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Urban VIII
1623-1644

Maffeo Barberini born 1568

This pope, Maffeo Barberini, was born at Florence in 1568, son of Antonio Barberini and Camilla Barbadori, whose families were distinguished for their nobility and their lofty connections. When Maffeo was three years old he lost his father, and made his early studies, in his own tongue, under the wise direction of his mother. Camilla then sent him to Rome to study philosophy, under his uncle Francis Barberini, apostolical prothonotary.

At the age of twenty, Maffeo was received as doctor at Pisa, and then returned to Rome. Sixtus V named him referendary of justice. Gregory XIV raised him to the dignity of governor of Fano, and then named him one of the seventeen apostolic prothonotaries. In this last capacity he drew up the acts of the two marriages that were celebrated in presence of Clement VIII–namely, that of the Catholic king, Philip III, with Margaret of Austria, and that of the Archduke of Austria, Albert, with Isabella Clara Eugenia, Infanta of Spain.

On the 11th of September, 1606, Paul V made him cardinal and Archbishop of Spoleto.

Eleven days after the death of Gregory XV, fifty-five cardinals went into conclave, on the 19th of July, 1623. This conclave followed strictly all the prescriptions of the late pope's bull for the prudent regulation of papal elections. As there were many eligible candidates, and opinions differed, the conclave promised to be a protracted one. At first it was supposed that the Cardinal Octavius Bandini would be pope, but the ballot showed few votes in his favor. In the conclaves there are always many expressions of politeness, courtesy, and compliment, and the ballots are the real test. Sometimes, also, even in the ballots, there are feints which serve to make the serious votes known. Cardella, in his life of the Cardinal Anne des Cars de Givry, says that that French cardinal was on the point of being elected pope, as he deserved to be for his piety, which was known to all the Sacred College, and which has caused him to be included by Andrew Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology. Cardinal John Garzia Mellini also succeeded in obtaining the votes of twenty–two cardinals, headed by Scipio Borghese, nephew of the last pope, and a cardinal of great merit.

At length, on the 6th of August, fifty-four sacred electors – although the Dominican, Cardinal Scaglia, with Cardinal Bandini, had until then warmly opposed it– united in naming Cardinal Barberini. Cardinal Maurice, of Savoy, protector of the affairs of France, really governed this election; and Barberini afterwards returned thanks to Louis XIII. On that day there were fifty-four cardinals in conclave, Cardinal Andrew Peretti being compelled, by an attack of fever, to return to his palace. When the ballots were examined, one was unaccountably missing. Notwithstanding this, the number of votes was more than sufficient; in fact, it greatly exceeded the necessary number. The pontiff was named; but an irregularity existed. Maffeo refused the tiara, and insisted that the ballot should be repeated, in compliance the terms of the Gregorian law. Cardinal Farnese said to Maffeo: "Why, you are elected by more than necessary votes. Even should the missing ballot be a hostile one, you still would be pontiff. In a new ballot electors might change their minds."

Cardinal Barberini still insisted on a new vote, and received the reward of his disinterestedness. It had been remarked in Rome that a swarm of bees, from the direction of Tuscany, had alighted in the rooms of Cardinal Barberini; and that was deemed a favorable augury, because the armorial bearings of his family were three bees, placed two and one. Father John Baptist Spada, a Dominican, had, it is said, predicted the pontificate of Maffeo in an anagram. From the words Maphaeus Barberini he made the words Phoebus Romanae Urbis– the Phoebus of the city of Rome.

Barberini took the name of Urban VIII. At the time, a contagious disease prevailed at Rome, by which the new pontiff was attacked, compelling him to defer his coronation until Saint Michael's day, the 29th of September. Although still only convalescent, he insisted on being crowned on that day, from his great devotion to that archangel, in honor of whom he afterwards erected an altar in the Vatican. There are medals of this pope which represent him kneeling before the image of the archangel.

On the 19th of November Urban took possession of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran.

On the 2nd of October the pope gave the purple to his nephew, Francis Barberini, a man of the most distinguished character, who died as dean of the Sacred College. History reproaches him with but one fault, irascibility; but it must be added that he always made the fortunes of those against whom his anger was enkindled.

Urban abolished many new abuses. From interested zeal or great simplicity of mind, portraits of persons reputed holy were exposed to public veneration. The pope strictly forbade such undue homage. This abuse had been introduced at Venice, in the case of Fra Paolo Sarpi, the historian of the Council of Trent, who had died excommunicated, and as Bossuet says, was really a Protestant. A woman paid this homage to Sarpi. Urban complained to the senate, and pope's nuncio, Zacchia, obtained the proper satisfaction.

In 1624 His Holiness forbade any religious, except in the Society of Jesus, to be dismissed from his order, unless deemed incorrigible.

He also published a law compelling all bishops, the cardinals not excepted, to reside in their sees. As regarded the cardinals, the pope said to them: "Hitherto you could excuse yourselves by saying that the pope knew and tolerated it. We, at least, will not tolerate or permit it!"

Urban made his second promotion in January, 1624. The new cardinals were Antonio Barberini, a Capuchin, the pontiff's brother; Lorenzo Magalotti, a noble Florentine; and Pietro Maria Saracini, afterwards called Borghese, a maternal grandnephew of Paul V. Urban thus gave the hat to the relative of a pope to whom he owed his own.

In the year 1625 the Holy Father celebrated the twelfth jubilee of the holy year.

On the 25th of May. in the same year, at the request of Philip III, King of Spain and Portugal, Urban canonized Saint Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal, grandniece of Saint Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, born in 1271, the daughter of Peter III, King of Aragon, and of Constantia, daughter of Manfred, King of Sicily. After the death of her husband, King Denis, she had entered a convent of Franciscan nuns at Coimbra.

