SIXTUS V, Pope. – Born at Grottammare (Ascoli Piceno) on 13 Dec. 1520; died at Rome on 27 Aug. 1590.
I. Before the Pontificate
Felice Peretti, from an extremely poor family of Montalto nelle Marche, performed as a boy the humblest rural tasks. At the age of twelve he entered the Conventual Friars Minor, obtained the degree in theology at Fermo (1548), acquired a wide culture, especially in theology, assembled a rich library and won fame as a preacher. He served as inquisitor at Venice (1557), consultor of the Roman Inquisition (1560), procurator general and later vicar of the Conventuals, sent with Cardinal Boncompagni to Spain, bishop of Sant’Agata de’ Goti (1566) and of Fermo (1571–77). He enjoyed the trust of St Pius V, who created him cardinal in 1570; relations with the future Gregory XIII, however, were not cordial. He then lived in retirement, devoting himself to studies and in particular to a new edition of the works of St Ambrose, which proved defective because of his wholly personal and uncritical method. At Gregory’s death, in a conclave where religious interests prevailed over political ones, Cardinal Montalto was elected pope by unanimous vote (24 Apr. 1585).II. Character and Programme of Sixtus V
Sixtus displayed in his pontificate the indomitable energy of a “terrible” nature; to his rigid, authoritarian, violent and tenacious character were nevertheless joined piety, simplicity of life and generosity. While furthering the fortunes of his relatives, he avoided excesses of nepotism; placing beside him his nephew Alessandro, whom he had ennobled at fifteen and created cardinal, together with other trusted counsellors, he nevertheless reserved to himself every matter of importance. He consecrated his pontificate to the defence of the Catholic faith, the reform of the Church and the exaltation of the Apostolic See.III. Defence of the Faith and of Papal Authority
Not given to doctrinal controversy, Sixtus avoided taking a firm stand in the dispute over grace then raging especially between Jesuits and Dominicans: when the Faculty of Louvain, under the impulse of Baius, already condemned by previous popes, censured 34 propositions of the Jesuit Lessius, Sixtus imposed silence on both parties, a tacit disapproval of the censure, but took no further measures. He did, however, increase the competence of the Roman Inquisition and promoted the establishment of new tribunals; he also envisaged the publication of a new Index, which was prevented by his death.He wished to give a firm scriptural foundation to religious doctrine by promoting editions of the Bible. The Greek text of the Septuagint and its Latin version were published (1587–88). A commission was entrusted with the critical edition of the Vulgate; but Sixtus took the conclusions to himself and insisted on establishing the text with his own hand, introducing marginal notes, arbitrary omissions and corrections. The Sixtine Vulgate appeared in 1590 from the press of Basa, preceded by a bull declaring it the only authoritative version. The criticisms, in which even Bellarmine concurred, were such that the pope does not appear to have ensured the bull’s promulgation in due form, so that it never acquired the force of law. After his death, the sale of the new Vulgate was suspended and copies were withdrawn; Clement VIII provided a new edition, though retaining the name of Sixtus.
He also had the reform of the Roman Breviary continued by Baronius; he created a commission for a new edition of the Decretals, which did not complete its work before his death; he promoted the publication of the papal constitutions from Leo I, a work by Laerzio Cherubini that appeared under the title Bullarium in 1586; he supervised the collection of the acts of the Apostolic Chamber; and he had even envisaged a central ecclesiastical archive for all Italy.
Jealous of the authority of the pope, he resisted not only the pretensions of Philip II’s representatives in Italy but also measures of the king himself: when Philip issued a Pragmatic on titles that regulated even those of ecclesiastics (1586), Sixtus threatened to place it on the Index and even spoke of excommunicating the king.
IV. Reforming Work
Catholic reform was uppermost in Sixtus’s thoughts. He promoted the improvement of the Roman clergy, imposed penalties for simony, prevented infractions of claustral discipline and enforced the obligation of episcopal and parochial residence. He fostered religious devotion by restoring the stational functions in the Roman basilicas, introducing the feast of the Presentation of Mary, extending to the universal Church that of St Anthony of Padua, canonizing the Dominican Louis Bertrand (1586) and the Franciscan lay brother Diego de Alcalá (1588) and proclaiming St Bonaventure a Doctor of the Church.He was particularly benevolent toward the Franciscan Order; but he also granted favours to other Orders, approving the Fogliani, a branch of the Cistercians, and the Camillians (1586). Though not overly friendly to the Jesuits, he nevertheless approved the decrees of the Inquisition in their favour on the question of the validity of simple vows taken by non-professed members and ordered the release of four fathers imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition. He did, however, require a commission to review the Jesuit Constitutions and imposed on the general Aquaviva the change of name of the “Society of Jesus,” a measure not carried out because of his death.
