CHAPTER II THE PAPACY AND THE TRIDENTINE COUNCIL

The Counter-Reformation—Its Intellectual and Moral Character—Causes of the Gradual Extinction of Renaissance Energy—Transition from the Renaissance to the Catholic Revival—New Religious Spirit in Italy—Attitude of Italians toward German Reformation—Oratory of Divine Love—Gasparo Contarini and the Moderate Reformers—New Religious Orders—Paul III.—His early History and Education—Political Attitude between France and Spain—Creation of the Duchy of Parma—Imminence of a General Council—Review of previous Councils—Paul's Uneasiness—Opens a Council at Trent in 1542—Protestants virtually excluded, and Catholic Dogmas confirmed in the first Sessions—Death of Paul in 1549—Julius III.—Paul IV.—Character and Ruling Passions of G.P. Caraffa—His Futile Opposition to Spain—Tyranny of his Nephews—Their Downfall—Paul Devotes himself to Church Reform and the Inquisition—Pius IV.—His Minister Morone—Diplomatic Temper of this Pope—His Management of the Council—Assistance rendered by his nephew Carlo Borromeo—Alarming State of Northern Europe—The Council reopened at Trent in 1562—Subsequent History of the Council—It closes with a complete Papal Triumph in 1563—Place of Pius IV. in History—Pius V.—The Inquisitor Pope—Population of Rome—Social Corruption—Sale of Offices and Justice—Tridentine Reforms depress Wealth—Ascetic Purity of Manners becomes fashionable—- Piety—The Catholic Reaction generates the Counter-Reformation—Battle of Lepanto—Gregory XIII.—His Relatives—Policy of Enriching the Church at Expense of the Barons—Brigandage in States of the Church—Sixtus V.—His Stern Justice—Rigid Economy—Great Public Works—Taxation—The City of Rome assumes its present form—Nepotism in the Counter-Reformation Period—Various Estimates of the Wealth accumulated by Papal Nephews—Rise of Princely Roman Families.

It is not easy to define the intellectual and moral changes which passed over Italy in the period of the Counter-Reformation[7]; it is still less easy to refer those changes to distinct causes. Yet some analysis tending toward such definition is demanded from a writer who has undertaken to treat of Italian culture and manners between the years 1530 and 1600.

In the last chapter I attempted to describe the depth of servitude to which the States of Italy were severally reduced at the end of the wars between France and Spain. The desolation of the country, the loss of national independence, and the dominance of an alien race, can be counted among the most important of those influences which produced the changes in question. Whatever opinions we may hold regarding the connection between political autonomy and mental vigor in a people, it can hardly be disputed that a sudden and universal extinction of liberty must be injurious to arts and studies that have grown up under free institutions.

But there were other causes at work. Among these a prominent place should be given to an alteration in the intellectual interests of the Italians themselves. The original impulses of the Renaissance, in scholarship, painting, sculpture, architecture, and vernacular poetry, had been exhausted.

Humanism, after recovering the classics and forming a new ideal of culture, was sinking into pedantry and academic erudition. Painting and sculpture, having culminated in the great work of Michelangelo, tended toward a kind of empty mannerism. Architecture settled down into the types fixed by Palladio and Barozzi. Poetry seemed to have reached its highest point of development in Ariosto. The main motives supplied to art by mediaeval traditions and humanistic enthusiasm were worked out. Nor was this all. The Renaissance had created a critical spirit which penetrated every branch of art and letters. It was not possible to advance further on the old lines; yet painters, sculptors, architects, and poets of the rising generation had before their eyes the masterpieces of their predecessors, in their minds the precepts of the learned. All alike were rendered awkward and self-conscious by the sense of laboring at a disadvantage, and by the dread of academical censorship.

In truth, this critical spirit, which was the final product of the Renaissance in Italy, favored the development of new powers in the nation: it hampered workers in the elder spheres of art, literature, and scholarship; but it set thinkers upon the track of those investigations which we call scientific. I shall endeavor, in a future chapter, to show how the Italians were now upon the point of carrying the ardor of the Renaissance into fresh fields of physical discovery and speculation, when their evolution was suspended by the Catholic Reaction. But here it must suffice to observe that formalism had succeeded by the operation of natural influences to the vigor and inventiveness of the national genius in the main departments of literature and fine art.

If we study the development of other European races, we shall find that each of them in turn, at its due season, passed through similar phases. The mediaeval period ends in the efflorescence of a new delightful energy, which gives a Rabelais, a Shakspere, a Cervantes to the world. The Renaissance riots itself away in Marinism, Gongorism, Euphuism, and the affectations of the Hôtel Rambouillet. This age is succeeded by a colder, more critical, more formal age of obedience to fixed canons, during which scholarly efforts are made to purify style and impose laws on taste. The ensuing period of sense is also marked by profounder inquiries into nature and more exact analysis of mental operations. The correct school of poets, culminating in Dryden and Pope, holds sway in England; while Newton, Locke, and Bentley extend the sphere of science. In France the age of Rabelais and Montaigne yields place to the age of Racine and Descartes. Germany was so distracted by religious wars, Spain was so down-trodden by the Inquisition, that they do not offer equally luminous examples.[8] It may be added that in all these nations the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries are marked by a similar revolt against formality and common sense, to which we give the name of the Romantic movement.

Quitting this sphere of speculation, we may next point out that the European system had undergone an incalculable process of transformation. Powerful nationalities were in existence, who, having received their education from Italy, were now beginning to think and express thought with marked originality. The Italians stood no longer in a relation of uncontested intellectual superiority to these peoples, while they met them under decided disadvantages at all points of political efficiency. The Mediterranean had ceased to be the high road of commercial enterprise and naval energy. Charles V.'s famous device of the two columns, with its motto Plus Ultra, indicated that illimitable horizons had been opened, that an age had begun in which Spain, England and Holland should dispute the sovereignty of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Italy was left, with diminished forces of resistance, to bear the brunt of Turk and Arab depredations. The point of gravity in the civilized world had shifted. The Occidental nations looked no longer toward the South of Europe.

While these various causes were in operation, Catholic Christianity showed signs of re-wakening. The Reformation called forth a new and sincere spirit in the Latin Church; new antagonisms were evoked, and new efforts after self-preservation had to be made by the Papal hierarchy. The center of the world-wide movement which is termed the Counter-Reformation was naturally Rome. Events had brought the Holy See once more into a position of prominence. It was more powerful as an Italian State now, through the support of Spain and the extinction of national independence, than at any previous period of history. In Catholic Christendom its prestige was immensely augmented by the Council of Trent. At the same epoch, the foreigners who dominated Italy, threw themselves with the enthusiasm of fanaticism into this Revival. Spain furnished Rome with the militia of the Jesuits and with the engines of the Inquisition. The Papacy was thus able to secure successes in Italy which were elsewhere only partially achieved. It followed that the moral, social, political and intellectual activities of the Italians at this period were controlled and colored by influences hostile to the earlier Renaissance. Italy underwent a metamorphosis, prescribed by the Papacy and enforced by Spanish rule. In the process of this transformation the people submitted to rigid ecclesiastical discipline, and adopted, without assimilating, the customs of a foreign troop of despots.

At first sight we may wonder that the race which had shone with such incomparable luster from Dante to Ariosto, and which had done so much to create modern culture for Europe, should so quietly have accepted a retrogressive revolution. Yet, when we look closer, this is not surprising. The Italians were fatigued with creation, bewildered by the complexity of their discoveries, uncertain as to the immediate course before them. The Renaissance had been mainly the work of a select few. It had transformed society without permeating the masses of the people. Was it strange that the majority should reflect that, after all, the old ways are the best? This led them to approve the Catholic Revival. Was it strange that, after long distracting aimless wars, they should hail peace at any price? This lent popular sanction to the Spanish hegemony, in spite of its obvious drawbacks.

These may be reckoned the main conditions which gave a peculiar but not easily definable complexion of languor, melancholy, and dwindling vitality to nearly every manifestation of Italian genius in the second half of the sixteenth century, and which well nigh sterilized that genius during the two succeeding centuries. In common with the rest of Europe, and in consequence of an inevitable alteration of their mental bias, they had lost the blithe spontaneity of the Renaissance. But they were at the same time suffering from grievous exhaustion, humiliated by the tyranny of foreign despotism, and terrorized by ecclesiastical intolerance. In their case, therefore, a sort of moral and intellectual atrophy becomes gradually more and more perceptible. The clear artistic sense of rightness and of beauty yields to doubtful taste. The frank audacity of the Renaissance is superseded by cringing timidity, lumbering dulness, somnolent and stagnant acquiescence in accepted formulae. At first the best minds of the nation fret and rebel, and meet with the dungeon or the stake as the reward of contumacy. In the end everybody seems to be indifferent, satisfied with vacuity, enamored of insipidity. The brightest episode in this dreary period is the emergence of modern music with incomparable sweetness and lucidity.

It must not be supposed that the change which I have adumbrated, passed rapidly over the Italian spirit. When Paul III. succeeded Clement on the Papal throne in 1534, some of the giants of the Renaissance still survived, and much of their great work was yet to be accomplished. Michelangelo had neither painted the Last Judgment nor planned the cupola which crowns S. Peter's. Cellini had not cast his Perseus for the Loggia de'Lanzi, nor had Palladio raised San Giorgio from the sea at Venice. Pietro Aretino still swaggered in lordly insolence; and though Machiavelli was dead, the 'silver histories' of Guicciardini remained to be written. Bandello, Giraldi and Il Lasca had not published their Novelle, nor had Cecchi given the last touch to Florentine comedy. It was chiefly at Venice, which preserved the ancient forms of her oligarchical independence, that the grand style of the Renaissance continued to flourish. Titian was in his prime; the stars of Tintoretto and Veronese had scarcely risen above the horizon. Sansovino was still producing masterpieces of picturesque beauty in architecture.

In order to understand the transition of Italy from the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation manner, it will be well to concentrate attention on the history of the Papacy during the eight reigns of Paul III., Julius III., Paul IV., Pius IV., Pius V., Gregory XIII., Sixtus V., and Clement VIII.[9] In the first of these reigns we hardly notice that the Renaissance has passed away. In the last we are aware of a completely altered Italy. And we perceive that this alteration has been chiefly due to the ecclesiastical policy which brought the Council of Trent to a successful issue in the reign of Pius IV.