The Holy Father having received ambassadors from the Patriarch of Constantinople, sent to draw closer the bonds of union between the Holy See and the Greeks, Urban conversed with the ambassadors in their own language, which spoke with as much facility as they did. It was at that time that he was called the Attic bee, in allusion to the bees in his armorial bearings.

Urban continued to grant privileges to the religious orders. He rejoiced over the termination of the war of the Valteline, and he preserved friendly relations with both France and Spain. In the midst of these labors, these joys, and this political ability, he prepared a decree by which he determined as far as possible to do honor to the Sacred College of the Cardinals. That decree was not published until 1630.

Various secret negotiations were kept up between England and Spain, and closely watched by France, where Cardinal Richelieu, still friendly with Queen Mary, began powerfully to direct affairs. James I at that time reigned in Great Britain– a prince with neither the courage nor the sound intellect of Mary Stuart, his mother. Rosny, ambassador from Henry IV in the beginning of the reign of James, heard him say: "Many years before the death of Elizabeth, it was I who governed at London." James, in fact, never governed either his own Scotland or England, which was in very different hands. Rosny soon tested the monarch's vaunted force of mind. Rosny's mission to James was to offer that prince an important part in the vast plan which had been conceived by Henry IV (or rather Rosny) to diminish the colossal power of the house of Austria, by attacking it on all points at once. But such an idea was too far above the narrow and timid genius of James. He would not do that which it is permissible to do, not for the purpose of establishing a universal monarchy, but in order to prevent another from pursuing that chimera, and to watch attentively the ambitious plans of a rival. However, some traits of boldness distinguished that reign. In1605 James demanded the solemn union of his two crowns, and he addressed his Parliament in the following unbecoming language: "England and Scotland are two kingdoms situated in the same island: you will not allow that I, a Christian prince, shall commit the crime of bigamy in living with two wives; that, having but one head, I join myself to a double body; and that, being a single shepherd, I shall have to tend two different flocks."

The project, though in itself wise and prudent, did not succeed.

Let us pity that son of Mary Stuart for subsequently saying that the religion of the popes "is a true mystery of iniquity." Then he demanded and obtained the famous oath of allegiance. The English then boasted, and still boast, the noble firmness with which they declare, in the formula of that oath, that the pope has no right to depose their sovereign, to release the subjects from their duty of fidelity to him, or to dispose of his crown in favor of a reign prince. But that doctrine which they thus profess long been held by the Catholics most attached to their religion.

James was afraid of the Spanish power. A first Prince of Wales had died of poison. The second Prince of Wales, born in 1600, was proposed as the husband Mary, youngest daughter of Philip III. Her elder sister, after having been promised to the first Prince of Wales, had married Louis XIII. The difference of religion seemed to form an obstacle to that union; but in James hatred of Catholicism could give way to his policy. The king went so far as to send his son Charles to Madrid in an incognito at once artful and absurd. Then Philip IV outraged Spanish etiquette by placing at his right hand Prince Charles, who not even a crown. France was on the watch; she also negotiated with James I, and, in spite of the promises that had been made to Spain, it was agreed between the English and French cabinets that Prince Charles, son of the English should, espouse Henrietta Maria of France, daughter of Henry IV and sister of Louis XIII. The very year the negotiation closed James died, and Charles became King of England.

Rome had not seen with pleasure the Protestant son of a hostile prince like James ready to ally himself more closely with Spain, which already oppressed the Roman court enough. It was to be feared that the infanta, when in London, would be persecuted with such ardent persuasions as would detach her from the Catholic religion. The same danger did not present itself as to France; far from that, it was possible that King Charles would yield to the good examples of Henrietta. It was one of the noblest ideas of Urban VIII, that of aiding with his influence the project, or, if people choose to call it so, the jealous ambition manifested by France.

Urban, able and far-sighted, would not expose his success to any risks of chance; he desired, he demanded, he willed, that nothing should be neglected to induce the youthful Henrietta to repair to her husband. Mary de' Medici had reared her daughter in the most lively feelings for the interests, the glory, the preponderance of the Holy See. Richelieu had not forgotten that at Rome he had been consecrated bishop, with a dispensation as to age, a rare favor, and loaded with honors, and that at Avignon he had received a generous hospitality. And as Queen Mary de' Medici explained to him the advice she fully intended to give to Henrietta, the cardinal, satisfied with the success of his policy, and heartily approving the views of the queen mother, solicited the queen, his patroness, to allow him to draw up, in the form of instructions, counsels which should be read by Henrietta, and of which she should keep a copy in the most precious of her caskets, in order that the maternal advice should be constantly before her eyes, a situation difficult for a princess, daughter of Henry IV, sister of the King of France, and scarcely sixteen years of age.

Rome and France prayed for the happy success of a mission at once holy and politic. The proof of the satisfaction of Rome is evident in the simultaneous dispatch to the new queen of the golden rose, embalmed with musk. The legate Barberini delivered to the princess, before she left Paris, that testimony of affection.

The Vatican and the Louvre at that time were on terms of such perfect understanding that the clergy of France, in one of their assemblies, in 1626, placed at the head of one of deliberations the following declaration: "The pope is the visible head of the Universal Church, the vicar of God on earth, the bishop of the bishops and the patriarchs; in one word, the successor of Saint Peter, in whom the apostolate and the episcopate had their beginning, and upon whom Jesus Christ founded his Church, giving him the keys of heaven, with the infallibility of the faith, which has immovably endured in his successors to this day."

In the same year, 1626, Urban confirmed the bulls of his predeccors, Saint Pius V and others, by which it was forbidden to alienate or to give in fief any land whatever which belonged to the Holy See or was to revert to it.

