PIUS IV, Pope. - For more than four months the three factions in the Sacred College—the Spanish, the French, and the group of cardinals loyal to Paul IV—assembled in conclave, struggled among themselves, until on 25 Dec. 1559, following the withdrawal of Card. Carafa, the candidate of Duke Cosimo of Florence, Gian Angelo Medici, was elected pope, taking the name P. IV. He was born in Milan to the notary Bernardino Medici on 31 March 1499; in 1525 he had obtained his doctorate in utroque at Bologna and had demonstrated his administrative abilities under the pontificate of Paul III, as governor in Ascoli Piceno, Città di Castello, Parma and Fano, as well as commissioner with the pontifical troops in Hungary and Transylvania, and finally as vice-legate of Bologna. From 14 Dec. 1545 he was archbishop of Ragusa, from 8 Apr. 1549 cardinal. Under Julius III he had played a certain part, though a modest one, as prefect of the Signatura gratiae, but because of his pro-Spanish conduct he had fallen into disfavor with Paul IV and had had to reside for most of the time outside Rome, in Tuscany and Milan. Highly esteemed as a jurist, he did not stand out as a politician and could count even less as an adherent of the party of ecclesiastical reform.
The contrast in the political and ecclesiastical sphere between the new Pope and his predecessor explains how P. IV, from the very beginning of his pontificate, abolished or mitigated several laws and measures of Paul IV. Thus, for example, he abolished the severe bull issued against monks who lived outside their convents; he restricted the competences of the Roman Inquisition and began the revision of the Index librorum prohibitorum of 1559, which had proved inapplicable because of its severity. But above all he formed good friendships with the Habsburg courts, not only with Philip II, but also with Ferdinand I, and appointed nuncios for the nunciatures of Vienna, Venice and Florence that had remained vacant under Paul IV. With great severity he proceeded against the nephews of his predecessor. Card. Carlo Carafa and his brother Giovanni, duke of Paliano, as instigators of the war against Spain, were condemned to death for treason and felony and also for the murder of the duke's wife, and were executed on 5 March 1561, after Philip II of Spain refused to interpose his intercession on behalf of the condemned. Instead Card. Alfonso Carafa and Card. Rebiba, in reality innocent, were pardoned and set free. Of his numerous nephews the Pope made cardinals: Carlo Borromeo, Gian Antonio Sottbelloni and Marco Sittich of Hohenems; while Federico Borromeo was married to Virginia della Rovere and proposed for the Duchy of Camerino: he died, however, on 19 Nov. 1562.
P. IV's principal concern was the improvement of religious conditions in France, where, upon the death of King Henry II, the Calvinists, favored by the vacillating policy of the queen mother Catherine de' Medici, were making rapid progress. The optimistic reports of the cardinal legate Ippolito d'Este did not create in P. IV any illusions about the gravity of the situation, so that, in order to save France from the threatening Protestantization, he convoked the Council at Trent for the third time on 29 Nov. 1560 and ordered that it be opened on 18 Jan. 1562. As Paul III in the first period of the Council of Trent, so P. IV took care to reform the authorities of the Curia, especially of the Apostolic Chamber, the Sacred Rota and the Penitentiary. Advised by Card. Morone, he intervened several times in the conciliar policy. He disapproved of the cardinal legates Ercole Gonzaga and Seripando having favored the supporters of the Jus divinum regarding the duty of residence of bishops, and encouraged both in the first dispute over that residence (Apr.-May 1562) and during the great crisis of the Council (in the winter of 1562-63) the conciliar party of the Zelanti, whose head was the cardinal legate Simonetta, his confidant. When, after the arrival of the French, the great crisis of the Council took a turn dangerous because of the Emperor's intervention, he, presumably on the advice of Cosimo I, won over to his conciliar policy, with a letter of 1 Apr. 1563, written in his own hand, King Philip II and, after the death of Card. Ercole Gonzaga, elected as president of the Council his adviser Morone. The latter, in full possession of the Pope's confidence, succeeded in winning over first the emperor Ferdinand I, and then the head of the opposition in the Council, the Card. of Lorraine, in favor of a negotiated solution of the conflict and a prompt conclusion of the Council. A dangerous illness that befell the Pope at the end of Nov. 1563 had as a consequence that the concluding session was moved forward to 3 Dec. 1563. Already on 26 Jan. 1564, the Pope, recovered, confirmed the Council unconditionally and immediately sought to implement its reform decrees. His nephew Carlo Borromeo soon set the example with his holy life and the reform of his archdiocese of Milan. On 2 Aug. 1564 the Pope conferred certain powers on the commission of cardinals, instituted so that it might watch over the implementation of the reform decrees and respond to requests concerning their meaning; from this commission derived the Sacred Congregation of the Council. On 24 March 1564, he published the Index librorum prohibitorum prepared at Trent; on 12 Nov. he prescribed for bishops and for those who obtained benefices with the care of souls the making of the Professio fidei Tridentino. On 16 Apr. 1564, at the request of the emperor Ferdinand I and of Duke William IV of Bavaria, he gave to the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Salzburg, Magdeburg, Bremen and Gran (as well as to certain other German and Austrian bishops) the full faculty of granting Communion under both kinds to Catholics provided they first confessed and professed the undivided presence of Jesus Christ even under one kind alone.
Certain other tasks entrusted by the Council to the Pope, such as the compilation of the Catechism and the reform of the Missal and the Breviary, were begun under P. IV, but not carried to completion.
The happy conclusion of the Council of Trent and the beginning of its implementation constitute the greatest undertaking of P. IV. Nevertheless the movement of apostasy in the northern countries did not cease during his pontificate: in France the first war of the Huguenots broke out, in which the Pope supported the Catholics with subsidies of money; the attempt to win back Queen Elizabeth of England to the Catholic Church concluded negatively; in Germany Lutheranism spread more widely in the northern regions, while in the southern ones Calvinism gained a foothold. Nonetheless, with the conclusion of the Council of Trent and the beginning of the implementation of its decrees the foundations of the Catholic Reformation were laid, which was strengthened under the three successors of P. IV, who were inspired by the luminous example of his nephew Carlo Borromeo, whom Pastor rightly calls «the good genius» of his uncle.
The Pope's interest in the arts and sciences was manifested in the appointment of learned cardinals (for example, Sirleto, Marcantonio Colonna, Hosius, Paleotti), in the founding of the Roman printing press by means of Paolo Manuzio. The Pope's best work of architecture is the Villa Pia in the Vatican Gardens and the very well-known Porta Pia on Via Nomentana. P. IV died on 9 Dec. 1565; his remains were transported in 1583 to the church of S. Maria degli Angeli, which he had restored. - See plate CII.
Bibliography9 works
Hubert Jedin