Before engaging in this review of Papal history, I must give some brief account of the more serious religious spirit which had been developed within the Italian Church; since the determination of this spirit toward rigid Catholicism in the second half of the sixteenth century decided the character of Italian manners and culture. Protestantism in the strict sense of the term took but little hold upon Italian society. It is true that the minds of some philosophical students were deeply stirred by the audacious discussion of theological principles in Germany. Such men had been rendered receptive of new im pressions by the Platonizing speculations of Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, as well as by the criticism of the Bible in its original languages which formed a subordinate branch of humanistic education. They had, furthermore, been powerfully affected by the tribulations of Rome at the time of Bourbon's occupation, and had grown to regard these as a divine chastisement inflicted on the Church for its corruption and ungodliness. Lutheranism so far influenced their opinions that they became convinced of the necessity of a return to the simpler elements of Christianity in creed and conduct. They considered a thorough-going reform of the hierarchy and of all Catholic institutions to be indispensable. They leant, moreover, with partiality to some of the essential tenets of the Reformation, notably to the doctrines of justification by faith and salvation by the merits of Christ, and also to the principle that Scripture is the sole authority in matters of belief and discipline. Thus both the Cardinals Morone and Contarini, the poet Flaminio, and the nobles of the Colonna family in Naples who imbibed the teaching of Valdes, fell under the suspicion of heterodoxy on these points. But it was characteristic of the members of this school that they had no will to withhold allegiance from the Pope as chief of Christendom. They shrank with horror from the thought of encouraging a schism or of severing themselves from the communion of Catholics. The essential difference between Italian and Teutonic thinkers on such subjects at this epoch seems to have been this: Italians could not cease to be Catholics without at the same time ceasing to be Christians. They could not accommodate their faith to any of the compromises suggested by the Reformation. Even when they left their country in a spirit of rebellion, they felt ill at ease both with Lutherans and Calvinists. Like Bernardino Ochino and the Anti-Trinitarians of the Socinian sect, they wandered restlessly through Europe, incapable of settling down in communion with any one of the established forms of Protestantism. Calvin at Geneva instituted a real crusade against Italian thinkers, who differed from his views. He drove Valentino Gentile to death on the scaffold; and expelled Gribaldi, Simone, Biandrata, Alciati, Negro. Most of these men found refuge in Poland, Transylvania, even Turkey.[10]

There were bold speculators in Italy enough, who had practically abandoned the Catholic faith. But the majority of these did not think it worth their while to make an open rupture with the Church. Theological hair-splitting reminded them only of the mediaeval scholasticism from which they had been emancipated by classical culture. They were less interested in questions touching the salvation of the individual or the exact nature of the sacraments, than in metaphysical problems suggested by the study of antique philosophers, or new theories of the material universe.

The indifference of these men in religion rendered it easy for them to conform in all external points to custom. Their fundamental axiom was that a scientific thinker could hold one set of opinions as a philosopher, and another set as a Christian. Their motto was the celebrated Foris ut moris, intus ut libet.[11] Nor were ecclesiastical authorities dissatisfied with this attitude during the ascendancy of humanistic culture. It was, indeed, the attitude of Popes like Leo, Cardinals like Bembo. And it only revealed its essential weakness when the tide of general opinion, under the blast of Teutonic revolutionary ideas, turned violently in favor of formal orthodoxy. Then indeed it became dangerous to adopt the position of a Pomponazzo.

The mental attitude of such men is so well illustrated by a letter written by Celio Calcagnini to Peregrino Morato, that I shall not hesitate to transcribe it here. It seems that Morato had sent his correspondent some treatise on the theological questions then in dispute; and Calcagnini replies:

'I have read the book relating to the controversies so much agitated at present. I have thought on its contents, and weighed them in the balance of reason. I find in it nothing which may not be approved and defended, but some things which, as mysteries, it is safer to suppress and conceal than to bring before the common people, inasmuch as they pertained to the primitive and infant state of the Church. Now, when the decrees of the fathers and long usage have introduced other modes, what necessity is there for reviving antiquated practices which have long fallen into desuetude, especially as neither piety nor the salvation of the soul is concerned with them? Let us, then, I pray you, allow these things to rest. Not that I disapprove of their being embraced by scholars and lovers of antiquity; but I would not have them communicated to the common people and those who are fond of innovations, lest they give occasion to strife and sedition. There are unlearned and unqualified persons who having, after long ignorance, read or heard certain new opinions respecting baptism, the marriage of the clergy, ordination, the distinction of days and food, and public penitence, instantly conceive that these things are to be stiffly maintained and observed. Wherefore, in my opinion, the discussion of these points ought to be confined to the initiated, that so the seamless coat of our Lord may not be rent and torn.... Seeing it is dangerous to treat such things before the multitude and in public discourses, I must deem it safest to "speak with the many and think with the few," and to keep in mind the advice of Paul, "Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God."'[12]

The new religious spirit which I have attempted to characterize as tinctured by Protestant opinions but disinclined for severance from Rome, manifested itself about the same time in several groups. One of them was at Rome, where a society named the Oratory of Divine Love, including from fifty to sixty members, began to meet as early as the reign of Leo X. in the Trastevere. This pious association included men of very various kinds. Sadoleto, Giberto, and Contarini were here in close intimacy with Gaetano di Thiene, the sainted founder of the Theatines, and with his friend Caraffa, the founder of the Roman Inquisition. Venice was the center of another group, among whom may be mentioned Reginald Pole, Gasparo Contarini, Luigi Priuli, and Antonio Bruccioli, the translator of the Bible from the original tongues into Italian. The poet Marcantonio Flaminio became a member of both societies; and was furthermore the personal friend of the Genoese Cardinals Sauli and Fregoso, whom we have a right to count among thinkers of the same class. Flaminio, though he died in the Catholic communion, was so far suspected of heresy that his works were placed upon the Index of 1559. In Naples Juan Valdes made himself the leader of a similar set of men. His views, embodied in the work of a disciple, and revised by Marcantonio Flaminio, On the Benefits of Christ's Death, revealed strong Lutheran tendencies, which at a later period would certainly have condemned him to perpetual imprisonment or exile. This book had a wide circulation in Italy, and was influential in directing the minds of thoughtful Christians to the problems of Justification. It was ascribed to Aonio Paleario, who suffered martyrdom at Rome for maintaining doctrines similar to those of Valdes.[13] Round him gathered several members of the great Colonna family, notably Vespasiano, Duke of Palliano, and his wife, the star of Italian beauty, Giulia Gonzaga. Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, imbibed the new doctrines in the same circle; and so did Bernardino Ochino. Modena could boast another association, which met in the house of Grillenzone; while Ferrara became the headquarters of a still more pronounced reforming party under the patronage of the Duchess, Renée of France, daughter of Louis XII. These various societies and coteries were bound together by ties of friendship and literary correspondence, and were indirectly connected with less fortunate reforming theologians; with Aonio Paleario, Bernardino Ochino, Antonio dei Pagliaricci, Carnesecchi, and others, whose tragic history will form a part of my chapter on the Inquisition.

It does not fall within the province of this chapter to write an account of what has, not very appropriately, been called the Reformation in Italy. My purpose in the present book is, not to follow the for tunes of Protestantism, but to trace the sequel of the Renaissance, the merging of its impulse in new phases of European development. I shall therefore content myself with pointing out that at the opening of Paul III.'s reign, there was widely diffused throughout the chief Italian cities a novel spirit of religious earnestness and enthusiasm, which as yet had taken no determinate direction. This spirit burned most highly in Gasparo Contarini, who in 1541 was commissioned by the Pope to attend a conference at Rechensburg for the discussion of terms of reconciliation with the Lutherans. He succeeded in drawing up satisfactory articles on the main theological points regarding human nature, original sin, redemption and justification. These were accepted by the Protestant theologians at Rechensburg and might possibly have been ratified in Rome, had not the Congress been broken up by Contarini's total failure to accommodate differences touching the Pope's supremacy and the conciliar principle.[14] He made concessions to the Reformers, which roused the fury of the Roman Curia. At the same time political intrigues were set on foot in France and Germany to avert a reconciliation which would have immeasurably strengthened the Emperor's position. The moderate sections of both parties, Lutheran and Catholic, failed at Rechensburg. Indeed, it was inevi table that they should fail; for the breach between the Roman Church and the Reformation was not of a nature to be healed over at this date. Principles were involved which could not now be harmonized, and both parties in the dispute were on the point of developing their own forces with fresh internal vigor.

The Italians who desired reform of the Church were now thrown back upon the attempt to secure this object within the bosom of Catholicism. At the request of Paul III. they presented a memorial on ecclesiastical abuses, which was signed by Contarini, Caraffa, Sadoleto, Pole, Fregoso, Giberto, Cortese and Aleander. These Cardinals did not spare plain speech upon the burning problem of Papal misgovernment.

Meanwhile, the new spirit began to manifest itself in the foundation of orders and institutions tending to purification of Church discipline. The most notable of these was the order of Theatines established by Thiene and Caraffa. Its object was to improve the secular priesthood, with a view to which end seminaries were opened for the education of priests, who took monastic vows and devoted themselves to special observance of their clerical duties, as preachers, administrators of the sacraments, visitors of the poor and sick.

A Venetian, Girolamo Miani, at the same period founded a congregation, called the Somascan, for the education of the destitute and orphaned, and for the reception of the sick and infirm into hospitals. The terrible state in which Lombardy had been left by war rendered this institution highly valuable. Of a similar type was the order of the Barnabites, who were first incorporated at Milan, charged with the performance of acts of mercy, education, preaching, and other forms of Christian ministration. It may be finally added that the Camaldolese and Franciscan orders had been in part reformed by a spontaneous movement within their bodies.

If we compare the spirit indicated by these efforts in the first half of the sixteenth century with that of the earlier Renaissance, it will be evident that the Italians were ready for religious change. They sink, however, into insignificance beside two Spanish institutions which about the same period added their weight and influence to the Catholic revival. I mean, of course, the Inquisition and the Jesuit order. Paul III. empowered Caraffa in 1542 to re-establish the Inquisition in Rome upon a new basis resembling that of the Spanish Holy Office. The same Pope sanctioned and confirmed the Company of Jesus between the years 1540 and 1543. The establishment of the Inquisition gave vast disciplinary powers to the Church at the moment when the Council of Trent fixed her dogmas and proclaimed the absolute authority of the Popes. At the same time the Jesuits, devoted by their founder in blind obedience—perinde ac cadaver—to the service of the Papacy, penetrated Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and the transatlantic colonies.

