GELASIUS III, POPE. — Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte, born in Rome on 10 Sept. 1487, died there on 23 March 1555. He studied literature under the guidance of Raffaele Lippo Brandolini, and jurisprudence at Perugia and Bologna. Archbishop of Manfredonia, he served twice as governor of Rome under Clement VII, as vice-legate of Bologna under Paul III, and as auditor of the Apostolic Chamber. Created cardinal on 22 Dec. 1536, he represented Paul III at the Council of Trent. He possessed broad learning and experience.
After a long conclave, made difficult by the conflicting interventions and multiple exclusions of Charles V and Henry II of France, he was elected on 7 Feb. 1550 through an agreement among the factions, as politically neutral and not unwelcome even to the party seeking reform of the Church. At the outset he showed himself inclined toward peace and desirous of reform. After lengthy negotiations with the Emperor and the King of France, he reconvened the Council at Trent for 19 May 1551 and appointed as its first president Cardinal Crescenzi, one of the ablest. The Council, unrecognized by France and subject to imperial and Spanish interference, nevertheless advanced its work until the threat posed by Maurice of Saxony and the Protestants forced the Pope to suspend it on 15 Apr. 1552.
Meanwhile, war had broken out in Italy. Ottavio Farnese, to whom G. had restored Parma, was denied Piacenza by the Emperor and threatened even with Parma; he therefore drew close to France, disregarding papal briefs. The Pope, inclined by temperament and by the need for imperial support against the Protestants, leaned toward Charles V. To crush this “poor worm,” G. found himself compelled to place himself in the Emperor’s hands, despite the threat of a French schism. He declared Ottavio deposed from his fief on 22 May 1551, and when the Farnese and the French invaded the Romagna, he took Castro from them. Yet an expedition against Parma and Mirandola, led by Ferrante Gonzaga, governor of Milan, failed; even Rome itself longed for peace. An armistice was concluded between the Pope and the French, with the restoration of Castro on 29 Apr. 1552. G. then returned, as “father of Christendom,” to thoughts of peace; while remaining generally favorable to Charles V and Cosimo de’ Medici, he assumed the role of mediator in the war of Siena.
He continued to display considerable activity in defense and propagation of the faith and in reform. He confirmed the Roman Inquisition but kept it jealously free from interference by lay princes and was rather inclined to clemency: few were the executions of heretics, and absolution was granted even to those who abjured secretly. He strove to keep Poland in the Catholic faith; he promoted and celebrated the return of England, under Mary Tudor, to obedience to Rome, and granted the legate Cardinal Pole very broad faculties for the rehabilitation of those who had taken possession of ecclesiastical goods confiscated during the schism.
(1st. Alinari)
GELASIUS III, pope — Portrait, painting by Scipione Pulzone da Gaeta (c. 1550) — Rome, Galleria di Palazzo Spada.
Yet he had “core et animo grande” (A. Luzio, loc. cit., p. 119), rugged straightforwardness, unyielding tenacity, prodigious activity, and a “terrible” (Sanuto, loc. cit., col. 725, and elsewhere repeatedly) physical and spiritual energy—i.e., as the epithet was then understood, superior to the common run. This was not, however, divorced from delicacy of feeling and, in his better moments, from festive cheerfulness. Although his enemies cast aspersions even on his orthodoxy, he was a man of firm faith and sincere piety; his motto “Dominus mihi adiutor: non timebo quid faciat mihi homo” was sincere testimony to his unshakable trust in God.
Shortly before G. II, on the night of 20–21 Feb. 1513, met his death “with such devotion and contrition that he seemed a saint” (A. Luzio, loc. cit., 416), the Roman people had hailed him as liberator of Italy and vanquisher of the schism. At his death he received honors perhaps accorded to no other pontiff: even his adversaries mourned him with abundant tears because he had torn all Italy, all Christendom, from the yoke of the French and the barbarians. He himself, in conversations with his master of ceremonies Paride de Grassi, said that he had been plus quam martyr because he had struggled and suffered for Christ.
