation had been made without a previous understanding with the Catholic powers. The very terms, moreover, by which his ratification was conveyed, secured his supremacy, and conferred upon his successors and himself the privileges of a court of ultimate appeal. At no previous period in the history of the Church had so wide, so undefined, and so unlimited an authority been accorded to the See of Rome. Thus Pius IV. was triumphant in obtaining conciliar sanction for Pontifical absolutism, and in maintaining the fabric of the Roman hierarchy unimpaired, the cardinal dogmas of Latin Christianity unimpeached and after formal inquisition rea.s.serted in precise definitions. A formidable armory had been placed at the disposal of the Popes, who were fully empowered to use it, and who had two mighty engines for its application ready in the Holy Office and the Company of Jesus.[49]

[Footnote 48: Yet the Spanish bishops fought to the end, under the leadership of their chief Guerrero, for the principle of conciliar independence and the episcopal prerogatives. 'We had better not have come here, than be forced to stand by as witnesses,' says the Bishop of Orense. Phillipson, p. 577.]

[Footnote 49: The vague reference of all decrees pa.s.sed by the Tridentine Council to the Pope for interpretation enabled him and his successors to manipulate them as they chose. It therefore happened, as Sarpi says ('Tratt. delle Mat. Ben.' _Opere_, vol. iv. p. 161), that no reform, with regard to the tenure of benefices, residence, pluralism, etc., which the Council had decided, was adopted without qualifying expedients which neutralized its spirit. If the continuance of benefices _in commendam_ ceased, the device of _pensions_ upon benefices was subst.i.tuted; and a thousand pretexts put colossal fortunes extracted from Church property, now as before, into the hands of Papal nephews.

Witness the contrivances whereby Cardinal Scipione Borghese enriched himself in the Papacy of Paul V. The Council had decreed the residence of bishops in their sees; but it had reserved to the Pope a power of dispensation; so that those whom he chose to exile from Rome were bound to reside, and those whom he desired to have about him were released from this obligation. On each and all delicate points the Papacy was more autocratic after than before the Council. One of Sarpi's letters (vol. i. p. 371) to Jacques Lescha.s.sier, dated December 22, 1609, should be studied by those who wish to penetrate the '_reserve ed altre arcane arti_,' the '_renunzie_', '_pensioni_' and '_altri stratagemmi_,' by means of which the Papal Curia, during the half-century after the Tridentine Council, managed to evade its decrees, and to get such control over Church property in Italy that 'out of 500 benefices not one is conferred legally.' Compare the pa.s.sage in the 'Trattato delle Materie Beneficiarie,' p. 163. There Sarpi says that five-sixths of Italian benefices are at the Pope's disposal, and that there is good reason to suppose that he will acquire the remaining sixth.]

After the termination of the Council there was nothing left for Pius but to die. He stood upon a pinnacle which might well have made him nervous--lest haply the Solonian maxim, 'Call no man fortunate until his death,' should be verified in his person. During the two years of peace and retirement which he had still to pa.s.s, the unsuccessful conspiracy of Benedetto Accolti and Antonio Canossa against his life gave point to this warning. But otherwise, withdrawn from cares of state, which he committed to his nephew, Carlo Borromeo, he enjoyed the tranquillity that follows successful labor, and sank with undiminished prestige into his grave at the end of 1565. Those who believe in masterful and potent leaders of humanity may be puzzled to account for the triumph achieved by this common-place arbiter of destiny. Not by strength but by pliancy of character he accomplished the transition from the mediaeval to the modern epoch of Catholicism. He was no Cromwell, Frederick the Great, or Bismarck; only a politic old man, contriving by adroit avoidance to steer the ship of the Church clear through innumerable perils. This scion of the Italian middle cla.s.s, this moral mediocrity, placed his successors in S. Peter's chair upon a throne of such supremacy that they began immediately to claim jurisdiction over kings and nations.

Thirty-eight years before his death, when Clement VII. was shut up in S.

Angelo, it seemed as though the Papal power might be abolished.