The Pope who succeeded Clement VII. in 1534 was in all ways fitted to represent the transition which I have indicated. Alessandro Farnese sprang from an ancient but decayed family in the neighborhood of Bolsena, several of whose members had played a foremost part in the mediaeval revolutions of Orvieto. While still a young man of twenty-five, he was raised to the Cardinalate by Alexander VI. This advancement he owed to the influence of his sister Giulia, surnamed La Bella, who was then the Borgia's mistress. It is characteristic of an epoch during which the bold traditions of the fifteenth century still lingered, that the undraped statue of this Giulia (representing Vanity) was carved for the basement of Paul III.'s monument in the choir of S. Peter's. The old stock of the Farnesi, once planted in the soil of Papal corruption at its most licentious period, struck firm roots and flourished. Alessandro was born in 1468, and received a humanistic education according to the methods of the earlier Renaissance. He studied literature with Pomponius Laetus in the Roman Academy, and frequented the gardens of Lorenzo de'Medici at Florence. His character and intellect were thus formed under the influences of the classical revival and of the Pontifical Curia, at a time when pagan morality and secular policy had obliterated the ideal of Catholic Christianity. His sister was the Du Barry of the Borgian Court. He was himself the father of several illegitimate children, whom he acknowledged, and on whose advancement by the old system of Papal nepotism he spent the best years of his reign. Both as a patron of the arts and as an elegant scholar in the Latin and Italian languages, Alessandro showed throughout his life the effects of this early training. He piqued himself on choice expression, whenever he was called upon to use the pen in studied documents, or to answer ambassadors in public audiences. To his taste and love of splendor Rome owes the Farnese palace. He employed Cellini, and forced Michelangelo to paint the Last Judgment. On ascending the Papal throne he complained that this mighty genius had been too long occupied for Delia Roveres and Medici. When the fresco was finished, he set the old artist upon his last great task of completing S. Peter's.

So far there was nothing to distinguish Alessandro Farnese from other ecclesiastics of the Renaissance. As Cardinal he seemed destined, should he ever attain the Papal dignity, to combine the qualities of the Borgian and Medicean Pontiffs. But before his elevation to that supreme height, he lived through the reigns of Julius II., Leo X., Adrian VI., and Clement VII. Herein lies the peculiarity of his position as Paul III. The pupil of Pomponius Laetus, the creature of Roderigo Borgia, the representative of Italian manners and culture before the age of foreign invasion had changed the face of Italy, Paul III. was called at the age of sixty-six to steer the ship of the Church through troubled waters and in very altered circumstances. He had witnessed the rise and progress of Protestant revolt in Germany. He had observed the stirrings of a new and sincere spirit of religious gravity, an earnest desire for ecclesiastical reform in his own country. He had watched the duel between France and Spain, during the course of which his predecessors Alexander V. and Julius II. restored the secular authority of Rome. He had seen that authority humbled to the dust in 1527, and miraculously rehabilitated at Bologna in 1530. He had learned by the example of the Borgias how difficult it was for any Papal family to found a substantial principality; and the vicissitudes of Florence and Urbino had confirmed this lesson. Finally, he had assisted at the coronation of Charles V.; and when he took the reins of power into his hands, he was well aware with what a formidable force he had to cope in the great Emperor.

Paul III. knew that the old Papal game of pitting France against Spain in the peninsula could not be played on the same grand scale as formerly. This policy had been pursued with results ruinous to Italy but favorable to the Church, by Julius. It had enabled Leo and Clement to advance their families at the hazard of more important interests. But in the reign of the latter Pope it had all but involved the Papacy itself in the general confusion and desolation of the country. Moreover, France was no longer an effective match for Spain; and though their struggle was renewed, the issue was hardly doubtful. Spain had got too firm a grip upon the land to be cast off.

Yet Paul was a man of the elder generation. It could not be expected that a Pope of the Renaissance should suddenly abandon the mediaeval policy of Papal hostility to the Empire, especially when the Empire was in the hands of so omnipotent a master as Charles. It could not be expected that he should recognize the wisdom of confining Papal ambition to ecclesiastical interests, and of forming a defensive and offensive alliance with Catholic sovereigns for the maintenance of absolutism. It could not be expected that he should forego the pleasures and apparent profits of creating duchies for his bastards, whereby to dignify his family and strengthen his personal authority as a temporal sovereign. It is true that the experience of the last half century had pointed in the direction of all these changes; and it is certain that the series of events connected with the Council of Trent, which began in Paul III.'s reign, rendered them both natural and necessary. Yet Paul, as a man of the elder generation filling the Papal throne for fifteen years during a period of transition, adhered in the main to the policy of his predecessors. It was fortunate for him and for the Holy See that the basis of his character was caution combined with tough tenacity of purpose, capacity for dilatory action, diplomatic shiftiness and a poli tical versatility that can best be described by the word trimming. These qualities enabled him to pass with safety through perils that might have ruined a bolder, a hastier, or a franker Pope, and to achieve the object of his heart's desire, where stronger men had failed, in the foundation of a solid duchy for his heirs.

Paul's jealousy of the Spanish ascendancy in Italian affairs caused him to waver between the Papal and Imperial, Guelf and Ghibelline, parties. These names had lost much of their significance; but the habit of distinction into two camps was so rooted in Italian manners, that each city counted its antagonistic factions, maintained by various forms of local organization and headed by the leading families.[15] Burigozzo, under the year 1517, tells how the whole population of Milan was divided between Guelfs and Ghibellines, wearing different costumes; and it is not uncommon to read of petty nobles in the country at this period, who were styled Captains of one or the other party.

The wars between France and Spain revived the almost obsolete dispute, which the despots of the fifteenth century and the diplomatic confederation of the five great powers had tended in large measure to erase. The Guelfs and Ghibellines were now partisans of France and Spain respectively. Thus a true political importance was regained for the time-honored factions; and in the distracted state of Italy they were further intensified by the antagonism between exiles and the ruling families in cities. If Cosimo de'Medici, for example, was a Ghibelline or Spanish partisan, it followed as a matter of course that Filippo Strozzi was a Guelf and stood for France. Paul III. managed to maintain himself by manipulating these factions and holding the balance between them for the advantage of his family and of the Church.

He thus succeeded in creating the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza for his son, Pier Luigi Farnese, that outrageous representative of the worst vices and worst violences of the Renaissance. It will be remembered that Julius had detached these two cities from the Duchy of Milan, and annexed them to the Papal States, on the plea that they formed part of the old Exarchate of Ravenna. When Charles decided against this plea in the matter of Modena and Reggio, he left the Church in occupation of Parma and Piacenza. Paul created his son Duke of Nepi and Castro in 1537, and afterwards conferred the Duchy of Camerino on his grandson, Ottavio, who was then married to Margaret of Austria, daughter of Charles V., and widow of the murdered Alessandro de'Medici. The usual system of massacre, exile, and confiscation had reduced the signorial family of the Varani at Camerino to extremities. The fief reverted to the Church, and Paul induced the Cardinals to sanction his investiture of Ottavio Farnese with its rights and honors. He subsequently explained to them that it would be more profitable for the Holy See to retain Camerino and to relinquish Parma and Piacenza to the Farnesi in exchange. There was sense in this arrangement; for Camerino formed an integral part of the Papal States, while Parma and Piacenza were held under a more than doubtful title. Pier Luigi did not long survive his elevation to the dukedom of Parma. He was murdered by his exasperated subjects in 1547. His son, Ottavio, with some difficulty, maintained his hold upon this principality, until in 1559 he established himself and his heirs, with the approval of Philip II., in its perpetual enjoyment. The Farnesi repaid Spanish patronage by constant service, Alessandro, Prince of Parma, and son of Ottavio, being illustrious in the annals of the Netherlands. It would not have been worth while to enlarge on this foundation of the Duchy of Parma, had it not furnished an excellent example of my theme. By this act Paul III. proved himself a true and able inheritor of those political traditions by which all Pontiffs from Sixtus IV. to Clement VII. had sought to establish their relatives in secular princedoms. It was the last eminent exhibition of that policy, the last and the most brilliant display of nepotistical ambition in a Pope. A new age had opened, in which such schemes became impossible—when Popes could no longer dare to acknowledge and legitimize their bastards, and when they had to administer their dominions exclusively for the temporal and ecclesiastical aggrandizement of the tiara.

Nevertheless, Paul was living under the conditions which brought this modern attitude of the Papacy into potent actuality. He was surrounded by intellectual and moral forces of recent growth but of incalculable potency. One of the first acts of his reign was to advance six members of the moderate reforming party—Sadoleto, Pole, Giberto, Federigo, Fregoso, Gasparo Contarini, and G.M. Caraffa—to the Cardinalate. By this exercise of power he showed his willingness to recognize new elements of very various qualities in the Catholic hierarchy. Five of these men represented opinions which at the moment of their elevation to the purple had a fair prospect of ultimate success. Imbued with a profound sense of the need for ecclesiastical reform, and tinctured more or less deeply with so-called Protestant opinions, they desired nothing more intensely than a reconstitution of the Catholic Church upon a basis which might render reconciliation with the Lutherans practicable. They had their opportunity during the pontificate of Paul III. It was a splendid one; and, as I have already shown, the Conference of Rechensburg only just failed in securing the end they so profoundly desired. But the Papacy was not prepared to concede so much as they were anxious to grant: the German Reformers proved intractable; they were themselves impeded by their loyalty to antique Catholic traditions, and by their dread of a schism; finally, the militant expansive force of Spanish orthodoxy, expressing itself already in the concentrated energy of the Jesuit order, rendered attempts at fusion impossible. The victory in Rome remained with the faction of intransigeant Catholics; and this was represented, in Paul III.'s first creation of Cardinals, by Caraffa. Caraffa was destined to play a singular part in the transition period of Papal history which I am reviewing. He belonged as essentially to the future as Alessandro Farnese belonged to the past. He embodied the spirit of the Inquisition, and upheld the principles of ecclesiastical reform upon the narrow basis of Papal absolutism. He openly signalized his disapproval of Paul's nepotism; and when his time for ruling came, he displayed a remorseless spirit of justice without mercy in dealing with his own family. Yet he hated the Spanish ascendancy with a hatred far more fierce and bitter than that of Paul III. His ineffectual efforts to shake off the yoke of Philip II. was the last spasm of the older Papal policy of resistance to temporal sovereigns, the last appeal made in pursuance of that policy to France by an Italian Pontiff.[16]

The object of this excursion into the coming period is to show in how deep a sense Paul III. may be regarded as the beginner of a new era, while he was at the same time the last continuator of the old. The Cardinals whom he promoted on his accession included the chief of those men who strove in vain for a concordat between Rome and Reformation; it also included the man who stamped Rome with the impress of the Counter-Reformation. Yet Caraffa would not have had the fulcrum needed for this decisive exertion of power, had it not been for another act of Paul's reign. This was the convening of a Council at Trent. Paul's attitude toward the Council, which he summoned with reluctance, which he frustrated as far as in him lay, and the final outcome of which he was far from anticipating, illustrates in a most decisive manner his destiny as Pope of the transition.