Through his nuncios he promoted Catholic reform and the repression of heresy in central Europe; he succeeded in having titulars appointed to the long-vacant sees of Hungary; and he founded a university at Graz entrusted to the Jesuits (1588). The weakness of Emperor Rudolph II and his disputes with the pope prevented greater progress of Catholicism. Greater results were achieved in Switzerland and western Germany with the restoration of the Catholic Church in the Appenzell mountains and the conversion of the margrave of Baden.
Sixtus fostered the missions of the Jesuits in Japan, where he erected a see at Funai, and those of the Dominicans and Franciscans in the Philippines and Latin America; he attempted to unite the Eastern Churches and the Coptic Egyptians with Rome.
Of particular importance for the life of the Church were some measures of Sixtus. As early as 20 Dec. 1585 he imposed the visitation of bishops “ad limina Apostolorum,” bringing the Head of the Church into contact with individual dioceses. With the bull Postquam verus (3 Dec. 1586) he highlighted the high dignity of cardinals, their duties and the desirability of choosing them from various nationalities (v. Cardinal, II). He gave the Curia the organization that remained until the reform of Pius X (v. Roman Congregations, Sacred, I), establishing by the bull Immensa aeterni Dei (22 Jan. 1588) fifteen congregations, of which nine for spiritual affairs (Inquisition, Index, Council, Bishops, Regulars, Consistorial, Signatura of Grace, Rites, Vatican Printing House) and six for temporal affairs (Consulta, Fleet, Roman University, Annona, Roads, Bridges and Aqueducts, Taxes). The congregations were to meet every week, and a consistory likewise every week. The cardinals could thus, in union with the pope, govern the Church with greater independence from secular powers, with a suitable division of labour and mature judgment. Among the cardinals were men of worth such as Federico Borromeo, created at twenty-three, and Scipione Gonzaga, protector of Tasso (1587).
V. Activity in International Politics
The interests of the Church were the constant aim of Sixtus even in his political work. Bound by necessity to the king of Spain, who presented himself as the champion of orthodoxy, Sixtus took care to prevent a dangerous increase of Spanish power and strove to maintain peace among Christians.In Italian politics, he remained closely tied to Venice, which he saw not only as a bulwark against Protestants and the Turks but also as a limitation on Spanish preponderance; he furthered the designs of Charles Emmanuel I, which indirectly worked to the detriment of Spain.
The confused and shifting condition of France placed Sixtus in very grave difficulties, among which he had to move with extreme caution and was unable, or perhaps unwilling, to avoid contradictions and errors. He would have liked to see the Huguenot heresy suppressed and the succession of their leader, Henry of Navarre, prevented; yet he disapproved of the rebellious stance of the Guises and the Catholic League in the face of King Henry III, fearing on the one hand that the king might ally himself with the Huguenots, and on the other that a victory by the League, with Spanish support, would increase Spain’s power. He therefore sought to have the Catholics rally around the king; and when the latter concluded a fleeting alliance with the League (7 July 1585), Sixtus issued a bull declaring Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Condé deprived of all right to the succession and to the obedience of their subjects (9 September 1585). This provoked not only a violent reaction from the Huguenots but also the adhesion of many Catholics to Henry of Navarre, who resented papal interference in the dynastic question. After the king’s break with the League, the triumph of the Duke of Guise in Paris, the king’s flight, the assassination of the duke and the cardinal of Guise, and the imprisonment of the cardinal of Bourbon and the archbishop of Lyon at the king’s hands (1588), Sixtus, though condemning the conduct of the Guise, deplored the king’s cowardice and the homicide by which he sought to redeem it, and called the murder of the cardinal of Guise «a sacrilegious and unheard-of crime»; he made the release of the two prisoners a condition for absolving the king. Yet he refused to take more energetic action as urged by Spain; he did not join the revolt of the League and the «Union» of Paris against Henry III, and when the latter allied himself with Henry of Navarre against Paris, Sixtus issued against him a «medicinal and not mortal» monitory