Forty-five years after his death, Sarpi, writing to a friend in 1610, expressed his firm opinion that the one, the burning question for Europe was the Papal power.[50] Through him, poor product as he was of ordinary Italian circ.u.mstances, elected to be Pope because of his easy-going mildness by prelates worn to death in fiery Caraffa's reign, it happened that the flood of Catholic reaction was rolled over Europe. In a certain sense we may therefore regard him as a veritable _Flagellum Dei_, wielded by inscrutable fate. It seems that at momentous epochs of world-history no hero is needed to effect the purpose of the Time-Spirit. A Gian Angelo Medici, agreeable, diplomatic, benevolent, and pleasure-loving, sufficed to initiate a series of events which kept the Occidental races in perturbation through two centuries.

[Footnote 50: _Lettere_, vol. ii. p. 167.]

A great step had been taken in the pontificate of Pius IV. That reform of the Church, which the success of Protestantism rendered necessary, and which the Catholic powers demanded, had been decreed by the Council of Trent. Pius showed no unwillingness to give effect to the Council's regulations; and the task was facilitated for him by his nephew, Carlo Borromeo, and the Jesuits. It still remained, however, to be seen whether a new Pope might not reverse the policy on which the Counter-Reformation had been founded, and impede the beneficial inner movement which was leading the Roman hierarchy into paths of sobriety.

Should this have happened, it would have been impossible for Romanism to a.s.sume a warlike att.i.tude of resistance toward the Protestants in Europe, or to have rallied its own spiritual forces. The next election was therefore a matter of grave import.

Nothing is more remarkable in the history of the Papacy at this epoch than the singular contrast offered by each Pontiff in succession to his predecessor. The conclave was practically uncontrolled in its choice by any external force of the first magnitude. Though a Duke of Florence might now, by intrigue, determine the nomination of a Pius IV., no commanding Emperor or King of France, as in the times of Otto the Great or Philip le Bel, could designate his own candidate. There was no strife, so open as in the Renaissance period, between Cardinals subsidized by Spain or Austria or France.[51] The result was that the deliberations of the conclave were determined by motives of petty interests, personal jealousies, and local considerations, to such an extent that the election seemed finally to be the result of chance or inspiration. We find the most unlikely candidates, Caraffa and Peretti, attributing their elevation to the direct influence of the Holy Ghost, in the consciousness that they had slipped into S. Peter's Chair by the maladroitness of conflicting factions. The upshot, however, of these uninfluenced elections generally was to promote a man antagonistic to his predecessor. The clash of parties and the numerical majority of independent Cardinals excluded the creatures of the last reign, and selected for advancement one who owed his position to the favor of an antecedent Pontiff. This result was further secured by the natural desire of all concerned in the election to nominate an old man, since it was for the general advantage that a pontificate should, if possible, not exceed five years.

[Footnote 51: This does not mean that the Spanish crown had not a powerful voice in the elections. See the history of the conclaves which elected Urban VII., Gregory XIV., Innocent IX., Clement VIII., in Ranke, vol. ii. pp. 31-39. Yet it was noticed by those close observers, the Venetian envoys, that France and Spain had abandoned their former policy of subsidizing the Cardinals who adhered to their respective factions.]

The personal qualities of Carlo Borromeo were of grave importance in the election of a successor to his uncle. He had ruled the Church during the last years of Pius IV.; and the newly-appointed Cardinals were his dependents. Had he attempted to exert his power for his own election, he might have met with opposition. He chose to use it for what he considered the deepest Catholic interests. This unselfishness led to the selection of a man, Michele Ghislieri, whose antecedents rendered him formidable to the still corrupt members of the Roman hierarchy, but whose character was precisely of the stamp required for giving solidity to the new phase on which the Church had entered. As Pius IV. had been the exact opposite to Paul IV., so Pius V. was a complete contrast to Pius IV. He had pa.s.sed the best years of his life as chief of the Inquisition. Devoted to theology and to religious exercises, he lacked the legal and mundane faculties of his predecessor. But these were no longer necessary. They had done their duty in bringing the Council to a favorable close, and in establishing the Catholic concordat. What was now required was a Pope who should, by personal example and rigid discipline, impress Rome with the principles of orthodoxy and reform.