The very name of a Council was an abomination to the Papacy. This will be apparent if we consider the previous history of the Church during the first half of the fifteenth century, when the conciliar authority was again invoked to regulate the Papal See and to check Papal encroachments on the realms and Churches of the Western nations. The removal of the Papal Court to Avignon, the great schism which resulted from this measure, and the dissent which spread from England to Bohemia at the close of the fourteenth century, rendered it necessary that the representative powers of Chris tendom should combine for the purpose of restoring order in the Church. Four main points lay before the powers of Europe, thus brought for the first time into deliberative and confederated congress to settle questions that vitally concerned them. The most immediately urgent was the termination of the schism, and the appointment of one Pope, who should represent the mediaeval idea of ecclesiastical face to face with imperial unity. The second was the definition of the indeterminate and ever-widening authority which the Popes asserted over the kingdoms and the Churches of the West. The third was the eradication of heresies which were rending Christendom asunder and threatening to destroy that ideal of unity in creed to which the Middle Ages clung with not unreasonable passion. The fourth was a reform of the Church, considered as a vital element of Western Christendom, in its head and in its members.

The programme, very indistinctly formulated by the most advanced thinkers of the age, and only gradually developed by practice into actuality, was a vast one. It involved the embitterment of national jealousies, the accentuation of national characteristics, and the complication of antagonistic principles regarding secular and ecclesiastical government, which rendered a complete and satisfactory solution well-nigh impracticable. The effort to solve these problems had, however, important influence in creating conditions under which the politico-religious struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were conducted.[17]

The first Council, opened at Pisa in 1409, was a congress of prelates summoned by Cardinals for the conclusion of the schism. It deposed two Popes, who still continued to assert their titles; it elected a third, Alexander V., who had no real authority. For the rest, it effected no reform, and cannot be said to have done much more than to give effect to those aspirations after Church-government by means of Councils which had been slowly forming during the continuance of the schism.

The second Council, opened at Constance in 1414, was a Council not convened by Cardinals, but by the universal demand of Europe that the advances of the Papacy toward tyranny should be checked, and that the innumerable abuses of the Church and Papal Curia should be reformed. It received a different complexion from that of Pisa, through the presidency of the Emperor and the attendance of representatives from the chief nations. At Constance the Papacy and the Roman Curia stood together, exposed to the hostile criticism of Europe. The authority of a General Council was, after a sharp conflict, decreed superior to that of the Bishop of Rome. Three Popes were forced to abdicate; and a fourth, Martin V., was elected.

The Council further undertook to deal with heresy and with the reform of the Church. It discharged the first of these offices by condemning Hus and Jerome of Prague to the stake. It left the second practically untouched. Yet the question of reform had been gravely raised, largely discussed, and fundamentally examined. Two methods were posed at Constance for the future consideration of earnest thinkers throughout Europe. One was the way suggested by John Hus; that the Church should be reconstituted, after a searching analysis of the real bases of Christian conduct, an appeal to Scripture as the final authority, and a loyal endeavor to satisfy the spiritual requirements of individual souls and consciences. The second plan was that of inquiry into the existing order of the Church and detailed amendment of its flagrant faults, with preservation of the main system. The Council adopted satisfactory measures of reform on neither of these methods. It contented itself with stipulations and concordats, guaranteeing special privileges to the Churches of the several nations. But in the following century it became manifest that the Teutonic races had declared for the method suggested by Hus; while the Latin races, in the Council of Trent, undertook a purgation of the Church upon the second of the two plans. The Reformation was the visible outcome of the one, the Counter-Reformation of the other method.

The Council of Constance was thus important in causing the recognition of a single Pope, and in ventilating the divergent theories upon which the question of reform was afterwards to be disputed. But perhaps the most significant fact it brought into relief was the new phase of political existence into which the European races had entered. Nationality, as the main principle of modern history, was now established; and the diplomatic relations of sovereigns as the representatives of peoples were shown to be of overwhelming weight. The visionary mediaeval polity of Emperor and Pope faded away before the vivid actuality of full-formed individual nations, federally connected, controlled by common but reciprocally hostile interests.[18]

The Council of Basel, opened in 1431, was in appearance a continuation of the Council of Constance. But its method of procedure ran counter to the new direction which had been communicated to European federacy by the action of the Constance congress. There the votes had been taken by nations. At Basel they were taken by men, after the questions to be decided had been previously discussed by special congregations and committees deputed for preliminary deliberations. It soon appeared that the fathers of the Basel Council aimed at opposing a lawfully-elected Pope, and sought to assume the, administration of the Church into their own hands.

Their struggle with Eugenius IV., their election of an antipope, Felix V., and their manifest tendency to substitute oligarchical for Papal tyranny in the Church, had the effect of bringing the conciliar principle itself into disfavor with the European powers. The first symptom of this repudiation of the Council by Europe was shown in the neutrality proclaimed by Germany. The attitude of other Courts and nations proved that the Western races were for the moment prepared to leave the Papal question open on the basis supplied by the Council of Constance.

The result of this failure of the conciliar principle at Basel was that Nicholas V. inaugurated a new age for the Papacy in Rome. I have already described the chief features of the Papal government from his election to the death of Clement VII. It was a period of unexampled splendor for the Holy See, and of substantial temporal conquests. The second Council of Pisa, which began its sittings, in 1511 under French sanction and support, exercised no disastrous influence over the restored powers and prestige of the Papacy. On the contrary, it gave occasion for a counter-council, held at the Lateran under the auspices of Julius II. and Leo X., in which the Popes established several points of ecclesiastical discipline that were not without value to their successors. But the leaven which had been scattered by Wyclif and Hus, of which the Council of Constance had taken cognizance, but which had not been extirpated, was spreading in Germany throughout this period. The Popes themselves were doing all in their power to propagate dissent and discontent. Well aware of the fierce light cast by the new learning they had helped to disseminate, upon the dark places of their own ecclesiastical administration, they still continued to raise money by the sale of pardons and indulgences, to bleed their Christian flocks by monstrous engines of taxation, and to offend the conscience of an intelligent generation by their example of ungodly living. The Reformation ran like wild-fire through the North. It grew daily more obvious that a new Council must be summoned for carrying out measures of internal reform, and for coping with the forces of belligerent Protestantism. When things had reached this point, Charles V. declared his earnest desire that the Pope should summon a General Council. Paul III. now showed in how true a sense he was the man of a transitional epoch. So long as possible he resisted, remembering to what straits his predecessors had been reduced by previous Councils, and being deeply conscious of scandals in his own domestic affairs which might expose him to the fate of a John XXIII. Reviewing the whole series of events which have next to be recorded, we are aware that Paul had no great cause for agitation. The Council he so much dreaded was destined to exalt his office, and to recombine the forces of Catholic Christendom under the absolute supremacy of his successors. The Inquisition and the Company of Jesus, both of which he sanctioned at this juncture, were to guard, extend, and corroborate that supreme authority. But this was by no means apparent in 1540. It is a character of all transitional periods that in them the cautious men regard past precedents of peril rather than sanguine expectations based on present chances. A hero, in such passes, goes to meet the danger armed with his own cause and courage. A genius divines the future, and interprets it, and through interpretation tries to govern it. Paul was neither a hero nor a man of genius. Yet he did as much as either could have done; and he did it in a temper which perhaps the hero and the genius could not have commanded. He sent Legates to publish the opening of a Council at Trent in the spring of 1545; and he resolved to work this Council on the principles of diplomatical conservatism, reserving for himself the power of watching events and of enlarging or restricting its efficiency as might seem best to him.[19]

It is singular that the Council thus reluctantly conceded by Paul III. should, during its first sessions and while he yet reigned, have confirmed the dogmatic foundations of modern Catholicism, made reconciliation with the Teutonic Reformers impossible, and committed the secular powers which held with Rome to a policy that rendered the Papal supremacy incontestable.[20] Face to face with the burning question of the Protestant rebellion, the Tridentine fathers hastened to confirm the following articles. First, they declared that divine revelation was continuous in the Church of which the Pope was head; and that the chief written depository of this revelation—namely, the Scriptures—had no authority except in the version of the Vulgate.

Secondly, they condemned the doctrine of Justification by Faith, adding such theological qualifications and reservations as need not, at this distance of time, and on a point devoid of present actuality, be scrupulously entertained. Thirdly, they confirmed the efficacy and the binding authority of the Seven Sacraments. It is thus clear that, on points of dogma, the Council convened by Pope and Emperor committed Latin Christianity to a definite repudiation of the main articles for which Luther had contended. Each of these points they successively traversed, foreclosing every loophole for escape into accommodation. It was in large measure due to Caraffa's energy and ability that these results were attained.

The method of procedure adopted by the Council, and the temper in which its business was conducted, were no less favorable to the Papacy than the authoritative sanction which it gave to dogmas. From the first, the presidency and right of initiative in its sessions were conceded to the Papal Legates; and it soon became customary to refer decrees, before they were promulgated, to his Holiness in Rome for approval. The decrees themselves were elaborated in three congregations, one appointed for theological questions, the second for reforms, the third for supervision and ratification. They were then proposed for discussion and acceptance in general sessions of the Council. Here each vote told; and as there was a standing majority of Italian prelates, it required but little dexterity to secure the passing of any measure upon which the Court of Rome insisted. The most formidable opposition to the Papal prerogatives during these manoeuvres proceeded from the Spanish bishops, who urged the introduction of reforms securing the independence of the episcopacy.

