ERNESTO di BAVIERA. — Archbishop and prince-elector of Cologne, b. in Munich on 17 December 1554, d. at Arnaberg (Westphalia) on 17 February 1612. When he was barely twelve years old, Pius V granted him the bishopric of Freising (1566), to which those of Hildesheim (1573) and Liège (1581) were later added, until, upon the apostasy of Gebhard Truchsess di Waldburg (1583), he was unanimously elected bishop of Cologne. He had received priestly ordination in 1577. Although his life was not entirely blameless, he worked zealously to implement the Tridentine reform in the Rhineland and in Westphalia, supported by the Jesuits, for whom he had founded colleges.
BIBL.: P. Weiler, Die kirchliche Reform in Erzbistum Köln, 1536-1615, Cologne 1931; Pastor, IX-XIII, passim; Eshel, III, pp. 172, 198, 209, 222. Antonio Cistellini