Carlo Borromeo, self-conscious, perhaps, of the political incapacity which others noticed in him, and fervently zealous for the Catholic Revival, devolved this duty on Michele Ghislieri, who completed the work of his two predecessors.

Paul IV. had laid a basis for the modern Roman Church by strengthening the Inquisition and setting internal reforms on foot. Pius IV., externally, by his settlement of the Tridentine Council, and by the establishment of the Catholic concordat, built upon this basis an edifice which was not as yet ma.s.sive. Carlo Borromeo and the Jesuits during the last pontificate prepared the way for a Pope who should cement and gird that building, so that it should be capable of resisting the inroads of time and should serve as a fortress of attack on heresy.

That Pope was Michele Ghislieri, who a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Pius V. in 1566.

Before entering on the matter of his reign, it will be necessary to review the state of Rome at this moment in the epoch of transition, when the mediaeval and Renaissance phases were fast merging into the phase of the Counter-Reformation. Old abuses which have once struck a deep root in any inst.i.tution, die slowly. It is therefore desirable to survey the position in which the Papal Sovereign of the Holy City, as const.i.tuted by the Council of Trent, held sway there.

The population of Rome was singularly fluctuating. Being princ.i.p.ally composed of ecclesiastics with their households and dependents; foreigners resident in the city as suitors or amba.s.sadors; merchants, tradespeople and artists attracted by the hope of gain; it rose or fell according to the qualities of the reigning Pope, and the greater or less train of life which happened to be fashionable. n.o.ble families were rather conspicuous by their absence than by their presence; for those of the first rank, Colonna and Orsini, dwelt upon their fiefs, and visited the capital only as occasion served. The minor aristocracy which gave solidity to social relations in towns like Florence and Bologna, never attained the rank of a substantial oligarchy in Rome. Nor was there an established dynasty round which a circle of peers might gather in permanent alliance with the Court. On the other hand, the frequent succession of Pontiffs chosen from various districts encouraged the growth of an ephemeral n.o.bility, who battened for a while upon the favor of their Papal kinsmen, flooded the city with retainers from their province, and disappeared upon the election of a new Pope, to make room for another flying squadron. Instead of a group of ancient Houses, intermarrying and transmitting hereditary rights and honors to their posterity, Rome presented the spectacle of numerous celibate establishments, displaying great pomp, it is true, but dispersing and disappearing upon the decease of the patrons who a.s.sembled them. The households of wealthy Cardinals were formed upon the scale of princely Courts. Yet no one, whether he depended on the mightiest or the feeblest prelate, could reckon on the tenure of his place beyond the lifetime of his master. Many reasons, again--among which may be reckoned the hostility of reigning Pontiffs to the creatures of their predecessors or to their old rivals in the conclave--caused the residence of the chief ecclesiastics in Rome to be precarious. Thus the upper stratum of society was always in a state of flux, its elements shifting according to laws of chronic uncertainty. Beneath it spread a rabble of inferior and dubious gentlefolk, living in idleness upon the favor of the Court, serving the Cardinals and Bishops in immoral and dishonest offices, selling their wives, their daughters and themselves, all eager to rise by indirect means to places of emolument.[52] Lower down, existed the _bourgeoisie_ of artists, bankers, builders, shopkeepers, and artisans; and at the bottom of the scale came hordes of beggars. Rome, like all Holy Cities, entertained mult.i.tudes of eleemosynary paupers. Gregory XIII. is praised for having spent more than 200,000 crowns a year on works of charity, and for having a.s.signed the district of San Sisto (in the neighborhood of Trinita del Monte, one of the best quarters of the present city) to the beggars.[53]

[Footnote 52: See Mocenigo, _op. cit._ p. 35; Aretino's _Dialogo della Corte di Roma_; and the private history of the Farnesi.]