Then the pope learned that the Duke of Urbino, Francis de Ia Rovera, an infirm octogenarian, on the death of his only son Frederic Ubaldo, extinguishing the male line, manifested a design to restore to the popes, in his lifetime, the duchy of Urbano, which for a hundred and forty years that house had held as a fief of the Holy See. His Holiness, therefore, sent Cardinal Berlinghieri Gessi to take possession of the duchy, including the cities of Urbino, Pesaro, Gubbio, Sinigaglia, Fossombrone, San Leone, and Cagli.

The duke after this generous act, of which he soon repented, retired to the castle of Durante, which the pope raised to the rank of a city under the name of Urbania. Th ex–duke of Urbino did not long survive this act, which was substantially just. At his death the office of prefect of Rome became vacant, and was conferred by the pope upon Don Thaddeo Barberini, his nephew and general of the Church.

Pope Urban enjoyed a new triumph of the Catholic religion. While the missionaries carried into Abyssinia the blessing of Christian civilization, Alphonsus Mendez, a Portuguese Jesuit, the last patriarch who entered Abyssinia, had the happiness to bring into the bosom of the Holy Church the Emperor Seltan Segued [Sucinius]. That prince, in 1626, having convoked all the grandees of his court, with his son, the heir to the throne, he made them promise, in the name of all Ethiopia, an inflexibly firm obedience to Pope Urban VIII. His Holiness immediately wrote to that sovereign to congratulate him, and requested him to send young men to Rome to learn in the college of the Propaganda the true apostolic doctrine and the various European languages, so that they would return to their own country and become ministers of religion among nations abandoned by God. That mission was, unfortunately, attacked by the insurgents. Fuciladaz, son of the king, persecuted the missionaries, and for a time re–established the old errors. Catholic missionaries often suffered martyrdom, but that did not exhaust the courage of surviving brethren.

In our life of Paul V we stated that some kings of Congo sent an ambassador, who died before he could be present to that pontiff.

Urban gave audience to an ambassador from the same country, John Baptist Vives, a native of Lisbon, who was kindly received and loaded with honors.

Meantime, Partemius, Patriarch of Constantinople, sent deputies to recognize the supremacy of the Holy See, and to seek means to bring about a final and durable reconciliation between the Latins and the Greeks. Urban was thoroughly skilled in the Greek language, and the entire negotiation was conducted by the pope himself, without an interpreter. The deputies listened with respect, as the head of Catholicism expressed himself with purity in the language of Homer, and at need quoted the best writers of Grecian antiquity.

By a brief of the 14th of September, of the year 1627, the pope granted the Minor Observantines permission to say the office and Mass of the twenty–three martyrs–six priests and seventeen laymen of their order–crucified at Nagasaki, in Japan.

Subsequently, by a brief of the 15th of September, the pope granted to the Society of Jesus permission to celebrate the office and Mass of three members of their society–Paul Miki, John de Goto, and James or Diego Kisai, martyrized at the same time and place by the Emperor Taicosama, on the 6th day of February, 1597. These Japanese martyrs were canoninzed by Pope Pius IX, in 1862.

The peace of Italy, which Urban had so much at heart, was disturbed by the dispute as to the succession of Vincent of Mantua. Among the claimants was Charles Gonzaga, son of the Duke of Nevers, in France, much favored by Richelieu, and still more by Pope Urban. That pontiff, to aid Charles, granted him a dispensation to marry Mary, daughter of Duke Ferdinand of Mantua, who died before Duke Vincent, his brother.

In 1627 the pope made a numerous promotion of cardinals, among whom was Peter de Berulle, one of the founders of the Oratory of Jesus, and Giovanni Battista Pamphili, who became pontiff in 1644, under the name of Innocent X.

In the year 1628 Urban granted to all the domain of the Duke of Modena the office of Saint Contardo Pellegrino, prince of the family of Este, who died in the year 1249. The office, composed by Canon Placentine Peter Mary Campi, was approved by the Congregation of Rites, in 1609, on the report of Cardinal Bellarmine.

In the same year the pope published an extraordinary jubilee, with the prayers of the forty hours in the three first basilicas of Rome, and in two churches of all the religious orders during three days. His Holiness himself, to set the example, went in a grand procession to the Church of Saint Mary in Trastevere.

It will be of interest to state the origin of a ceremony which takes place at Saint Peter's on the last days of Holy Week. In the Church of Saint Anastasia and in the Church of Holy Cross of Jerusalem, portions of the wood of the true cross are preserved. Urban had considerable portions shrined in a silver cross, ornamented with precious stones, and placed in Saint Peter's, among the major relics, to be exhibited to the people on the days prescribed in the briefs, after the Holy Spear and before the Sacred Veronica, with plenary indulgence every time the three are shown from a gallery in the interior of the church towards the right of Saint Peter's chair.

On the 22nd of April, 1629, Urban solemnly canonized Saint Andrew Corsini, a noble Florentine, who had taken the Carmelite habit in the year 1316. He was consecrated Bishop of Fiesole in 1360, and died on the 6th of January, 1373. Eugene IV, while in Florence in 1440, induced by a miracle wrought at the intercession of the saint, permitted his veneration, ordering a procession to his tomb, and allowing the Mass of the Most Holy Trinity to be celebrated there. Accordingly, the Bollandists say that he was then beatified. The ceremony was performed with so much magnificence that the cardinals present considered it equal to a canonization. Gregory XIII, in 1583, gave the order of Carmelites verbal permission to celebrate the Mass and office of that saint–a privilege afterwards extended to the whole Church, with the semi–double rite; and in 1731 Clement XII, who was of the Corsini family, permitted that the feast should be celebrated with the double rite.