decree (24 May 1589). After Henry III’s assassination (1 August 1589), Sixtus sought to bar Henry of Navarre from the throne if he persisted in heresy, and came into conflict with Venice, which had recognized him as King Henry IV. Yet the republic took no stringent measures and remained quite reserved toward the League and the cardinal of Bourbon, proclaimed by it as King Charles X. And although he sent to Madrid a draft alliance with Spain, he did not ratify the treaty, nor did he accept Spain’s demands that the Catholics adhering to Henry IV be excommunicated and their legate expelled from Rome; he even threatened to excommunicate Philip II, who seemed ready to separate from obedience to the Pope in order to defend Christ’s cause single-handed. After the death of Charles X (9 May 1590), as Henry IV’s victory—still that of a heretic—began to take shape, Sixtus had a new treaty prepared with Spain; but he did not ratify this either, and in the face of Spanish pressure he threatened to denounce their ambitious designs and declared that he would not close to Henry of Navarre the path of return to the Church and hence access to the throne. Thus he prepared the way for the future recognition of the converted Henry IV by the Pope and for the revival of France, which he deemed essential to the balance of Europe.
Against Elizabeth of England, «the new Jezebel», Sixtus, while Mary Stuart was still alive, urged an armed intervention by France and Spain; but there is no serious evidence that he had a hand in the Babington Plot. After the execution of Mary Stuart, he made concessions and promises to Philip II but did not grant him investiture of the kingdom, limiting himself to stipulating in a secret pact with him (29 July 1587) that a Catholic king would be elected in England. And although he renewed against Elizabeth the ban and the sentence of disposition, he never ceased to hope that the queen, whose doctrines he did not disavow, might be induced to convert. Little confident in the success of the great Spanish «Armada», after its defeat (July 1588) he refused to give Philip II money for new war preparations.
He revived the plan of a crusade against the Turks, urging Venice to prepare secretly. He welcomed the Polish king Stephen Báthory’s intention to subjugate Russia and attack the Turks with Polish and Russian forces and with the aid of Persia and the Tartars. After the king’s death (12 December 1586), he favored the candidacy of one of the Habsburgs, from whom he hoped for help for the crusade; but he recognized as king the victorious Sigismund of Sweden and, through his nuncio, procured peace between him and the Habsburgs. He also thought of a war against the Barbary corsairs of Africa and the conquest of Egypt; but he failed to win Philip II to the enterprise, absorbed as the latter was in his design of European hegemony.
VI. GOVERNMENT OF THE PAPAL STATE
To the spiritual authority of the Pope and his reforming work, Sixtus wished to give firm support in the temporal sphere. His first task as sovereign was an unrelenting struggle against brigandage, which had become a scourge under the weak rule of his predecessor. The ban on carrying arms under pain of death, impunity and rewards for those who delivered up, alive or dead, a bandit, the prohibition against ambassadors, barons, and communes hindering the arrest of bandits, agreements with neighboring states to prevent refuge being given to them, capital executions even of prominent persons, and the display of heads on the Ponte Sant’Angelo—while they did not uproot the evil entirely, effectively contained its spread as long as the Pope lived. The coasts were defended by a small fleet, so that a commemorative medal could boast that in the State «terra marque securita» [land of marked security].Sixtus’s severity in punishing, even with numerous death sentences, offenses more or less grave—such as adultery, incest, abortion, sodomy, theft, blasphemy, gambling and games, violation of the Sunday precept, and the spreading of false or slanderous news—seemed excessive. Measures against usury and luxury did not fully achieve the aim of moralizing the city, though they improved its customs.
To amass in Castel Sant’Angelo a treasure of four million gold scudi, intended for the supreme needs of the Church and the State, Sixtus not only resorted to strict economies but extended the sale of offices, increased the number and capital of the «Monti» (state loans repaid with interest by the assignment of certain revenues), and raised taxes—measures in use at the time but neither praiseworthy nor beneficial.