[Footnote 53: Giov. Carraro and Lor. Priuli, _op. cit._ pp. 275, 306.]

Such being the social conditions of Rome, it is not surprising to learn that during the reign of so harsh a Pontiff as Paul IV., the population sank to a number estimated at between 40,000 and 50,000. It rose rapidly to 70,000, and touched 80,000 in the reign of Pius IV. Afterwards it gradually ascended to 90,000, and during the popular pontificate of Gregory XIII. it is said to have reached the high figure of 140,000.

These calculations are based upon the reports of the Venetian amba.s.sadors, and can be considered as impartial, although they may not be statistically exact.[54]

What rendered Roman society rotten to the core was universal pecuniary corruption. In Rome nothing could be had without payment; but men with money in their purse obtained whatever they desired. The office of the Datatario alone brought from ten to fourteen thousand crowns a month into the Papal treasury in 1560.[55] This large sum accrued from the composition of benefices and the sale of vacant offices. The Camera Apostolica, or Chamber of Justice, was no less venal. A price was set on every crime, for which its punishment could be commuted into cash-payment. Even so severe a Pope as Paul IV. committed to his nephew, by published and printed edict, the privilege of compounding with criminals by fines.[56] One consequence of this vile system, rightly called by the Venetian envoy 'the very strangest that could be witnessed or heard of in such matters,' was that wealthy sinners indulged their appet.i.tes at the expense of their families, and that innocent people became the prey of sharpers and informers.[57] Rome had organized a vast system of _chantage_.

[Footnote 54: Alberi, vol. x. pp. 35, 83, 277.]

[Footnote 55: Mocenigo's computation, _op. cit._ p. 29.]

[Footnote 56: _Ibid._ p. 31.]

[Footnote 57: The true history of the Cenci, as written by Bertolotti, throws light upon these points.] Another consequence was that acts of violence were frightfully common. Men could be hired to commit murders at sums varying from ten to four scudi; and on the death of Paul IV., when anarchy prevailed for a short while in Rome, an eye-witness a.s.serts that several hundred a.s.sa.s.sinations were committed within the walls in a few days.[58]

[Footnote 58: Mocenigo, _op. cit._ p. 38.]

It was not to be expected that a population so corrupt, accustomed for generations to fatten upon the venality and vices of the hierarchy, should welcome those radical reforms which were the best fruits of the Tridentine Council. They specially disliked the decrees which enforced the residence of prelates and the limitation of benefices held by a single ecclesiastic. These regulations implied the withdrawal of wealthy patrons from Rome, together with an incalculable reduction in the amount of foreign money spent there. Nor were the measures for abolishing a simoniacal sale of offices, and the growing demand for decency in the administration of justice, less unpopular. The one struck at the root of private speculation in lucrative posts, and deprived the Court of revenues which had to be replaced by taxes. The other destroyed the arts of informers, checked lawlessness and license in the rich, and had the same lamentable effect of impoverishing the Papal treasury. In proportion as the Curia ceased to subsist upon the profits of simony, superst.i.tion, and sin, it was forced to maintain itself by imposts on the people, and by resuming, as Gregory XIII. attempted to do, its obsolete rights over fiefs and lands accorded on easy terms or held by doubtful t.i.tles. Meanwhile the retrenchment rendered necessary in all households of the hierarchy, and the introduction of severer manners, threatened many minor branches of industry with extinction.