Cardinal Richelieu at this time solicited the cardinal's hat for his brother Alphonsus, of the order of the Carthusians. In spite of the entreaties which he endeavored in vain to have the cardinal support, Alphonsus Louis du Plessis Richelieu was dispensed from his vow of silence and declared Archbishop of Aix, and, two years later, of Lyons. Subsequently he was created cardinal of the title of the Holy Trinity of Mount Pincio. Urban declared that he had pleasure in making him a cardinal, because he had the reputation of being a man very zealous for religion, full of profound knowledge, a model of moral purity, and more attached to the affairs of his diocese than to the affairs of court. Matthew Flach, who called himself Illyricus, because he was born at Albona, in Istria, a part of ancient Illyria, and styled by Novaes the originator of the Centuriators of Magdeburg, had published, 1557, a Latin Mass, which some believed contrary to the Catholic doctrine. The Lutherans, on their side, deeming it favorable to the Catholics, endeavored to suppress it. In the Mass is a prayer on which Urban formed the celebrated prayer Ante oculos tuos Domine. By the constitution Inter primarias he granted a plenary indulgence to those who recited it on visiting the Confession of Saint Peter, on Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi, the feasts of the Blessed Virgin, of Saints Peter and Paul, of the other apostles, and all the Fridays in the month of March; and for the other days of the year he granted an indulgence of seven years and as many quarantines.

On the 10th of June, 1630, Urban published a decree by which cardinals perpetually enjoy the title of Eminence. He granted the same title to the three ecclesiastical electors of the empire–the electors of Cologne, Mainz, and Treves– and to the grand master of the order of Saint John of Jerusalem. There is reason to believe that Cardinal Richelieu induced this act, and solicited for his colleagues the title Most Eminent, which rendered still more illustrious the electors of the sovereign pontiff.

Previously the cardinals had received the title only Most Illustrious. On that subject a dispute arose between the Doge of Venice and the Duke of Savoy, who was not then King of Sardinia. On account of the kingdom of Cyprus, to which both pretended to have rights, they wished to have title of king, on which condition they were prepared grant to the cardinals the title of Eminence. That dispute had no serious results, as Richelieu interposed.

During the plague in 1630, Urban, by decrees of internal police and administration, mitigated the effects of that scourge as to the city of Rome, which suffered less than some other cities of Italy. By a bull on the 25th of January, 1631, the pope declared that he had still further purged from errors the Roman Breviary, published by Saint Pius V and reformed by Clement VIII; that he had subjected the hymns to the rules of poetry and of classical Latinity; that he introduced into the Psalms and into the Canticles the punctuation of the Vulgate, distinguishing by asterisks the pause to be made in chanting; that he had collated the sermons, homilies, and legends with the ancient manuscripts. He therefore ordered the Breviary to be printed at Rome, with his corrections. His Holiness also offered to send a copy to any place where they wished to reprint it.

In the same year Urban, by the advice of Father Valerian Magni, a celebrated Capuchin of Milan, suppressed the Jesuitesses. About the same time a plot was discovered at Rome against the person of the pope, originating with Hyacinth Centini, nephew of the pious Cardinal Felix Centini di Ascoli. The act was a mad one, but persevered in from a perverse desire of revolution. Hyacinth wished to see his uncle in the chair of Saint Peter, and devoted himself to the study of magic, and, in his silly malignity, resolved to deprive the pope of life by means of a waxen image. The pope was to die on the day when the image was broken. All the accomplices of the would–be necromancer were tried and severely punished.

On the 12th of January, 1632, the pope approved the Congregation of the Mission, instituted on the 25th of January, 1617, by Saint Vincent de Paul, a Frenchman. Its object was to train missionaries to go into the villages and hamlets and explain the Christian doctrine to peasants, children, and ignorant generally. The members devoted themselves to it by perpetual vow, although their vows were purely simple. This zealous congregation, whose generals have always been Frenchmen, and resided at Paris in the house of Saint Lazarus, directed in that country a great number of seminaries. The Lazarists, as they are also called, subsequently served the chapel royal of Versailles, furnished rectors to the two cities where the king habitually resided, Versailles and Fontainebleau and were the spiritual directors of the house of Saint Cyr and the hotel of the Invalides.

Those missionaries were not called Fathers, but priests of the mission; they take also the fourth vow of permanence in the congregation, and cannot be dispensed from it except by the pope or the superior–general.

Saint Vincent also instituted in France, in conjunction with Madame de Gras, a pious widow, the congregation of Sisters of Charity, who take care of old men, children, the poor, and the sick reluctant or unable to apply for admission into the hospitals.

Catholicism at this moment had grounds to dread the progress in arms of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, united with the Elector of Saxony and other princes. Their power disturbed the emperor, and there was even a report that Gustavus Adolphus would carry his arms into Italy. Under these circumstances, some who were hostile to the Roman court accused Urban of lukewarmness. But, on consulting the Roman Bullarium, it becomes evident that Urban nobly accomplished his duties. By the constitution 354, Suprema, signed by thirty–two cardinals, he established an impost upon all the ecclesiastical profits of Italy, and ordered the same imposts to be established in Germany, with same object. He did all that a pope could do to repress the projects of the enemy. However, malcontents continued to accuse the pope even in his own States.

Cardinal Gaspar Borgia, charge d'affaires of the Catholic king at Rome, ventured, with more boldness than respect, in a consistory and in presence of all the cardinals, to reproach the pope with apathy and slowness, and said that if misfortune befell the Catholic cause, the pope would be to blame. Urban silenced the cardinal, and he declared that the tolerance he had shown to Borgia did not alter the fact that that cardinal had incurred censures and merited them by his temerity. These differences singularly afflicted the Sacred College.

