PAUL III, POPE. - Pietro Barbo, nephew of Eugenius IV, was born in Venice on 23 February 1417 and died in Rome on 26 July 1471. He was created cardinal by his uncle on 10 July 1440; at that time he held only the minor orders. From a relationship with a Roman noblewoman he had two sons, Pierluigi and Paolo, and later a third son, Ranuccio, and a daughter, Costanza. Highly esteemed for his political wisdom and vast experience, he became bishop of Ostia in 1524 and dean of the Sacred College. He kept himself aloof from the unfortunate politics of Clement VII. On 13 October 1534 he was elected pope after a single day of conclave and immediately announced as his program the council and reform.
While the convocation of the Council at Mantua and Vicenza, despite numerous postponements, did not materialize because of the war between Charles V and Francis I, he initiated Church reform by convening distinguished men in the College of Cardinals, including Cortesi, Bartes, Morone, and others. A reform commission, summoned in the autumn of 1536, presented him on 9 March 1537 with the *Consilium de emendanda Ecclesia*, the most important reform proposal before the Council of Trent, and in some respects even too radical. This work served as the starting point for a discussion on the reform of curial authorities, especially the Dataria: some abuses were curbed, but there were no sweeping changes, particularly regarding the obligation of episcopal residence. The approval of the Society of Jesus on 27 September 1540 and the growth of the Theatines, Barnabites, Somaschi, along with attempts to reform older orders, secured numerous capable collaborators for the Church. By establishing the Roman Inquisition (1542), he created a central authority for combating Protestantism in Italy.
The Peace of Crépy (17 September 1544) made the Council of Trent possible, which had already been unsuccessfully convened in 1542. Against the Emperor’s wish that discussions on reform take precedence, the Pope insisted on defining dogmatic controversies and approved the Trent compromise to address both doctrine and reform simultaneously. The transfer of the Council to Bologna (11 March 1547), carried out without his knowledge but in accordance with his wishes, the Emperor’s protest over this transfer, the subsequent arbitrary regulation of ecclesiastical relations in Germany through the Interim of Augsburg, and above all the assassination of his son Pierluigi, allegedly with the complicity of the Milanese governor Ferrante Gonzaga (10 September 1547), led the Pontiff into open conflict with Charles V, a conflict that lasted until the death of Paul III on 10 November 1549.
During the war between Charles V and Francis I, Paul III remained neutral, though personally inclined toward France, which he saw as the necessary counterbalance to the Emperor’s predominance in Italy as lord of Milan and Naples—a predominance that, in the Pope’s view, threatened the independence of the Holy See. When Francis I allied himself with the Turks and German Protestants, Charles V repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to induce the Pope to abandon his neutrality. Paul III’s distrust of the Emperor persisted even after the conclusion of the League (1545) to overthrow the Schmalkaldic alliance and the dispatch of his nephews Alessandro and Ottavio at the head of papal troops into Germany. The publication of the major excommunication against Henry VIII of England (1538) completed the Anglican schism, and all the Pope’s attempts to persuade continental powers to impose economic and military sanctions also failed.
To his family, Paul III first granted the Duchy of Camerino and later those of Parma and Piacenza, his aspirations to Milan having been thwarted by the Emperor’s opposition. The establishment of the Farnese dynasty in Parma was the last grand manifestation of papal nepotism. It is undeniable that the Pope’s desire to elevate his family among Italy’s princely houses influenced his entire political and ecclesiastical conduct. Pope Farnese (whose likeness has been preserved in Titian’s famous paintings) stands among the great figures in papal history. His pontificate marks the transition from the Renaissance to the Catholic Reformation: the splendid monument by Guglielmo della Porta is located in St. Peter’s Abbey. — See pl. LV.