These changes began to manifest themselves during the pontificate of Pius IV. The Pope himself was inclined to a liberal and joyous scale of living. But he was not remarkable for generosity; and the new severity of manners made itself felt by the example of his nephew Carlo Borromeo--a man who, while living in the purple, practiced austerities that were apparent in his emaciated countenance. The Jesuits ruled him; and, through him, their influence was felt in every quarter of the city.[59] 'The Court of Rome,' says the Venetian envoy in the year 1565, 'is no longer what it used to be either in the quality or the numbers of the courtiers. This is princ.i.p.ally due to the poverty of the Cardinals and the parsimony of the Popes. In the old days, when they gave away more liberally, men of ability flocked from all quarters. This reduction of the Court dates from the Council; for the bishops and beneficed clergy being now obliged to retire to their residences, the larger portion of the Court has left Rome. To the same cause may be ascribed a diminution in the numbers of those who serve the Pontiff, seeing that since only one benefice can now be given, and that involves residence, there are few who care to follow the Court at their own expense and inconvenience without hope of greater reward. The poverty of the Cardinals springs from two causes. The first is that they cannot now obtain benefices of the first cla.s.s, as was the case when England, Germany, and other provinces were subject to the Holy See, and when moreover they could hold three or four bishoprics apiece together with other places of emolument, whereas they now can only have one apiece.

The second cause is that the number of the Cardinals has been increased to seventy-five, and that the foreign powers have ceased to compliment them with large presents and Benefices, as was the wont of Charles V.

and the French crown.' In the last of these clauses we find clearly indicated one of the main results of the concordat established between the Papacy and the Catholic sovereigns by the policy of Pius IV. It secured Papal absolutism at the expense of the college. Soranzo proceeds to describe the changes visible in Roman society. 'The train of life at Court is therefore mean, partly through poverty, but also owing to the good example of Cardinal Borromeo, seeing that people are wont to follow the manners of their princes. The Cardinal holds in his hands all the threads of the administration; and living religiously in the retirement I have noticed, indulging in liberalities to none but persons of his own stamp, there is neither Cardinal nor courtier who can expect any favor from him unless he conform in fact or in appearance to his mode of life. Consequently one observes that they have altogether withdrawn, in public at any rate, from every sort of pleasures. One sees no longer Cardinals in masquerade or on horseback, nor driving with women about Rome for pastime, as the custom was of late; but the utmost they do is to go alone in close coaches. Banquets, diversions, hunting parties, splendid liveries and all the other signs of outward luxury have been abolished; the more so that now there is at Court no layman of high quality, as formerly when the Pope had many of his relatives or dependents around him. The clergy always wear their robes, so that the reform of the Church is manifested in their appearance. This state of things, on the other hand, has been the ruin of the artisans and merchants, since no money circulates. And while all offices and magistracies are in the hands of Milanese, grasping and illiberal persons, very few indeed can be still called satisfied with the present reign.'[60]

[Footnote 59: Giac. Soranzo, _op. cit._ pp. 131-136]

[Footnote 60: Soranzo, _op. cit._ pp. 136-138.]

One chief defect of Pius IV., judged by the standard of the new party in the Church, had been his coldness in religious exercises. Paolo Tiepolo remarks that during the last seven months of his life he never once attended service in his chapel.[61]

[Footnote 61: _Op. cit._ p. 171.]

This indifference was combined with lukewarmness in the prosecution of reforms. The Datatario still enriched itself by the composition of benefices, and the Camera by the composition of crimes. Pius V., on the contrary, embodied in himself those ascetic virtues which Carlo Borromeo and the Jesuits were determined to propagate throughout the Catholic world. He never missed a day's attendance on the prescribed services of the Church, said frequent Ma.s.ses, fasted at regular intervals, and continued to wear the coa.r.s.e woolen shirt which formed a part of his friar's costume. In his piety there was no hypocrisy. The people saw streams of tears pouring from the eyes of the Pontiff bowed in ecstacy before the Host. A rigid reformation of the churches, monasteries, and clergy was immediately set on foot throughout the Papal States. Monks and nuns complained, not without cause, that austerities were expected from them which were not included in the rules to which they vowed obedience. The severity of the Inquisition was augmented, and the Index Expurgatorius began to exercise a stricter jurisdiction over books. The Pope spent half his time at the Holy Office, inquiring into cases of heresy of ten or twenty years' standing. From Florence he caused Carnesecchi to be dragged to Rome and burned; from Venice the refugee Guido Zanetti of Fano was delivered over to his tender mercies; and the excellent Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, was sent from Spain to be condemned to death before the Roman tribunal. Criminal justice, meanwhile, was administered with greater purity, and the composition of crimes for money, if not wholly abolished, was moderated. In the collation to bishoprics and other benefices the same spirit of equity appeared; for Pius inquired scrupulously into the character and fitness of aspirants after office.