The situation of Urban was very delicate. From France he had received services and marks of protection. Unfortunately, France, which at home opposed the Protestants, protected them elsewhere. This complication of interests became an embarrassment which it was very difficult to avoid. The emperor and the King of Spain also assailed Urban, in consequence of their discontent with France. He endeavored to reconcile the interests of religion with those of an ally whom he esteemed, although he blamed his duplicity. Opposition to the Huguenots in Paris did not justify support to the Lutherans at Dresden.

Shortly afterwards the aspect of things changed. On the 16th of November, 1632, the imperial and Swedish armies met at Lutzen, and Gustavus Adolphus was killed by a cannon ball. The monarch who had been the terror of Germany, who meditated the conquest of that country, and, perhaps, after imposing a terrible yoke upon the Church, the conquest of France–a dream inexplicable in presence of the talents of Richelieu–that monarch had ceased to exist, and the house of Austria might hope to recover its influence. other princes, always aided by France, continued the war and endeavored to depress the house of Austria. Ferdinand demanded assistance, and Urban sent him a very considerable sum of money, which arrived when much needed for the the maintenance of the war.

The peace of Italy could not be durable amidst the jealousies of two rivals so formidable as Richelieu in France and Olivares in Spain. But the Frenchman was abler than the Spaniard. To that time (1633) belongs the affair of Galileo. Already under several pontiffs that controversy had been continued.

In the first place, the Index Expurgatorius (Rome, 1835) does not contain the works on the opinions of Copernicus as to the motion of the earth–namely, Copernicus, Astunica, and Foscarini, forbidden by Paul V, March 5, 1616; but only the works of Copernicus donec corrigantur–till they shall be corrected. The corrections of Copernicus had been published with another decree under Paul V, and reduced to a simple hypothesis the motion of the earth; but then had been no new edition published with such corrections. According to that decree, and a similar decree in 1619, Kepler also had been placed upon the Index on account of his Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae. Finally, in the sentence pronounced against Galileo, on the 22nd of June, 1633, under Urban VIII, the order was given also to inscribe the famous dialogue of Galileo. These five books, however, were erased from the list in 1835. The learned who have the edition of Galileo's works printed at Padua in 1744 can read in volume four, published with the usual approbations, the entire dialogue with the rest, perfectly intact, and, moreover, with some additions made by Galileo's own hand upon a printed copy in the famous seminary of that city. Only some marginal indications were either corrected or erased.

The decree which prohibited or suspended, until corrected, Copernicus, Astunica, and Foscarini, also included all other books teaching the same doctrine; but the pope's approval of the decree had not been obtained when the Index was renewed under Benedict XIV, in 1758. The difficulty, therefore, was so far from solved that some believed that the hypothesis ought to be added to the teaching of the mobility of the earth; but the sacred congregation of the Holy Office, in its meeting on the 16th of August, 1820, permitted the use of the affirmative. The thing, being examined anew, was judged in the assembly of the 17th of December, 1822, and a decree was approved by Pope Pius VII. By that decree the most eminent inquisitors–general, expressly conforming to the decree of the sacred congregation of the Index of 1758, and to their own of 1820, declared that it was permissible at Rome to print and publish works treating on the mobility of the earth and the immobility of the sun, according to the common opinion of modern astronomers.

In the present state of astronomical teaching, there is no contradiction between that teaching and the decrees of Rome as to the movements of the earth, a fact of which many seem to be unaware.

It is pretended by some that the Rome of Gregory XVI and Pius IX persisted in the doctrines which were applied to Galileo in 1633. Gregory XVI and Pius IX made no change in the decree of 1822, approved by Pius VII.

Summoned from Florence, Galileo arrived at Rome on 16th of December, 1633, and lodged in the house of Francis Niccolini, ambassador from Tuscany to Rome. In the month of April he placed himself at the disposal of the commissary of the Holy Office, who, according to the expression of Niccolini, "gave him the kindest reception, and assigned him the room of the fiscal of that tribunal." Niccolini adds: "He was allowed to be waited upon by his own serant [Galileo was then sixty–nine years old], who slept by his side; and my own servants take his meals to him in his room, and return to me, morning and evening. Signor Galilei was sent to me yesterday evening."

There was a sentence, however, which condemned Galileo to imprisonment; but that sentence was merely formal, and was commuted to banishment to the gardens of the Trinita de' Monti, whither Niccolini conducted him on the 21st of June, three days after that condemnation. Subsequently, from Rome, Galileo passed to Sienna, in the palace of the Archbishop Piccolomini; finally, on the cessation of the plague, which had scourged Florence, he was permitted, after about three months, to return to his villa of Arcetri where he died on the 8th of January, 1642.

The weight of the air was not discovered by Evangelista Torricelli, a disciple of Galileo, until 1645, three years after his master's death.

During the affair of Galileo, Richelieu seems to have been silent; or if he added a few words to the demands of the court of Tuscany, he did so with the indifference with which he then regarded everything that concerned a court governed by so near a relative of Queen Mary, who was already wandering about Europe, and whom the cardinal, ungrateful no doubt, would have preferred to see settled in Florence.

Urban became more than ever plunged in grief. France directed armies on Flanders, thence to aid the Dutch; and not content with that menace, which commenced a direct attack upon the Flemish possessions of Philip III, she had secured in Italy the alliance of the dukes of Savoy and Parma, and was rekindling war in the Peninsula. At this moment Urban sent to Paris Julius Mazarin, who was already known to Richelieu and esteemed by him. The two courts of the house of Austria demanded the recall of Mazarin, affirming that he, in concert with Richelieu, was striving to produce a universal war. At that juncture the cabinets of the house of Austria, affirming that they were insulted, charged the Spanish ambassador to complain to Rome against the Duke of Parma, who was ready to take up arms and invade the cities of the duchy of Milan. The ambassador spoke thus to the pope: "The Duke of Parma is our feudatory; and you have the right, on our demand, to deprive him of his duchy."