We find a remarkable demonstration of Paul III.'s difficulties as Pope of the transition, in the fact that while the Council of Trent was waging this uncompromising war against Reformers, his dread of Charles V. compelled him to suspend its sessions, transfer it to Bologna, and declare himself the political ally of German Protestants. This transference took place in 1547. His Legates received orders to invent some decent excuse for a step which would certainly be resisted, since Bologna was a city altogether subject to the Holy See. The Legates, by the connivance of the physicians in Trent, managed to create a panic of contagious epidemic.[21] Charles had won victories which seemed to place Germany at his discretion. His preponderance in Italy was thereby dangerously augmented. Paul, following the precedents of policy in which he had been bred, thought it at this crisis necessary to subordinate ecclesiastical to temporal interests. He interrupted the proceedings of the Council in order to hamper the Emperor in Germany. He encouraged the Northern Protestants in order that he might maintain an open issue in the loins of his Spanish rival. Nothing could more delicately illustrate the compli cations of European politics than the inverted attitude assumed by the Roman Pontiff in his dealings with a Catholic Emperor at this moment of time.[22]

The opposition of the Farnesi to Paul's scheme for restoring Parma to the Holy See in 1549, broke Paul III.'s health and spirits. He died on November 10, and was succeeded by the Cardinal Giovanni Maria del Monte, of whose reign little need be said. Julius III. removed the Council from Bologna to Trent in 1551, where it made some progress in questions touching the Eucharist and the administration of episcopal sees; but in the next year its sessions were suspended, owing to the disturbed state of Southern Germany and the presence of a Protestant army under Maurice of Saxony in the Tyrol.[23] This Pope passed his time agreeably and innocently enough in the villa which he built near the Porta del Popolo. His relatives were invested with several petty fiefs—that of their birthplace, Monte Sansovino, by Cosimo de'Medici; that of Novara by the Emperor, and that of Camerino by the Church. The old methods of Papal nepotism were not as yet abandoned. His successor, Marcello II., survived his elevation only three weeks; and in May 1555, Giovanni Pietro Caraffa was elected, with the title of Paul IV. We have already made the acquaintance of this Pope as a member of the Oratory of Divine Love, as a co-founder of the Theatines, as the organizer of the Roman Inquisition, and as a leader in the first sessions of the Tridentine Council. Paul IV. sprang from a high and puissant family of Naples. He was a man of fierce, impulsive and uncompromising temper, animated by two ruling passions—burning hatred for the Spaniards who were trampling on his native land, and ecclesiastical ambition intensified by rigid Catholic orthodoxy. The first act of his reign was a vain effort to expel the Spaniards from Italy by resorting to the old device of French assistance. The abdication of Charles V. had placed Philip II. on the throne of Spain, and the settlement whereby the Imperial crown passed to his brother Ferdinand had substituted a feeble for a powerful Emperor. But Philip's disengagement from the cares of Germany left him more at liberty to maintain his preponderance in Southern Europe. It was fortunate for Paul IV. that Philip was a bigoted Catholic and a superstitiously obedient son of the Church. These two potentates, who began to reign in the same year, were destined, after the settlement of their early quarrel, to lead and organize the Catholic Counter-Reformation. The Duke of Guise at the Pope's request marched a French army into Italy. Paul raised a body of mercenaries, who were chiefly German Protestants[24]; and opened negotiations with Soliman, entreating the Turk to make a descent on Sicily by sea. Into such a fantastically false position was the Chief of the Church, the most Catholic of all her Pontiffs, driven by his jealous patriotism. We seem to be transported back into the times of a Sixtus IV. or an Alexander VI. And in truth, Paul's reversion to the antiquated Guelf policy of his predecessors was an anachronism. That policy ceased to be efficient when Francis I. signed the Treaty of Cambray; the Church, too, had gradually assumed such a position that armed interference in the affairs of secular sovereigns was suicidal. This became so manifest that Paul's futile attack on Philip in 1556 may be reckoned the last war raised by a Pope. From it we date the commencement of a new system of Papal co-operation with Catholic powers.

The Duke of Alva put the forces at his disposal in the Two Sicilies into motion, and advanced to meet the Duke of Guise. But while the campaign dragged on, Philip won the decisive battle of S. Quentin. The Guise hurried back to France, and Alva marched unresisted upon Rome. There was no reason why the Eternal City should not have been subjected to another siege and sack. The will was certainly not wanting in Alva to humiliate the Pope, who never spoke of Spaniards but as renegade Jews, Marrani, heretics, and personifications of pride. Philip, however, wrote reminding his general that the date of his birth (1527) was that of Rome's calamity, and vowing that he would not signalize the first year of his reign by inflicting fresh miseries upon the capital of Christendom. Alva was ordered to make peace on terms both honorable and advantageous to his Holiness; since the King of Spain preferred to lose the rights of his own crown rather than to impair those of the Holy See in the least particular. Consequently, when Alva entered Rome in peaceful pomp, he did homage for his master to the Pope, who was generously willing to absolve him for his past offences. Paul IV. publicly exulted in the abasement of his conquerors, declaring that it would teach kings in future the obedience they owed to the Chief of the Church. But Alva did not conceal his discontent. It would have been better, he said, to have sent the Pope to sue for peace and pardon at Brussels, than to allow him to obtain the one and grant the other on these terms.

Paul's ambition to expel the Spaniards from Italy exposed him to the worst abuses of that Papal nepotism which he had denounced in others. He judged it necessary to surround himself with trusty and powerful agents of his own kindred.[25]

With that view he raised one of his nephews, Carlo, to the Cardinalate, and bestowed on two others the principal fiefs of the Colonna family. The Colonnas were by tradition Ghibelline. This sufficed for depriving them of Palliano and Montebello. Carlo Caraffa, who obtained the scarlet, had lived a disreputable life which notoriously unfitted him for any ecclesiastical dignity. In the days of Sixtus and Alexander this would have been no bar to his promotion. But the Church was rapidly undergoing a change; and Carlo, complying with the hypocritical spirit of his age, found it convenient to affect a thorough reformation, and to make open show of penitence. Rome now presented the singular spectacle of an inquisitorial Pope, unimpeachable in moral conduct and zealous for Church reform, surrounded by nephews who were little better than Borgias. The Caraffas began to dream of principalities and scepters. It was their ambition to lay hold on Florence, where Cosimo de'Medici, as a pronounced ally of Spain, had gained the bitter hatred of their uncle. But their various misdoings, acts of violence and oppression, avarice and sensuality, gradually reached the ears of the Pope. In an assembly of the Inquisition, held in January 1559, he cried aloud, 'Reform! reform! reform!' Cardinal Pacheco, a determined foe of the Caraffeschi, raised his voice, and said, 'Holy Father! reform must first begin with us.' Pallavicini adds the remark that Paul understood well who was meant by us. He immediately retired to his apartments, instituted a searching inquiry into the conduct of his nephews, and, before the month was out, deprived them of all their offices and honors, and banished them from Rome. He would not hear a word in their defence; and when Cardinal Farnese endeavored to procure a mitigation of their sentence, he brutally replied, 'If Paul III. had shown the same justice, your father would not have been murdered and mutilated in the streets of Piacenza.' In open consistory, before the Cardinals and high officials of his realm, with tears streaming from his eyes, he exposed the evil life of his relatives, declared his abhorrence of them, and protested that he had dwelt in perfect ignorance of their crimes until that time. This scene recalls a similar occasion, when Alexander VI. bewailed himself aloud before his Cardinals after the murder of the Duke of Gandia by Cesare. But Alexander's repentance was momentary; his grief was that of a father for Absalom; his indignation gave way to paternal weakness for the fratricide. Paul, though his love for his relatives seems to have been fervent, never relaxed his first severity against them. They were buried in oblivion; no one uttered their names in the Pope's presence. The whole secular administration of the Papal States was changed; not an official kept his place. For the first time Rome was governed by ministers in no way related to the Holy Father.

Paul now turned his attention, with the fiery passion that distinguished him, to the reformation of ecclesiastical abuses. On his accession he had published a Bull declaring that this would be a principal object of his reign. Nor had he in the midst of other occupations forgotten his engagement. A Congregation specially appointed for examining, classifying, and remedying such abuses had been established. It was divided into three committees, consisting of eight Cardinals, fifteen prelates, and fifty men of learning. At the same time the Inquisition was rigorously maintained. Paul extended its jurisdiction, empowered it to use torture, and was constant in his attendance on its meetings and autos da fé.[26] But now that his plans for the expulsion of the Spaniards had failed, and his nephews had been hurled from their high station into the dust, there remained no other interest to distract his mind. Every day witnessed the promulgation of some new edict touching monastic discipline, simony, sale of offices, collation to benefices, church ritual, performance of clerical duties, and appointment to ecclesiastical dignities. It was his favorite boast that there would be no need of a Council to restore the Church to purity, since he was doing it.[27] And indeed his measures formed the nucleus of the Tridentine decrees upon this topic in the final sessions of the Council. Under this government Rome assumed an air of exemplary behavior which struck foreigners with mute astonishment. Cardinals were compelled to preach in their basilicas. The Pope himself, who was vain of his eloquence, preached. Gravity of manners, external signs of piety, a composed and contrite face, ostentation of orthodoxy by frequent confession and attendance at the Mass, became fashionable; and the Court adopted for its motto the Si non caste tamen caute of the Counter-Reformation.[28] Aretino, with his usual blackguardly pointedness of expression, has given a hint of what the new régime implied in the following satiric lines:—

Carafla, ipocrita infingardo,
Che tien per coscienza spirituale
Quando si mette del pepe in sul cardo.

Paul IV. brought the first period of the transition to an end. There were no attempts at dislodging the Spaniard, no Papal wars, no tyranny of Papal nephews converted into feudal princes, after his days. He stamped Roman society with his own austere and bigoted religion. That he was in any sense a hypocrite is wholly out of the question. But he made Rome hypocritical, and by establishing the Inquisition on a firm basis, he introduced a reign of spiritual terror into Italy.

At his death the people rose in revolt, broke into the dungeons of the Inquisition, released the prisoners, and destroyed the archives. The Holy Office was restored, however; and its higher posts of trust soon came to be regarded as stepping-stones to the Pontifical dignity.