The zeal manifested by Pius V. for a thorough-going reform of manners may be ill.u.s.trated by a curious circ.u.mstance related by the Venetian amba.s.sador in the first year of the pontificate.[62] On July 26, 1566, an edict was issued, compelling all prost.i.tutes to leave Rome within six days, and to evacuate the States of the Church within twelve days. The exodus began. But it was estimated that about 25,000 persons, counting the women themselves with their hangers-on and dependents, would have to quit the city if the edict were enforced.[63] The farmers of the customs calculated that they would lose some 20,000 ducats a year in consequence, and prayed the Pope for compensation. Meanwhile the roads across the Campagna began to be thronged by caravans, which were exposed to the attacks of robbers. The confusion became so great, and the public discontent was so openly expressed, that on August 17 Pius repealed his edict and permitted the prost.i.tutes to reside in certain quarters of the city.

[Footnote 62: Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, etc., vol. i. pp. 51-54.]

[Footnote 63: a.s.suming the population of Rome to have been about 90,000 at that date, this number appears incredible. Yet we have it on the best of all evidences, that of a resident Venetian envoy.]

Pius IV. had wasted the greater part of his later life in bed, neglecting business, entertaining his leisure with buffoons and good companions, eating much and drinking more. Pius V., on the contrary, carried the habits of the convent with him into the Vatican, and bestowed the time he spared from devotion upon the transaction of affairs. He was of choleric complexion, adust, lean, wasted, with sunken eyes and snow-white hair, looking ten years older than he really was.

Such a Pope changed the face of Rome, or rather stereotyped the change which had been inst.i.tuted by Cardinal Borromeo. 'People, even if they are not really better, seem at least to be so,' says the Venetian envoy, who has supplied me with the details I have condensed.[64] Retrenchments in the Papal establishment were introduced; money was scarce; the Court grew meaner in appearance; and nepotism may be said to have been extinct in the days of Pius V. He did indeed advance one nephew, Michele Bonelli, to the Cardinalate; but he showed no inclination to enrich or favor him beyond due measure. A worn man, without ears, marked by the bastinado, frequented the palace, and stood near the person of the Pope, as Captain of the Guard. This was Paolo Ghislieri, a somewhat distant relative of Pius, who had pa.s.sed his life in servitude to Barbary corsairs and had been ransomed by a merchant upon the election of his kinsman. No other members of the Papal family were invited to Rome.

[Footnote 64: Tiepolo, _op. cit._ p. 172.]

Pius V., while living this exemplary monastic life upon the Papal throne, ruled Catholic Christendom more absolutely than any of his predecessors. As the Papacy recognized its dependence on the sovereigns, so the sovereigns in their turn perceived that religious conformity was the best safeguard of their secular authority. Therefore the Catholic States subscribed, one after the other, to the Tridentive Profession of Faith, and adopted one system in matters of Church discipline. A new Breviary and a new Missal were published with the Papal sanction.

Seminaries were established for the education of ecclesiastics, and the Jesuits labored in their propaganda. The Inquisition and the Congregation of the Index redoubled their efforts to stamp out heresy by fire and iron, and by the suppression or mutilation of books. A rigid uniformity was impressed on Catholicism. The Pope, to whom such power had been committed by the Council, stood at the head of each section and department of the new organization. To his approval every measure in the Church was referred, and the Jesuits executed his instructions with punctual exactness.