Urban had not always the strong decision of Saint Pius V, Sixtus V, and so many others of the predecessors of those bold pontiffs. He contented himself with sending to the Duke of Parma the vice–legate of Bologna, to beg the duke to lay down his arms. Upon the complaint of that prince to France, the Count de Noailles, ambassador, was ordered to oppose all action, political or religious, which could disturb he Duke of Parma.

There were various causes of discord between the pontifical government and the republic of Venice, on the subject of the boundaries of the territory of Ferrara. Some imprudent advisers irritated Urban. With his consent, under the pretext of continuing the embellishments in the Sala Regia, near the Sistine Chapel, the ornaments and inscriptions placed there on the occasion of the peace concluded at Venice between Pope Alexander III and the Emperor Frederic I were removed.

Hostilities against Ferrara were expected. But if the grand council of Venice impetuously adopted prompt and stern measures, it also very often happened that a considerable number of nobles opposed violent plans and strongly counselled patience and trust in the effect of time. The moderate party prevailed, and it was thought sufficient to declare a renunciation of all system of compromise. Thus, without actual war, the operations of commerce were suspended and the Venetian ambassador to the Holy See was ordered to abstain from all communication with its ministers. We shall see, in the reign of Innocent X, that this intercourse was restored. The wisdom of Venice had foreseen that prudent and necessary reparation.

The Duke of Parma, not so well advised, without waiting for the army of Louis XIII, engaged at the time in the difficult passes of the Alps, attacked the Spaniards. The latter threw into the field all their forces stationed in the duchy of Milan, and they were about to drive the duke, possibly forever, from his duchy, when Urban sent to the Spanish camp the Bishop of Imola, with orders to conjure the Duke of Modena to grant a truce, and then a peace to the Duke of Parma.

At this juncture the Duke of Crequy brought aid to the Duke of Parma, reproached him with not having waited longer, and forced him to seize upon the Cremonese and the territory of Lodi. Marshal d'Estrees, ambassador from France to Rome, also interfered. Crequy urged D'Estrees to resort to any pretext for speaking warmly upon the subject to the pope. D'Estrees had not yet fulfilled all the long ceremonies necessary to give official existence to an ambassador to Rome. The pope, unwilling to be offended by too vivacious speeches, refused to grant D'Estrees the audience which he solicited. The marshal, who doubtless had secret orders for his actions, complained to Richelieu and demanded his support. The cardinal would neither employ force in support of the repulsed D'Estrees, nor yield by recalling him, but preferred to treat on the affair directly with the pope, whom he wrote.

D'Estrees, in fact, was received, but had to depart immediately after receiving that simple satisfaction.

On the 30th of September, 1636, Cardinal Bentivoglio, attached in heart to France, was accredited as protector of the affairs of France, and in 1637 Mazarin returned, with a mission. The only revenge which Richelieu appeared to have taken for that repulse was to leave the embassy to Rome vacant for four years.

During those four years the Spanish ambassadors endeavored to increase their privileges, hoping that from some abuse or from confessed precedent they might draw still further advantages, if need be. There existed at Rome a law called di precedenza, dating back as far as 1504, under Julius II. By this law European ambassadors are placed, in the ceremonies, in the following order: the ambassador of the emperor, King of the Romans; ambassadors of France, Spain, Aragon, Portugal, England, Sicily, Hungary, Cyprus, Bohemia, Poland, and Dacia.

In 1637 the kingdoms of Aragon, Portugal, and Sicily belonged to Spain; the kingdom of England had no representative; the kingdom of Hungary had absorbed Bohemia and Dacia, and the kingdom of Cyprus was claimed by Venice. Thus the twelve kingdoms represented in 1504 were reduced to four at the utmost. A Spanish ambassador laid claim to four pre–eminences, but he did not clearly explain his idea. At length an agreement was arrived at. As the Catholic religion had sustained such grievous losses in the defection of England, the higher diplomatic agents were classed thus: the ambassadors of the emperor, France, Spain, and Poland. By a wise article in the treaty of Vienna, all ambassadors took precedence according to the day on which their credentials were delivered.

Subsequently, in 1640, the ambassador from Portugal recovered his precedence of the ambassador from Poland.

Meantime, a priest who had gone to China to propagate the Catholic religion there submitted to the Holy See, in 1637, a question whether, in case of necessity, laymen might not receive sacramental confession. He said that an affirmative reply giving that permission, as applicable only to China, would facilitate the means of hearing the confessions of women, who in that empire are governed with a rigorous jealousy. Urban, not doubting what would be the reply of Roman theologians, submitted the question to them. They speedily showed that the power and the faculty of remitting sins or retaining them were granted by Christ to priests only. These theologians did not adopt the passages of canon law that were invoked in favor of lawful confessions in such cases.

In some parts of Christendom disputes still continued on the question of grace, which had been raised by Baius, about the year 1560, and renewed by Cornelius Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres.

Urban renewed the bulls of Saint Pius V of 1567, and of Gregory XIII of 1579; and condemned, by a bull of the 6th of March, 1641, the book entitled "Augustinus Cornelii Jansenii." Jansenius had been engaged twenty–two years in composing it; "not," said he, "to revive the doctrine of Saint Augustine, which for five hundred years had been banished from the Catholic schools, but to explain the opinions of Baius, and to establish the system which declares that, after the fall of Adam, we are necessitated to doing good or evil– good, when grace predominates in us; and evil, when we are under the domination of concupiscence."

