GREGORY XIV, Pope. - Niccolò Sfondrato, of an ancient Cremonese family, b. at Somma on 11 Feb. 1535. He studied law at Perugia and Padua, took his degree at Pavia; then embraced the ecclesiastical state. A decisive influence on his life was his having been received among the familiars of Charles Borromeo. At barely twenty-five years of age, he was appointed by Pius IV bishop of Cremona (12 March 1560). In that capacity, on 13 March 1561 he took part in the proceedings of the Council of Trent, where he upheld the thesis contrary to the accumulation of ecclesiastical benefices and the duty of bishops not to absent themselves from their own see. Having returned to his diocese and, finding it without priests, he introduced Theatines and Barnabites. In the Synod of 1580 he fully embraced the salutary decrees of the reform of the Church. He was appointed by Gregory XIII cardinal of St. Cecilia. On the death of Urban VII on 15 Dec. 1583, after a Conclave lasting more than two months, which remained famous for the agitation of factions and influences, he was, on 5 Dec. 1590, "out of satiety with intrigues," almost unaware and incredulous, elected pope by the unanimous votes of the fifty-four cardinals present. On 8 Dec. he was crowned. He died after 10 months and 11 days of reign (16 Oct. 1591).
He was a most pious man, of severe and most pure morals; of exemplary goodness, of which he gave proof when, in the Jubilee of 1575, he hospitably opened his house to pilgrims. He enjoyed the friendship of Philip Neri. As Pope he was, even in the judgment of Pastor, too weak, mild and compliant. Of poor health and feeble of body, having no experience of affairs because he had always lived among religious, in his brief pontificate he soon found himself constrained to avail himself of counselors, such as the Minorite Panigarola, a celebrated orator; but perhaps he too much allowed himself to be taken in hand by his nephew Paolo Emilio Sfondrato, whom he raised at twenty-nine years of age to the honors of the purple (19 Dec. 1590) and placed at the head of the Secretariat of State. Although he was little experienced in the things of the world, though of a family traditionally in the service of Spain and deferential to the Spanish monarch who had helped him to ascend the pontifical throne, although he saw in the preservation and the teaching of the Spanish monarchy the salvation and the future of the Catholic Church, he was not subservient to the will and the great, ambitious Caesaro-papist aims of Philip II and Philip III.
G. XIV labored insistently to cure Rome and the State of the three dominant plagues: epidemic, famine, brigandage. In combating the plague which in a single year, from Aug. 1590, cut short the lives of ca. 60,000 persons, and in public assistance he was helped by the fervor of charity of Camillo De Lellis and his confreres. The famine, due to poor harvests and a little also to the improvidence of card. Sfondrato in not sufficiently supplying the market, gave rise to protests, to pasquinades, to uprisings, to the sacking of the granaries of the Pantheon, of Piazza Giudecca, of Campo dei Fiori and even to the invasion of the Pope's chambers by the hungry and excited crowd. The Pontiff, having learned of the country's difficulties, which were concealed by card. Sfondrato, provided for them by granting even to heretics the widest freedom of importation of grain (some arrived from Danzig and from Lübeck) and by making a very large distribution of bread vouchers. The provisioning of Rome was very often rendered impossible by the fact that bandits raged in Umbria, in Sabina, up to the gates of the capital. Means and resolute will were committed to confronting them. A body of soldiers, under the orders of mons. Grimaldi, defeated a band of 800 bandits in the vicinity of Ascoli and pursued them to the borders of the Neapolitan territory.
G. XIV was a jealous guardian of the rights and privileges of the Catholic Church. Of this he gave clear proof when he extended the right of asylum, raising recrimination and resistance on the part of the lay authority, whence derived polemics and diatribes between the Curia, which intended to defend traditional rights, and the monarchies, which aimed at asserting their absolute power. G. XIV took an active part in the internal struggles of France, supporting the Catholic League and seconding the policy of Philip, urged to this by his nephew card. Sfondrato and by the Curia in which the Spanish party and the sympathizers with Spain were strong. To finance the party of the League and to follow the policy of war and intervention in France, to combat the heretics and the Huguenots, he squandered the treasures accumulated by Sixtus V (but a large part of them served to enrich the Sfondrato family, and above all the cardinal of the same name, always needy and most avid for money). And that policy was carried to extremes when he launched the interdict against Henry IV.
The reign of G. XIV is fundamental also for religious development: G. XIV issued a constitution (15 May 1591) concerning the titles of those who aspired to the episcopate; forbade the celebration of Mass in private houses; granted the red hat to cardinals; provided for the better edition and printing of the Vulgate; granted protection to Camillo De Lellis and to the "Fathers of the good death"; defended the Jesuits and supported them also against Olivares; induced Sigismund to choose a Catholic bride; pursued a policy directed at attracting Germany. He protected the arts, as is attested by his having brought to completion the dome of St. Peter's, the constructions of Sixtus V at the Quirinal, at the Vatican and at St. Mary Major; the protection granted to Palestrina; some liberality in consulting Vatican sources granted to card. Baronio.
Bibliography2 works
Raffaele Ciasca