The successor of Paul IV. was a man of very different quality and antecedents. Giovanni Angelo Medici sprang, not from the Florentine house of Medici, but from an obscure Lombard stem. His father acquired some wealth by farming the customs in Milan; and his eldest brother, Gian Giacomo, pushed his way to fame, fortune, and a title by piracy upon the lake of Como.[29] Gian Giacomo established himself so securely in his robber fortress of Musso that he soon became a power to reckon with. He then entered the imperial service, was created Marquis of Marignano by the Duke of Milan, and married a lady of the Orsini house, the sister of the Duchess of Parma. At a subsequent period he succeeded in subduing Siena to the rule of Cosimo de'Medici, who then acknowledged a pretended consanguinity between the two families.[30] The younger brother, Giovanni Angelo, had meanwhile been studying law, practising as a jurist, and following the Court at Rome in the place of prothonotary which, as the custom then was, he purchased in 1527. Paul III. observed him, took him early into favor, and on the marriage of Gian Giacomo, advanced him to the Cardinalate. This was the man who assumed the title of Pius IV. on his election to the Papacy in 1559.

Paul IV. hated Cardinal Medici, and drove him away from Rome. It is probable that this antipathy contributed something to Giovanni Angelo's elevation. Of humble Lombard blood, a jurist and a worldling, pacific in his policy, devoted to Spanish interests, cautious and conciliatory in the conduct of affairs, ignorant of theology and indifferent to niceties of discipline, Pius IV. was at all points the exact opposite of the fiery Neapolitan noble, the Inquisitor and fanatic, the haughty trampler upon kings, the armed antagonist of Alva, the brusque, impulsive autocrat, the purist of orthodoxy, who preceded him upon the Papal throne.[31] His trusted counselor was Cardinal Morone, whom Paul had thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition on a charge of favoring Lutheran opinions, and who was liberated by the rabble in their fury.[32]

This in itself was significant of the new régime which now began in Rome. Morone, like his master, understood that the Church could best be guided by diplomacy and arts of peace. The two together brought the Council of Trent to that conclusion which left an undisputed sovereignty in theological and ecclesiastical affairs to the Papacy. It would have been impossible for a man of Caraffa's stamp to achieve what these sagacious temporizers and adroit managers effected.

Without advancing the same arrogant claims to spiritual supremacy as Paul had made, Pius was by no means a feeble Pontiff. He knew that the temper of the times demanded wise concessions; but he also knew how to win through these concessions the reality of power. It was he who initiated and firmly followed the policy of alliance between the Papacy and the Catholic sovereigns.[33] Instead of asserting the interests of the Church in antagonism to secular potentates, he undertook to prove that their interests were identical. Militant Protestantism threatened the civil no less than the ecclesiastical order. The episcopacy attempted to liberate itself from monarchical and pontifical authority alike. Pius proposed to the autocrats of Europe a compact for mutual defence, divesting the Holy See of some of its privileges, but requiring in return the recognition of its ecclesiastical absolutism. In all difficult negotiations he was wont to depend upon himself; treating his counselors as agents rather than as peers, and holding the threads of diplomacy in his own hands. Thus he was able to transact business as a sovereign with sovereigns, and came to terms with them by means of personal correspondence. The reconstruction of Catholic Christendom, which took visible shape in the decrees of the Tridentine Council, was actually settled in the Courts of Spain, Austria, France and Rome. The Fathers of the Council were the mouthpieces of royal and Papal cabinets. The Holy Ghost, to quote a profane satire of the time, reached Trent in the despatch-bags of couriers, in the sealed instructions issued to ambassadors and legates.

We observe throughout the negotiations which crowned the policy of this Pope with success, the operation not only of a pacific and far-seeing character, but also of the temper of a lawyer. Pius drew up the Tridentine decrees as an able con veyancer draws up a complicated deed, involving many trusts, recognizing conflicting rights, providing for distant contingencies. It was in fact the marriage contract of ecclesiastical and secular absolutism, by which the estates of Catholic Christendom were put in trust and settlement for posterity. In formulating its terms the Pope granted points to which an obstinate or warlike predecessor, a Julius II. or a Paul IV., would never have subscribed his signature. In purely theological matters, such as the concession of the chalice to the laity and the marriage of the clergy, he was even willing to yield more for the sake of peace than his Court and clergy would agree to. But for each point he gave, he demanded a substantial equivalent, and showed such address in bargaining, that Rome gained far more than it relinquished. When the contract had been drafted, he ratified it by a full and ready recognition, and lawyer-like was punctual in executing all the terms to which he pledged himself.

We must credit Pius IV. with keen insight into the new conditions of Catholic Europe, and recognize him as the real founder of the modern as distinguished from the mediaeval Papacy. That transition which I have been describing in the present chapter remained uncertain in its issue up to his pontificate. Before his death the salvation of Catholicism, the integrity of the Catholic Church, the solidity of the Roman hierarchy, and the possibility of a vigorous Counter-Reformation were placed beyond all doubt.

It is noticeable that these substantial successes were achieved, not by a religious fanatic, but by a jurist; not by a saint, but by a genial man of the world; not by force of intellect and will, but by adroitness; not by masterful authority, but by pliant diplomacy; not by forcing but by following the current of events. Since Gregory VII., no Pope had done so much as Pius IV. for bracing the ancient fabric of the Church and confirming the Papal prerogative. But what a difference there is between a Hildebrand and a Giovanni Angelo Medici! How Europe had changed, when a man of the latter's stamp was the right instrument of destiny for starting the weather-beaten ship of the Church upon a new and prosperous voyage.

Pius IV. was greatly assisted in his work by circumstances, of which he knew how to avail himself. Had it not been for the renewed spiritual activity of Catholicism to which I have alluded in this chapter, he might not have been able to carry that work through. He took no interest in theology, and felt no sympathy for the Inquisition.[34] But he prudently left that institution alone to pursue its function of policing the ecclesiastical realm. The Jesuits rendered him important assistance by propagating their doctrine of passive obedience to Rome. Spain supported him with the massive strength of a nation Catholic to the core; and when the Spanish prelates gave him trouble, he could rely for aid upon the Spanish crown. His own independence, as a prudent man of business, uninfluenced by bigoted prejudices or partialities for any sect, enabled him to manipulate all resources at his disposal for the main object of uniting Catholicism and securing Papal supremacy. He was also fortunate in his family relations, having no occasion to complicate his policy by nepotism. One of the first acts of his reign had been to condemn four of the Caraffeschi—Cardinal Caraffa, the Duke of Palliano, Count Aliffe and Leonardo di Cardine—to death; and this act of justice ended forever the old forms of domestic ambition which had hampered the Popes of the Renaissance in their ecclesiastical designs. His brother, the Marquis of Marignano, died in 1555; and this event opened for him the path to the Papacy, which he would never have attained in the lifetime of so grasping and ambitious a man.[35] With his next brother, Augusto, who succeeded to the marquisate, he felt no sympathy.[36] His nephew Federigo Borromeo died in youth. His other nephew, Carlo Borromeo, the sainted Archbishop of Milan, remained close to his person in Rome.[37] But Carlo Borromeo was a man who personified the new spirit of Catholicism. Sincerely pious, zealous for the faith, immaculate in conduct, unwearied in the discharge of diocesan duties, charitable to the poor, devoted to the sick, he summed up all the virtues of the Counter-Reformation. Nor had he any of the virtues of the Renaissance. A Venetian Ambassador described him as cold of political temperament, little versed in worldly affairs, and perplexed when he attempted to handle matters of grave moment.[38] His presence at the Papal Court, so far from being perilous, as that of an ambitious Cardinal Nipote would have been, or scandalous as that of former Riarios, Borgias, and Caraffas had undoubtedly been, was a source of strength to Pius. It imported into his immediate surroundings just what he himself lacked, and saved him from imputations of worldliness which in the altered temper of the Church might have proved inconvenient.[39] Truly, among all Pontiffs who have occupied St. Peter's Chair, Pius IV. deserved in the close of his life to be called fortunate. He had risen from obscurity, had entered Rome in humble office at the moment of Rome's deepest degradation. He had lived through troubled times, and for some years had felt the whole weight of Catholic concerns upon his shoulders. At the last, he was conscious of having opened a new era for the Church, and of being able to transmit a scepter of undisputed authority to his successors. His death-bed was troubled with no remorse, with no ingratitude of relatives, with no political complications produced by family ambition or by the sacrifice of his official duties to personal aggrandizement.

Soon after the election of Pope Pius IV. the state of Europe made the calling of a General Council indispensable. Paul's impolitic pretensions had finally alienated England from the Roman Church. Scotland was upon the point of declaring herself Protestant. The Huguenots were growing stronger every year in France, the Queen Mother, Catherine de'Medici, being at that time inclined to favor them. The Confession of Augsburg had long been recognized in Germany. The whole of Scandinavia, with Denmark, was lost to Catholicism. The Low Countries, in spite of Philip, Alva, and the Inquisition, remained intractable. Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland were alienated, ripe for open schism. The tenets of Zwingli had taken root in German Switzerland. Calvin was gaining ground in the French cantons. Geneva had become a stationary fortress, the stronghold of belligerent reformers, whence heresy sent forth its missionaries and promulgated subversive doctrines through the medium of an ever-active press. Transformed by Calvin from its earlier condition of a pleasure-loving and commercial city, it was now what Deceleia under Spartan discipline had been to Athens in the Peloponnesian war—a permanent epiteichismos, perpetually garrisoned and on guard to harry the flanks of Catholics. Faithful to the Roman See in a strict sense of the term, there remained only Spain, Portugal, and Italy. As the events of the next century proved, the disaffected nations still offered rallying-points for the Catholic cause, from which the tide of conquest was rolled back upon the Reformation. But in 1559 the outlook for the Church was very gloomy; no one could predict whether a General Council might not increase her difficulties by weakening the Papal power and sowing further seeds of discord among her few faithful adherents. Yet Pius, after an attempt to combine the Catholic nations in a crusade against Geneva, which was frustrated by the jealousy of Spain, the internal weakness of France and the respect inspired by Switzerland,[40] determined to cast his fortunes on the Council. He had several strong points in his favor. The reigning Emperor, Ferdinand, wielded a power insignificant when compared with that of Charles V. The Protestants, though formally invited, were certain not to attend a Council which had already condemned the articles of their Confession. The cardinal dogmas of Catholicism had been confirmed in the sessions of 1545-1552. It was to be hoped that, with skillful management, existing differences of opinion with regard to doctrine, church-management, and reformation of abuses, might be settled to the satisfaction of the Catholic powers.

