ADRIANO VI, POPE. - Pontiff from 1522 to 1523. Born in Utrecht on 2 March 1459, he was the son of Florenz Boeyens and Gertruda. His family was neither rich nor poor. After his father’s death, his mother entrusted his education to the Brethren of the Common Life at Deventer or Zwolle. He enrolled at the University of Louvain in 1474, studying philosophy for two years and theology and canon law for ten. Upon completing his studies, he obtained a chair in philosophy. In 1490 he was ordained and the following year became a doctor of theology. With the income from his benefices, he distributed generous alms and founded a college for poor students. He also served as parish priest of Goedere, personally fulfilling his duties even during vacations. Appointed professor of theology, his students included Erasmus of Rotterdam and other notable scholars. A series of his lectures was published by a disciple in 1515; another published his lectures on the Most Holy Sacrament (1516), in which he advocated frequent communion. These two works went through many editions.
Elected dean of the church of Saint Peter in 1497, he assumed the duties of rector of the university.
For his blameless life, high sense of duty, zeal for reforming morals—especially among the clergy—and for his great learning, wisdom, and prudence, he became a favored counsellor of many and of the imperial court. Emperor Maximilian appointed him tutor to his grandson Charles, for whom Adrian secured full hereditary right to the Spanish throne.
From 1516, together with Ximénez, and after the latter’s death alone, he governed Spain. In 1516 he was elected bishop of Tortosa; in 1517 he became inquisitor of Aragon and Navarre, and in 1518 of Castile and León. In 1517 he was created cardinal. During the journey for the coronation of Charles V, he quelled the general rebellion in Spain more by prudence than by arms. He was elected Pope on 9 January 1522.
Two things Adrian sought to achieve: the abolition of abuses in the Curia and in the Church, and the union of Christian princes against the Turkish peril. He began by eliminating the accumulation of benefices, took severe measures against simony, struck at the nepotism of prelates and, in general, all the vices of the clergy and people, and sought to improve the financial situation of the Church and the Papal States through strict economies, also in order to be able to provide subsidies to states that would resist the Turkish invasion.
He incurred the hatred of those accustomed to the lavish festivities, favors, and light living of his predecessor’s court, hatred that found expression in libels and pasquinades. Yet he was at fault for alienating even good men, due to a character sometimes reserved, especially toward Italian prelates. It was an error he later tried to remedy.
He sent Chieregati as the first apostolic nuncio to the Diet of Nuremberg to present his reform plans, hoping to counter the danger of Lutheranism and conciliate the German princes (1522–1523). He did not secure enforcement of the Edict of Worms. Nor did he succeed in settling the conflict between Charles V and Francis I. Wishing to remain faithful to a policy of neutrality between the parties, he was forced by Francis I’s hostility into a defensive pact with Charles V (1523). In his efforts for the spiritual welfare of Switzerland, Poland, and other lands, he met with no small measure of disappointment.
He died on 14 September 1523 and was provisionally buried in the Chapel of Saint Andrew in Saint Peter’s. The epitaph read: *Hadrianus sextus hic situs est qui nihil sibi infelicius in vita duxit quam quod imperaret*. On 12 August 1533 his remains were transferred to the church of Santa Maria dell’Anima, where Cardinal Enckevoirt erected a worthy monument to him. Though much slandered in life and death, no one ever dared to attack the integrity of this Pontiff or his intentions. — See Plate XXIV.