It is not, therefore, to be wondered that Pius V. should have opened the era of active hostilities against Protestantism. Firmly allied with Philip II., he advocated attacks upon the Huguenots in France, the Protestants in Flanders, and the English crown. There is no evidence that he was active in promoting the Ma.s.sacre of S. Bartholomew, which took place three months after his death; and the expedition of the Invincible Armada against England was not equipped until another period of fifteen years had elapsed. Yet the negotiations in which he was engaged with Spain, involving enterprises to the detriment of the English realm and the French Reformation, leave no doubt that both S.

Bartholomew and the Armada would have met with his hearty approval. One glorious victory gave l.u.s.ter to the reign of Pius V. In 1571 the navies of Spain, Venice and Rome inflicted a paralyzing blow upon the Turkish power at Lepanto; and this success was potent in fanning the flame of Catholic enthusiasm.

The pontificates of Paul IV., Pius IV., and Pius V., differing as they did in very important details, had achieved a solid triumph for reformed Catholicism, of which both the diplomatical and the ascetic parties in the Church, Jesuits and Theatines, were eager to take advantage. A new spirit in the Roman polity prevailed, upon the reality of which its future force depended; and the men who embodied this spirit had no mind to relax their hold on its administration. After the death of Pius V.

they had to deal with a Pope who resembled his penultimate predecessor, Pius IV., more than the last Pontiff. Ugo Buoncompagno, the scion of a _bourgeois_ family settled in Bologna, began his career as a jurist. He took orders in middle life, was promoted to the Cardinalate, and attained the supreme honor of the Holy See in 1572. The man responded to his name. He was a good companion, easy of access, genial in manners, remarkable for the facility with which he cast off care and gave himself to sanguine expectations.[65] In an earlier period of Church history he might have reproduced the Papacy of Paul II. or Innocent VIII. As it was, Gregory XIII. fell at once under the potent influence of Jesuit directors. His confessor, the Spanish Francesco da Toledo, impressed upon him the necessity of following the footsteps of Paul IV. and Pius V. It was made plain that he must conform to the new tendencies of the Catholic Church; and in his neophyte's zeal he determined to outdo his predecessors. The example of Pius V. was not only imitated, but surpa.s.sed. Gregory XIII. celebrated three Ma.s.ses a week, built churches, and enforced parochial obedience throughout his capital. The Jesuits in his reign attained to the maximum of their wealth and influence. Rome, 'abandoning her ancient license, displayed a moderate and Christian mode of living: and in so far as the external observance of religion was concerned, she showed herself not far removed from such perfection as human frailties allow.'[66]

[Footnote 65: Paolo Tiepolo, _op. cit._ p. 312.]

[Footnote 66: _Ibid._ p. 214.]

While he was yet a layman, Gregory became the father of one son, Giacomo. Born out of wedlock, he was yet acknowledged as a member of the Buoncompagno family, and admitted under this name into the Venetian n.o.bility.[67] The Pope manifested paternal weakness in favor of his offspring. He brought the young man to Rome, and made him Governatore di Santa Chiesa with a salary of 10,000 ducats. The Jesuits and other spiritual persons scented danger. They persuaded the Holy Father that conscience and honor required the alienation of his b.a.s.t.a.r.d from the sacred city. Giacomo was relegated to honorable exile in Ancona. But he suffered so severely from this rebuff, that terms of accommodation were agreed on. Giacomo received a lady of the Sforza family in marriage, and was established at the Papal Court with a revenue amounting to about 25,000 crowns.[68] The ecclesiastical party now predominant in Rome, took care that he should not acquire more than honorary importance in the government. Two of the Pope's nephews were promoted to the Cardinalate with provisions of about 10,000 crowns apiece. His old brother abode in retirement at Bologna under strict orders not to seek fortune or to perplex the Papal purity of rule in Rome.[69]

[Footnote 67: The Venetians, when they inscribed his name upon the Libro d'Oro, called him 'a near relative of his Holiness.']

[Footnote 68: This lady was a sister of the Count of Santa Fiora. For a detailed account of the wedding, see Mutinelli, _Stor. arc._ vol. i. p. 112.]

[Footnote 69: Tiepolo, _op. cit._ pp. 213, 219--221, 263, 266.]