The Pope accordingly sent four Legates, the Cardinals Gonzaga, Seripando, Simoneta, Hosius, and Puteo, to Trent, who opened the Council on January 15, 1562.[41] As had been anticipated, the Protestants showed strong disinclination to attend. The French prelates were unable to appear, pending negotiations with the Huguenots at Poissy and Pontoise. The German prelates intimated their reluctance to take part in the proceedings. The Court of France demanded that the chalice for the laity and the use of the vulgar tongue in religious services should be conceded. The Emperor also insisted on these points, making a further demand for the marriage of the clergy. Circumstances both in France and Germany seemed to render these conditions imperative, if the rapid spread of Protestant dissent were to be checked and the remnant of the Catholic population to be kept in obedience. Of ecclesiastics, only Spaniards and Italians, the latter in a large majority, appeared at Trent. The Courts of other nations were represented by ambassadors, who took no part in the deliberations of the Council.[42]

In spite of this inauspicious commencement, Pius declared the Council a General Council, and further decreed that it should be recognized as a continuation of that Council which had begun at Trent in 1545. This rendered co-operation of the Protestants impossible, since they would have been compelled to accept the earlier dogmatic resolutions of the Fathers. It was decided that no proxies should be allowed to absentees; that the questions of doctrine and reform should be prepared for discussion in two separate congregations, and should be taken into consideration in full sessions simultaneously; finally that the Papal Legates should alone have the privilege of proposing resolutions to the fathers. This last point, by which the Court of Rome reserved to itself the control of all proceedings in the Council, was carried by a clever ruse. Until too late the Spanish prelates do not seem to have been aware of the immense power they had conferred on Rome by passing the words Legatis proponentibus.[43] The principle involved in this phrase continued to be hotly disputed all through the sessions of the Council. But Pius knew that so long as he stuck fast to it he always held the ace of trumps, and nothing would induce him to relinquish it.

Fortified in this position of superiority, Pius now proceeded to organize his forces and display his tactics. All through the sessions of the Council they remained the same; and as the method resulted in his final victory, it deserves to be briefly described. At any cost he determined to secure a numerical majority in the Synod. This was effected by drafting Italian prelates, as occasion required, to Trent. Many of the poorer sort were subsidized, and placed under the supervision of Cardinal Simoneta, who gave them orders how to vote. A small squadron of witty bishops was told off to throw ridicule on inconvenient speakers by satirical interpolations, or to hamper them by sophistical arguments. Spies were introduced into the opposite camps, who kept the Legates informed of what the French or Spaniards deliberated in their private meetings. The Legates meanwhile established a daily post of couriers, who carried the minutest details of the Council to the Vatican. When the resolutions of the congregations on which decrees were to be framed had been drawn up, they referred them to his Holiness. Without his sanction they did not propose them in a general session. In this fashion, by means of his standing majority, the exclusive right of his Legates to propose resolutions, and the previous reference of these resolutions to himself, Pius was enabled to direct the affairs of the Council. It soon became manifest that while the fathers were talking at Trent their final decisions were arranged in Rome. This not unnaturally caused much discontent. It began to be murmured that the Holy Ghost was sent from Rome to Trent in carpet-bags. A man of more imperious nature than Pius might, by straining his prerogatives, have produced an irreconcilable rupture. But he was aware that the very existence of the Papacy depended on circumspection. He therefore used all his advantages with caution, and resolved to win the day by diplomacy. With this object in view he introduced the further system of negotiating with the Catholic Courts through special agents. Instead of framing the decrees upon the information furnished by his Legates, he in his turn submitted them to Philip, Catherine de'Medici, and Ferdinand, agreed on terms of mutual concession, persuaded the princes that their interests were identical with his own, and then returned such measures to the Council as could be safely passed. In course of time the Holy Ghost was not packed up at Rome for Trent in carpet-bags before he had gone round of Europe and made his bow in all cabinets.

It must not, however, be thought that matters went smoothly for the Pope at first, or that so novel a method as that which I have described, whereby the faith and discipline of Christendom were settled by negotiations between sovereigns, came suddenly into existence. In its first sessions the Council, to quote the Pope's own words, resembled the Tower of Babel rather than a Synod of Fathers. The Spanish prelates contended fiercely for two principles touching the episcopacy: one was that the residence of bishops in their dioceses had been divinely commanded; the other, that their authority is derived from Christ immediately. The first struck at the Pope's power to dispense from the duty of residence; and if it had been established, it would have ruined his capital. The second would have rendered the episcopacy independent of Rome, and have made the Holy Father one of a numerous oligarchy instead of the absolute chief of a hierarchy. Pius was able to show Philip that the independence of the bishops must inflict deep injuries on the crown of Spain. Philip therefore wrote to forbid insistance on this point. But the Spanish prelates, though coerced, were not silenced, and the storm which they had raised went grumbling on.

Difficulties of a no less serious nature arose when the French and Imperial ambassadors arrived at Trent in the spring. They demanded, as I have already stated, that the chalice should be conceded to the laity; nor is it easy to understand why this point might not have been granted. Pius himself was ready to make the concession; and the only valid argument against it was that it imperiled the uniformity of ritual throughout all Catholic countries. The Germans further stipulated for the marriage of the clergy, which the Pope was also disposed to entertain, until he reflected that celibacy alone retained the clergy faithful to his interests and regardless of those of their own nations. At this juncture of affairs, the Roman Court, which was strongly opposed to both concessions, received material aid from the dissensions of the Council. The Spaniards would hear nothing of the Eucharist under both forms. The marriage of the clergy was opposed by French and Spaniards alike. On the point of epis copal independence, the French supported the Spaniards; but Pius used the same arguments in France which he had used in Spain, with similar success. Thus there was no agreement on any of the disputed questions between Spaniards, Frenchmen and Germans; and since the ambassadors could neither propose nor vote, and the Italian prelates were in a permanent majority, Pius was able to defer and temporize at leisure.

Nevertheless, he began to feel the gravity of the situation. He saw that the embassies constituted dangerous centers of intrigue and national organization at Trent. He was not entirely satisfied with his own Legate, the Cardinal Gonzaga, who supported the divine right of the episcopacy, and quarreled with his colleagues. The Spaniards, infuriated at having sacrificed the right of proposing measures, began to talk openly about the reform of the Papacy. Disagreeable messages reached Rome from France, and Spain, and Germany, complaining of the Pope's absolutism in Council, and demanding that the reform of the Church should be taken into serious and instant consideration. His devoted adherent, Lainez, General of the Jesuits, embittered opposition by passionately preaching the doctrine of passive obedience. Two dangers lay before him. One was that the Council should break up in confusion, with discredit to Rome, and anarchy for the Catholic Church. The other was that it should be prolonged in its dissensions by the princes, with a view of de pressing and enfeebling the Papal authority. Other perils of an incalculable kind threatened him in the announced approach of the mighty Cardinal of Lorraine, brother to the Duke of Guise, with a retinue of French bishops released from the Conference at Poissy. Though he kept on packing the Council with fresh relays of Italians, it was much to be apprehended that they might be unable to oppose a coalition between French and Spanish prelates, should that be now effected.

Pius, at this crisis, resolved on two important lines of policy, the energetic pursuit of which speedily brought the Council of Trent to a peaceful termination. The first was to meet the demand for a searching reformation of the Church with cheerful acquiescence; but to oppose a counter-demand that the secular States in all their ecclesiastical relations should at the same time be reformed. This implied a threat of alienating patronage and revenue from the princes; it also indicated plainly that the tiara and the crowns had interests in common. The second was to develop the diplomatic system upon which he had already tentatively entered.

The events of the spring, 1563, hastened the adoption of these measures by the Pope. Cardinal Lorraine had arrived with his French bishops[44]; and the Papal Legates found themselves involved at once in intricate disputes on questions touching the Huguenots and the interests of the Gallican Church. The Italians were driven in despair to epigrams: Dalla scabie Spagnuola siamo caduti nel mal Francese. Somewhat later, the Emperor dispatched a bulky and verbose letter, announcing his intention to play the part which Sigismund had assumed at the Council of Constance. He complained roundly of the evils caused by the reference of all resolutions to Rome, by the exclusive rights of the Legates to propose decrees, and by the intrigues of the Italian majority in the Synod. He wound up by declaring that the reformation of the Church must be accomplished in Trent, not left to the judgment of the Papal Curia; and threatened to arrive from Innsbruck by the Brenner. Though Ferdinand was in a position of ecclesiastical and political weakness, such an Imperial rescript could not be altogether contemned; especially as Cardinal Lorraine, soon after his arrival, had made the journey to Innsbruck on purpose to confer with the Emperor. It therefore behoved the Pope to act with decision; and an important event happened in the first days of March, which materially assisted him in doing so. This was the death of Cardinal Gonzaga, whom Pius determined to replace by the moderate and circumspect Morone.[45]

Through Ippolito d'Este, Cardinal of Ferrara, he opened negotiations with the French Court, showing that the wishes of the prelates in the Council on the question of episcopacy were no less opposed to the crown than to his own interests. Cardinal Simoneta urged the same point on the Marquis of Pescara, who governed Milan for Philip, and was well inclined to the Papal party. Cardinal Morone was sent on a special embassy to the Emperor.[46] By wise concessions, in which the prerogatives of the Imperial ambassadors at Trent were considerably enlarged, and a searching reformation of the Church was promised, Morone succeeded in establishing a good working basis for the future. It came to be understood that while the Pope would allow no further freedom to the bishops, he was well disposed to let his Legates admit the envoys of the Catholic powers into their counsels. From this time forward the Synod may be said to have existed only as a mouthpiece for uttering the terms agreed on by the Pope and potentates. Morone returned to Trent, and the Emperor withdrew from Innsbruck toward the north.

