PIO IV, POPE. — For more than four months the three parties of the Sacred College—the Spanish, the French, and the group of cardinals attached to Paolo IV—struggled among themselves while gathered in conclave, until on 25 December 1559, following the withdrawal of Cardinal Carafa, the candidate of Duke Cosimo of Florence, Gian Angelo Medici, was elected pope and took 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 utroque at Bologna and had demonstrated his administrative abilities under the pontificate of Paolo III, as governor of Ascoli Piceno, Città di Castello, Parma, and Fano, as well as commissioner with the papal troops in Hungary and Transylvania, and finally as vice-legate of Bologna. From 14 December 1545 he was archbishop of Ragusa, and from 8 April 1549 a cardinal. Under Giulio III he had played a certain, though modest, role as prefect of the Signatura gratiae, but because of his pro-Spanish conduct he had fallen out of favor with Paolo IV and had been obliged to spend most of his time outside Rome, in Tuscany and Milan. Highly esteemed as a jurist, he did not stand out as a politician, and even less could he count as a supporter of the ecclesiastical reform party.
The contrast in the political and ecclesiastical sphere between the new Pope and his predecessor explains why P. IV, from the beginning of his pontificate, abolished or mitigated several of Paolo IV’s laws and measures. Thus, for example, he abolished the severe bull issued against monks living outside their convents; he restricted the powers of the Roman Inquisition and began the revision of the Index librorum prohibitorum of 1559, which had proved inapplicable because of its severity. Above all, however, he established good relations with the Habsburg courts, not only with Filippo II but also with Ferdinando I, and appointed nuncios to the nunciatures of Vienna, Venice, and Florence, which had remained vacant under Paolo IV.
He proceeded with great severity against the nephews of his predecessor. Cardinal Carlo Carafa and his brother Giovanni, Duke of Paliano, were condemned to death as instigators of the war against Spain, for treason and felony, and also for the murder of the duke’s wife; they were executed on 5 March 1561, after Filippo II of Spain had refused to intercede on behalf of the condemned. Cardinal Alfonso Carafa and Cardinal Rebiba, on the other hand, though in reality innocent, were pardoned and released. Of his numerous nephews, the Pope made cardinals Carlo Borromeo, Gian Antonio Sottbelloni, and Marco Sittich di Hohenems; Federico Borromeo, meanwhile, was married to Virginia della Rovere and proposed for the Duchy of Camerino, but died on 19 November 1562.
P. IV’s principal concern was the improvement of religious conditions in France, where, after the death of King Enrico II, the Calvinists were making rapid progress, favored by the vacillating policy of the queen mother Caterina de’ Medici. The optimistic reports of the cardinal legate Ippolito d’Este did not create any illusions in P. IV regarding the gravity of the situation; consequently, in order to save France from the threatened spread of Protestantism, on 29 November 1560 he convoked the Council at Trent for the third time and ordered it to open on 18 January 1562. Just as Paolo III had done during the first period of the Council of Trent, so P. IV took care to reform the authorities of the Curia, especially those of the Apostolic Camera, the Sacred Rota, and the Penitentiary. Advised by Cardinal Morone, he intervened several times in conciliar policy. He disapproved of the fact that the cardinal legates Ercole Gonzaga and Seripando had favored the supporters of the Jus divinum concerning the bishops’ duty of residence, and he encouraged both during the first debate on that residence (April–May 1562) and during the great crisis of the Council (in the winter of 1562–63) the conciliar party of the Zelanti, headed by the cardinal legate Simonetta, his confidant. When, after the arrival of the French, the great crisis of the Council took a dangerous turn because of the Emperor’s intervention, he, probably on the advice of Cosimo I, won King Filippo II over to his conciliar policy by a letter written in his own hand on 1 April 1563, and, after the death of Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, appointed his adviser Morone president of the Council. Morone, enjoying the Pope’s complete confidence, succeeded in winning first the Emperor Ferdinando I and then the leader of the opposition at the Council, the Cardinal of Lorraine, in favor of a negotiated settlement of the conflict and the prompt conclusion of the Council. A dangerous illness that afflicted the Pope at the end of November 1563 resulted in the concluding session being brought forward to 3 December 1563. Already on 26 January 1564, having recovered, the Pope unconditionally confirmed the Council and immediately sought to implement its reform decrees. His nephew Carlo Borromeo promptly set the example through his holy life and the reform of his archdiocese of Milan. On 2 August 1564 the Pope granted certain powers to the commission of cardinals established to supervise the implementation of the reform decrees and to respond to requests concerning their meaning; from this commission arose the Sacred Congregation of the Council. On 24 March 1564 he published the Index librorum prohibitorum prepared at Trent; on 12 November he prescribed that bishops and those who obtained benefices involving the care of souls should make the Professio fidei Tridentino. On 16 April 1564, at the request of the Emperor Ferdinando I and Duke Guglielmo IV of Bavaria, he granted the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Salzburg, Magdeburg, Prema, and Gran—as well as certain other German and Austrian bishops—full authority to grant Communion under both kinds to Catholics, provided that they first confessed and professed the undivided presence of Jesus Christ even under a single kind.
Certain other tasks entrusted by the Council to the Pope, such as the compilation of the Catechism and the reform of the Missal and Breviary, were begun under P. IV but not completed.
The happy conclusion of the Council of Trent and the beginning of its implementation constitute P. IV’s greatest achievement. Nevertheless, the apostasy movement in the northern countries did not cease during his pontificate: in France the first Huguenot war broke out, in which the Pope supported the Catholics with financial subsidies; the attempt to win Queen Elisabetta of England back to the Catholic Church ended unsuccessfully; in Germany Lutheranism spread more widely in the northern regions, while Calvinism took hold in the southern ones. Despite this, the conclusion of the Council of Trent and the beginning of the implementation of its decrees laid the foundations of the Catholic Reform, which was strengthened under P. IV’s three successors, who drew inspiration from the luminous example of his nephew Carlo Borromeo, whom Pastor rightly calls his uncle’s “good genius.”
The Pope’s interest in the arts and sciences was manifested in the appointment of learned cardinals (for example, Sirleto, Marcantonio Colonna, Hosius, and Paleotti) and in the foundation of the Roman printing press through Paolo Manuzio. The Pope’s finest architectural work is the Villa Pia in the Vatican Gardens, together with the celebrated Porta Pia on the Via Nomentana. P. IV died on 9 December 1565; his remains were transferred in 1583 to the church of S. Maria degli Angeli, which he had restored. — Vedi tav. CII.