One may doubt whether that titanic effort to drive one foreigner out of Italy with another was not in vain; one may lament that he so often confused means with ends and subordinated spiritual authority of the papacy—meant to be strengthened by spiritual means—to temporal interests; one may consider exaggerated the praise, bestowed by Burckhardt and others down to Pastor, of him as “savior of the papacy,” since by quite other paths Providence intended to bring salvation to the papacy in the gathering storm. One may even think that he bore some responsibility for that storm through his embroilment
He took an active part in the evangelization of America and the Indies, facilitating the beginning of missionary work and creating bishoprics, though the imprudence of religious and, far more, the greed and corruption of laymen impeded the hoped-for successes. He obtained the reunion with the Roman Church of the Nestorians of Chaldea and attempted to reunite the bodies of Abyssinia. For the reform he established commissions of cardinals, including men of both orders and participating in the work; he forbade unjustified alienations of benefices; on 16 Sept. 1552 he proposed a broad program and, after much study, prepared a bull concerning popes and prelates, secular and regular clergy, ecclesiastical benefices, the Apostolic Signatura, the Penitentiary, preaching, and indulgences; death prevented him from publishing II. Almost at the beginning of his reign he had confirmed the constitutions of the Society of Jesus (21 July 1550); later he founded and entrusted to them the German College in Rome for the education of young Germans, future champions against heresy (31 Aug. 1552).
Despite financial straits, he favored learned men, the Roman University, and the Apostolic Library. He received unselfish laws and dedications of works from Giovio, from Arteino, and from Condivi; from Palestrina, whom he appointed maestro di cappella at St Peter’s, he received the dedication of a volume of four-voice Masses. He bestowed honors and high emoluments on Michelangelo, whom, despite opposition, he confirmed as chief architect of St Peter’s; he had the Villa Giulia outside Porta del Popolo built by Vignola and Ammannati, restored (later called the Palazzo Firenze) by Vignola, and designed and decorated the sepulchral chapel in S. Pietro in Montorio by Vasari and Ammannati.
Robust and tall in stature but of somewhat rough appearance, learned, eloquent, pious, indefatigable, G. III lacked firmness and tenacity. Gentle in spirit, free from pride, he was yet prone to sudden fits of anger, to sudden enthusiasms and discouragements. He was excessively fond of jokes, festivities, banquets, hunting, and gaming; he attended improper spectacles; a medal of his celebrated “hilaritas publica.” He showed too great favor to his nephews, though without descending to gross nepotism.
GIULIO ROMANO (GIULIO DI PIERO PIPPI DE' GIANNUZZI, called) — Painter and architect, born in Rome in 1499, died in Mantua on 10 Nov. 1546. Very young, he was a pupil of Raphael, becoming the master’s favorite disciple and most active collaborator. Before he was twenty, he worked in the Vatican Rooms, in the Sala di Psiche at the Farnesina, and especially in the Logge.
Already in these and in other works executed in Rome (The Flagellation in S. Prassede; the altarpiece in S. Maria dell’Anima; The Stoning of St. Stephen in S. Stefano in Genoa, etc.), he departs from Raphael’s equilibrium and rhythm, reinforcing the plastic effect by loading surfaces with smoky shadows and already revealing that scenographic taste which later becomes more pronounced. After Raphael’s death, he inherits—together with Penni—the completion of unfinished works (The Transfiguration), new commissions (the Monteluce altarpiece), and the direction of the decoration of the Sala di Costantino and of Villa Madama on Monte Mario. Meanwhile, he begins his activity as an architect (Villa Lante on the Gianicolo; Palazzo Alberini; Palazzo Cicciaporci). In 1524 he goes to Mantua, summoned by Federico Gonzaga, who entrusts him first with the construction of the Palazzo del Tè and then with overseeing all the city’s building projects. There he directs the works on the Ducal Palace, then the renovation of the nearby monastery of S. Benedetto di Polirone (1539) and that of the Cathedral (1544). As a painter in this period, he works above all in fresco on the vast decorations of the Palazzo del Tè, though easel paintings are also numerous (The Nativity for S. Andrea in Mantua, now in the Louvre, etc.). In 1543 in Bologna he provides a design for the façade of S. Petronio, where a sculptural work is also attributed to him with good reason: the terracotta group of the Madonna and Child on the tomb of Ottaviano Castelli. He dies in Mantua while preparing to return to Rome, summoned by Paul III to direct the Fabbrica of St. Peter’s.
More important than his work as a painter—which nonetheless occupies a notable place at the beginning of the Mannerist movement—G. R. is significant as an architect.