The difficulty with regard to France and Germany consisted in this, that politics forced both King and Emperor to consider the attitude of their Protestant subjects. Yet both alike were unable to maintain their position as Catholic sovereigns, if they came to open rupture with the Papacy. Ferdinand, as we have just seen, had expressed himself contented with the situation of affairs at Trent. But the French prelates still remained in opposition, and the French Court was undecided. Cardinal Morone, upon his arrival at Trent, began to flatter the Cardinal of Lorraine, affecting to take no measures of importance without consulting him. This conduct, together with timely compliments to several Frenchmen of importance, smoothed the way for future agreement; while the couriers who arrived from France, brought the assurance that Ippolito d'Este's representations had not been fruitless. Pius, meanwhile, was playing the same conciliatory game in Rome, where Don Luigi d'Avila arrived as a special envoy from Philip. The ambassador obtained a lodging in the Vatican, and was seen in daily social intercourse with his Holiness.[47] But the climax of this policy was reached when Lorraine accepted the Pope's invitation, and undertook a journey to Rome. This happened in September. The French Cardinal was pompously received, entertained in the palace, and honored with personal visits in his lodgings by the Pope. Weary of Trent and the tiresome intrigues of the Council, this unscrupulous prelate was still further inclined to negotiation after the murder of his brother, Duke of Guise. It must be remembered that the Guises in France were after all but a potent faction of semi-royal adventurers, who had risen to eminence by an alliance with Diane de Poitiers. The murder of the duke shook the foundations of their power; and the Cardinal was naturally anxious to be back again in France. For the moment he basked in the indolent atmosphere of Rome, surrounded by those treasures of antique and Renaissance luxury which still remained after the Sack of 1527. Pius held out flattering visions of succession to the Papacy, and proved convincingly that nothing could sustain the House of Guise or base the Catholic faith in France except alliance with the Papal See. Lorraine, who had probably seen enough of episcopal canaillerie in the Council, and felt his inner self expand in the rich climate of pontifical Rome, allowed his ambition to be caressed, confessed himself convinced, and returned to Trent intoxicated with his visit, the devoted friend of Rome.

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 pass 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 reasserted 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]

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 pass, 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 class, 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 circumstances, 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.

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 assume a warlike attitude 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.

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 passed 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 massive. 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 assumed the title 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 institution, die slowly. It is therefore desirable to survey the position in which the Papal Sovereign of the Holy City, as constituted by the Council of Trent, held sway there.

The population of Rome was singularly fluctuating. Being principally composed of ecclesiastics with their households and dependents; foreigners resident in the city as suitors or ambassadors; 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. Noble 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 nobility, 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 assembled 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 multitudes of eleemosynary paupers. Gregory XIII. is praised for having spent more than 200,000 crowns a year on works of charity, and for having assigned the district of San Sisto (in the neighborhood of Trinità del Monte, one of the best quarters of the present city) to the beggars.[53]

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 ambassadors, 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 appetites 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. 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 asserts that several hundred assassinations were committed within the walls in a few days.[58]

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, superstition, and sin, it was forced to main tain 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 titles. 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 principally 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 class, 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]

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]

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 Masses, fasted at regular intervals, and continued to wear the coarse 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 illustrated by a curious circumstance related by the Venetian ambassador in the first year of the pontificate.[62] On July 26, 1566, an edict was issued, compelling all prostitutes 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 prostitutes to reside in certain quarters of the city.

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 instituted 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 passed his life in servitude to Bar bary 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.

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 Massacre 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 luster 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 surpassed. Gregory XIII. celebrated three Masses 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]

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 nobility.[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 bastard 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]

I have introduced this sketch of Gregory's relations in order to show how a Pope of his previous habits and personal proclivities was now obliged to follow the new order of the Church. It was noticed that the mode of life in Rome during his reign struck a just balance between license and austerity, and that general satisfaction pervaded society.[70] Outside the city this contentment did not prevail. Gregory threw his States into disorder by reviving obsolete rights of the Church over lands mortgaged or granted with obscure titles. The petty barons rose in revolt, armed their peasants, fomented factions in the country towns, and filled the land with brigands. Under the leadership of men like Alfonso Piccolomini and Roberto Malatesta, these marauding bands assumed the proportion of armies. The neighboring Italian States—Tuscany, Venice, Naples, Parma, all of whom had found the Pope arbitrary and aggressive in his dealings with them—encouraged the bandits by offering them an asylum and refusing to co-operate with Gregory for their reduction.

His successor, Sixtus V., found the whole Papal dominion in confusion. It was impossible to collect the taxes. Life and property were nowhere safe. By a series of savage enactments and stern acts of justice, Sixtus swept the brigands from his States. He then applied his powerful will to the collection of money and the improvement of his provinces. In the four years which followed his election he succeeded in accumulating a round sum of four million crowns, which he stored up in the Castle of S. Angelo. The total revenues of the Papacy at this epoch were roughly estimated at 750,000 crowns, which in former reigns had been absorbed in current costs and the pontifical establishment. By rigorous economy and retrenchments of all kinds Sixtus reduced these annual expenses to a sum of 250,000, thus making a clear profit of 500,000 crowns.[71] At the same time he had already spent about a million and a half on works of public utility, including the famous Acqua Felice, which brought excellent water into Rome. Roads and bridges throughout the States of the Church were repaired, The Chiana of Orvieto and the Pontine Marsh were drained. Encouragement was extended, not only to agriculture, but also to industries and manufactures. The country towns obtained wise financial concessions, and the unpopular resumption of lapsed lands and fiefs was discontinued. Rome meanwhile began to assume her present aspect as a city, by the extensive architectural undertakings which Sixtus set on foot. He loved building; but he was no lover of antiquity. For pagan monuments of art he showed a monastic animosity, dispersing or mutilating the statues of the Vatican and Capitol; turning a Minerva into an image of the Faith by putting a cross in her hand; surmounting the columns of Trajan and Antonine with figures of Peter and Paul; destroying the Septizonium of Severus, and wishing to lay sacri legious hands on Caecilia Metella's tomb. To mediaeval relics he was hardly less indifferent. The old buildings of the Lateran were thrown down to make room for the heavy modern palace. But, to atone in some measure for these acts of vandalism, Sixtus placed the cupola upon S. Peter's and raised the obelisk in the great piazza which was destined to be circled with Bernini's colonnades. This obelisk he tapped with a cross. Christian inscriptions, signalizing the triumph of the Pontiff over infidel emperors, the victory of Calvary over Olympus, the superiority of Rome's saints and martyrs to Rome's old deities and heroes, left no doubt that what remained of the imperial city had been subdued to Christ and purged of paganism. Wandering through Rome at the present time, we feel in every part the spirit of the Catholic Revival, and murmur to ourselves those lines of Clough:

O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas!
Are ye Christian too? To convert and redeem and renew you,
Will the brief form have sufficed, that a Pope has sat up on the apex
Of the Egyptian stone that o'ertops you, the Christian symbol?
And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble,
Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers,
Are ye also baptized; are ye of the Kingdom of Heaven?
Utter, O some one, the word that shall reconcile Ancient and Modern.

Nothing was more absent from the mind of Sixtus than any attempt to reconcile Ancient and Modern. He was bent on proclaiming the ultimate triumph of Catholicism, not only over antiquity, but also over the Renaissance. His inscriptions, crosses, and images of saints are the enduring badges of serf dom set upon the monuments of ancient and renascent Italy, bearing which they were permitted by the now absolute Pontiff to remain as testimonies to his power.

Retrenchment alone could not have sufficed for the accumulation of so much idle capital, and for so extensive an expenditure on works of public utility. Sixtus therefore had recourse to new taxation, new loans, and the creation of new offices for sale. The Venetian envoy mentions eighteen imposts levied in his reign; a sum of 600,000 crowns accruing to the Camera by the sale of places; and extensive loans, or Monti, which were principally financed by the Genoese.[72] It was necessary for the Papacy, now that it had relinquished the larger part of its revenues derived from Europe, to live upon the proceeds of the Papal States. The complicated financial expedients on which successive Popes relied for developing their exchequer, have been elaborately explained by Ranke.[73] They were materially assisted in their efforts to support the Papal dignity upon the resources of their realm, by the new system of nepotism which now began to prevail. Since the Council of Trent, it was impossible for a Pope to acknowledge his sons, and few, if any, of the Popes after Pius IV. had sons to acknowledge.[74]

The tendencies of the Church rendered it also incompatible with the Papal position that near relatives of the Pontiff should be advanced, as formerly, to the dignity of independent princes. The custom was to create one nephew Cardinal, with such wealth derived from office as should enable him to benefit the Papal family at large. Another nephew was usually ennobled, endowed with capital in the public funds for the purchase of lands, and provided with lucrative places in the secular administration. He then married into a Roman family of wealth and founded one of the aristocratic houses of the Roman State. We possess some details respecting the incomes of the Papal nephews at this period, which may be of interest.[75] Carlo Borromeo was reasonably believed to enjoy revenues amounting to 50,000 scudi. Giacomo Buoncompagno's whole estate was estimated at 120,000 scudi; while the two Cardinal nephews of Gregory XIII. had each about 10,000 a year. At the same epoch Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, enjoyed an income of some 25,000, his estate being worth 60,000, but being heavily encumbered. These figures are taken from the Reports of the Venetian envoys. If we may trust them as accurate, it will appear by a comparison of them with the details furnished by Ranke, that Gregory's successors treated their relatives with greater generosity.[76] Sixtus V. enriched the Cardinal Montalto with an ecclesiastical income of 100,000 scudi. Clement VIII. bestowed on two nephews—one Cardinal, the other layman—revenues of about 60,000 apiece in 1599. He is computed to have hoarded altogether for his family a round sum of 1,000,000 scudi. Paul V. was believed to have given to his Borghese relatives nearly 700,000 scudi in cash, 24,600 scudi in funds, and 268,000 in the worth of offices.[77] The Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Gregory XV., had a reputed income of 200,000 scudi; and the Ludovisi family obtained 800,000 in luoghi di monte or funds. Three nephews of Urban VIII., the brothers Barberini, were said to have enjoyed joint revenues amounting to half a million scudi, and their total gains from the pontificate touched the enormous sum of 105,000,000. These are the families, sprung from obscurity or mediocre station, whose palaces and villas adorn Rome, and who now rank, though of such recent origin, with the aristocracy of Europe.

Sixtus V. died in 1590. To follow the history of his successors would be superfluous for the purpose of this book. The change in the Church which began in the reign of Paul III. was completed in his pontificate. About half a century, embracing seven tenures of the Holy Chair, had sufficed to develop the new phase of the Papacy as an absolute sovereignty, representing the modern European principle of absolutism, both as the acknowledged Head of Catholic Christendom and also as a petty Italian power.