Jansenius further laid down that God has imposed upon men many sins; man cannot avoid them, because he lacks grace, which would prevent him from sinning. On that point the regent Duke of Orleans laughingly said that "if God had given him the throne of Saint Louis, he would never have allowed, among his subjects, men who, after a revolution or a crime, could allege as an excuse, like the Jansenists, that they had lacked grace."

Jansenius never published his work; on the contrary, he repeatedly endeavored to send it to Rome, to submit it the judgment of the Holy See. In fact, he wrote to Urban letter replete with respect and submission; but, before that letter could be despatched, he died of the plague, and fearing that his partisans would suppress it, he declared, in his Iast will and testament, that if Rome deemed it necessary to make any alterations in the book submitted to its examination, he respectfully submitted, declaring that he died as had lived, an obedient son of the Roman Church. We should know nothing about that letter, had it not fallen into the hands of the Prince of Conde, who published it after the taking of Ypres.

After the death of Jansenius, some of his partisans suppressed the letter, without speaking of the submissions promised by the author, and they published the book, which was first printed at Louvain, in 1640. That edition was followed by two others, one published at Paris, the other at Rome.

In the same year, 1640, the book was prohibited by the Holy Office, and the Jesuits of Antwerp were the first to declare war against the doctrines contained in that book, by publishing a work entitled "Theological Theses upon Grace."

Notwithstanding the condemnation of that book in a bull published by Urban VIII, about 1642, it found defenders in the University of Louvain, where Baius had been dean and Jansenius professor of Sacred Scripture. The resistance of that academy continued during eight or nine years. The university sent to Rome deputies to complain of the pontifical bull, and to Madrid to prevent the immediate publication of it in Spanish Flanders.

The Catholic king, notwithstanding this device, ordered the bull to be published in Brabant, and forbade any one, under penalty of five hundred florins' fine for the first offense, and six years' exile for the second, to attack the bull or to oppose its publication. After some time the resistance grew weaker in the Low Countries; and those same doctors subsequently distinguished themselves against Jansenism by a great number of decrees which displayed the purity of their doctrine.

Meantime the book of Jansenius was defended by Duvergier de Hauranne, his best friend, known under the name of Abbe de Saint Cyran, who died in 1643, after various painful vicissitudes. To him succeeded Anthony Arnauld. These doctrines, having seduced a great number of religious communities, bishops, and persons of various conditions in society, spread in France. To obviate those evils, Urban, on the 2nd of January, 1644, sent forth his bull In eminenti which he had published on the 6th of March, 1641, to the faculty of theology of Paris, sitting at the Sorbonne, which ordered its members not to approve the doctrine condemned by that bull.

That sufficed to urge Arnauld to a barefaced defense of the book of Jansenius, of which he published an apology. It was refuted by Monsignor Hebert, subsequently Bishop of Vabre, but Arnauld pretended to justify his first apology by another. This latter was prohibited in 1647 by the Archbishop of Besancon, and by the Parliament of Burgundy in 1648. In fact, Arnauld, otherwise a man of so much merit, continued to his death the obstinate defender of Jansenius.

The long pontificate of Urban gave his nephews the opportunity to acquire immense wealth; and the older he grew the greater became the power of Cardinal Francis Barberini who, in an imperious tone, disposed of all authority.

Meantime Ranutius and Odoard Farnese had contracted enormous debts at Rome. On that subject new disputes arose between Rome and those princes, who suffered great losses from a war of their own causing.

On the 16th of September, 1641, Urban made a promotion of cardinals, among whom, especially on account of his name, was the distinguished Francis Maria Machiavelli, a noble Florentine, cousin of Cardinal Barberini, nephew of the pope. It does not appear that he was related to the Florentine secretary. To that promotion belongs Julius Mazarin, who was born on the 14th of July, 1602. At first a captain infantry, he was next employed at Milan, in the absence of the pontifical commissary, Francis Sacchetti. Subsequently he accompanied the legate Cardinal Antonio Barberini to Lombardy, where he displayed his prodigious ability in the management of affairs. On his return to Rome, he became canon of Saint John Lateran, and vice–sommist of Cardinal Barberini, who was vice–chancellor. Subsequently he was sent as nuncio extraordinary into France, where he remained two years.

As vice–legate at Avignon, he made himself valued for his talents. Louis XIII, who liked him, recalled him to France, at the request of that prince, Mazarin was made a cardinal. On the death of Cardinal Richelieu, Mazarin became prime minister of France. The other details of his life do not belong to this part of our annals.

A promotion of cardinals readily makes known two important facts: (1) the situation of the political affairs of the Holy See with regard to some of the powers, and the degree of favor those powers obtain at that distribution of the great Christian rewards; (2) the spirit of justice or of nepotism which animates the pontiff, and which causes him to seek out men of distinguished reputation, or which prepares in advance for furnishing to the nephews their reinforcements in the coming conclave.

The list of the new cardinals also includes the name of Ascanio Filomarino, a man whose nomination all parties could approve. Then came Mark Antony Bragadino, a personage of singular probity, bearing a name celebrated at Venice. His nomination was unsolicited, and made to conciliate the friendly feeling of the great council.

It was necessary to take care not to honor Venice to the neglect of Genoa, her rival. Octavius Raggi, a Genoese, was the next cardinal; he was a great patron of Italian men of letters. Pietro Donato Cesi, of the house of the dukes of Aquasparta, attained the purple by passing through various offices in the Roman court.

Jerome Verospi, a man of talent and of wit, who was to be one of the soldiers of the Barberino in the next conclave. Vincent Marcelani, son of a Lombard mason, had entered the order of the Dominicans, where, by the encouragement of his superiors and the remembrance of his father's business, he had greatly promoted the art of architecture and the study of the theological sciences. He excelled in drawing plans, and before the purple was bestowed upon him, he was sent to Malta to superintend the building of the fortifications which the Holy See erected on that island. The promotion of Marcelani was a public homage to the learned.

Francis Peretti Montalto, the last scion of the family of Sixtus V. This nomination was a tribute of pontifical gratitude for the glory acquired by that great pope.

Virginius Orsini, a Roman lord, a man of sense and the friend of the poor, a member of the celebrated family of that name, and considered likely to become pope. That ingenious instinct which predicts popes from reputations for virtue, ability, and prudent conduct, that instinct which can second a well–calculated foresight, is a kind of sagacity very common at Rome, where, moreover, it is indigenous to the soil.

Julius Gabrielli, a noble Roman, who held the cardinalate for forty years. Novaes mentions the excessive leaning of that cardinal to economy.

Rinaldo d'Este, of the family of the dukes of Modena. He had followed the career of arms; whence, says Novaes, he passed into the ecclesiastical militia, at the request of the house of Austria.

There was no Frenchman included in these creations. The differences arising out of the rejection of Marshal d'Estrees were, apparently, not yet settled.

Shortly before that promotion, Urban had published a constitution to preserve from all prejudice or infringement the rights of the Holy See and of the inferior churches. The pope restored to vigor bulls published under Alexander III, Innocent III, Clement VII, and Leo X; and they were thenceforward to be executed, notwithstanding the opposition of any emperor, king, republic, or other sovereignty whatsoever. If any legates a latere, vice–chancellors, or nuncios have authorized such prejudices or infringements, they have acted reprehensibly; they had no warrant for authorizing any spoliation of the property of the Church, or the imprisonment of any ecclesiastical subjects. Finally, every right exercised in the name of the Holy See is declared valid and exempt from all exception. This constitution was given at Rome, near Saint Peter, under the ring of the fisherman, on the 7th of June, in the year of our Lord 1641, and of the pontificate the eighteenth.

In January, 1642, all Europe looked attentively towards France. The health of Richelieu was daily declining, and he was said to be busied upon his last will and instructions. Voltaire incorrectly denies the authenticity of the testament. Foncemagne has triumphantly replied to him. The testament of His Eminence, which Foncemagne published, is authentic; and there is no longer any doubt about that historical fact.

Urban's courage was not diminished. The Marquis de Fontenay, ambassador from France, a man of moderate disposition, who from the first moment comprehended Rome, gave assurances of friendship to the pope, to which Urban replied by testimonies of an affection all the more precious to the Louvre because after the death of Richelieu, on the 4th of December, 1642, the king's health insensibly declined. He was to die four months and ten days after his minister. Urban gave De Fontenay advice at once affectionate and sound, as to the prudence which would be necessary on the eve of a regency which was to care for the policy and the interests of a king only four years and a half old. In the continual struggles between France and Spain, it seemed that the latter must have the advantage, as it was governed by a king thirty–eight years old, who had been on the throne for more than twenty years. But that king possessed in his disposition no more determination than is ordinarily displayed by a council of regency. Urban, therefore, hoped that he might live still long enough to restore and maintain peace between the two countries. These ideas absorbed all his cares; Germany had little to demand his attention, and he gave up all hope of protecting, in England, Charles I and Henrietta, overwhelmed by persecutions and by those griefs which often deprive us of all love of life. In 1643 the pope reflected on the great number of holidays. The poor made many complaints to the pontifical government that, owing to these, they could not always easily earn bread, and that on such holidays they abandoned themselves to vice, and especially to drunkenness. The pope thought fit to suppress great many of these holidays, and he signed the constitution Universa, dated on the 13th of September, 1642, but not published till 1643. He also erected between Modena and Bologna a fortress, called, after himself, Fort Urban. He founded the College De Propaganda Fide, which was also called, after him, the Urban College. He added new lines to the Castle of Sant' Angelo, on the side which is towards the Leonine city; he ordered the construction of the fine fountain in the Piazza di Spagna, and to him Rome also owes the fountain near the Barberini palace facing the Trinita de' Monti.

A treaty of peace was then concluded, by the intervention of France, between the pope, Edward Farnese, Duke of Parma, and the combined princes of Italy.

Urban hoped to enjoy its benefits; but falling sick, he soon perceived that his illness was beyond remedy. He called for the succors of religion, and died on the 7th of July, 1644, at age of seventy–seven years, after governing the Church twenty–one years, all but seven days. He was interred at the Vatican.

Urban had enriched his nephews. Novaes affirmed that he read, in a manuscript account of the death of that pope, that Urban, when dying, expressed his regret for such prodigality, and that the cardinal nephew generously offered to restore the property. We read in Feller: "The moderation and prudence of Urban were especially remarkable in the affair of Galileo the philosopher, whose dogmatizing temper he restrained indeed, but without at all interfering with his opinion as an astronomical hypothesis. Galileo himself lauds the goodness of Urban's treatment of him, in which Urban imitated the conduct of Paul V."

The sacred Latin poetry of Urban was printed at Paris, in the Louvre, under the title of Maffei Barberini Poemata. He also published Italian poems (Rome, 1640, 12mo). They consist of seventy sonnets, two hymns, and an ode. All those works are admired. Whatever prejudices some authors may have accredited against Urban, he was a great pope, and must have a place among those who have the most illustrated the papacy. His reign consists of lofty actions, and of ideas which strongly remind one of those of Sixtus V, Paul V, and Gregory XV, whom he seems to have taken as his models, and whom he endeavored to resemble, as far as the bent of his disposition and the strength of his mind would allow.

This biographical data is from "The Lives and Times of the Popes" by The Chevalier Artaud De Montor. Published by The Catholic Publication Society of New York in ten volumes in 1911. The pictures, included in the volumes, were reproduced from " Effigies Pontificum Romanorum Dominici Basae."