Worthy of high praise, however, were his care for a strict and impartial administration, his solicitude for the «causes of the poor», his protection of industry and commerce, the provisioning of Rome, the work he provided for thousands of unemployed in a house at Ponte Sisto, and the opening of a hospice for beggars unable to work. His boldest and noblest undertaking was the draining of the marshes at Ravenna, under Orvieto, at the mouth of the Tiber, and above all of the Pontine marshes, whose reclamation he advanced for three years with remarkable vigor.
Sixtus showed particular favor to his native region: he founded the Montalto College in Bologna for young men from the Marches; he established a supreme tribunal in Macerata; he raised Fermo to an archiepiscopal see; he made Montalto, San Severino, Tolentino, and Loreto bishoprics; and in Loreto he carried out important works, including the new fortifications of the city.
VII. THE PATRONAGE OF ST. SIXTUS V: THE SISTINE ROME — Like the most celebrated popes of the Renaissance, St. Sixtus V was a generous patron of culture and the arts. He promoted the Roman university by renewing the College of Professors (1586); he founded the universities of Fermo, Graz, and Quito; in addition to the College of Bologna, he established the Franciscan College of St. Bonaventure in Rome; he commissioned a new grand building for the Vatican Library in the Belvedere courtyard, with a richly decorated hall featuring representations of the triumphs of the Church and of St. Sixtus; he opened a printing press in the Vatican entrusted to Domenico Basa; he granted privileges and subsidies and procured books and manuscripts for the publication of notable works, such as the writings of St. Bonaventure and the Annals of Baronius.
But above all, he desired that the resurgent Papacy should have a worthy seat in Rome. Even as a cardinal, he had built the magnificent Villa Montalto between the Viminal and the Esquiline, designed by Domenico Fontana, who later became the principal executor of his major works as Pope. During his pontificate, he entrusted Giacomo della Porta with the completion of St. Peter’s dome, within whose lantern his name and the date, 1590, are inscribed in musical notes; he began construction of the new Vatican Palace, which remains the habitual residence of the Popes; he had the monumental staircase built from the Vatican to St. Peter’s; he enlarged the Quirinal Palace and built the Lateran Palace and the northern façade of the Basilica, with the loggia of blessings. Near the Lateran, he transferred the Scala Santa, adding two side chapels and a portico to the Sancta Sanctorum. He rebuilt many Roman churches; at St. Mary Major, he constructed the great chapel beside the right nave, placing the oratory of the Nativity beneath the altar and erecting on the side walls the tomb of St. Pius V and his own.
He restored the Alexandrine aqueduct, the Acqua Felice, through immense labor, bringing water as far as the Aracoeli and the Pincio, and supplying great fountains, including that of Moses at St. Susanna. To facilitate pilgrims’ access to the basilicas, he built very long roads, such as the one winding from St. Mary Major to the Pincio, part of which still bears the name Via Sistina. He expanded the squares; he planned to construct a large basin at Piazza Termini, diverting the waters of the Aniene.
Not always in these works did he display good artistic taste; nor were ancient and venerable monuments respected: imposing remains of the Baths of Diocletian and the Septizonium of Septimius Severus were destroyed. Yet the Trajan and Antonine columns were restored and surmounted by statues of the Apostles, to demonstrate how the pagan world prepared the triumph of Christianity. From the ruins of Roman buildings, obelisks were taken and erected at the beginning of the Via Sistina, at St. John’s, at St. Croce, and at Piazza del Popolo: most famous is that of St. Peter’s Square, which was transported from the Circus of Nero and raised under Fontana’s direction, amid the enthusiasm of the people (1586); the inscriptions on the obelisk and its base, celebrating the victories and the Reign of Christ, reveal the Pope’s intent.
VIII. A GLANCE AT THE WORK OF ST. SIXTUS — After tenaciously resisting the weakening of his strength and the grave cares of his spirit, and attending to the duties of his lofty office until the end, St. Sixtus V piously concluded his pontificate, which his feverish activity may have rendered shorter than it otherwise would have been. The rabble, angered by his rigid justice and heavy taxes, attempted to overturn the statue erected to him by the Senate in the Palazzo dei Conservatori; the Pope’s body, first buried provisionally in St. Peter’s, was later given a worthy resting place in the monument at St. Mary Major. Posterity has rendered justice to the great Pontiff. A man of vast vision, of immense designs, of iron will, and of tireless industry, St. Sixtus did not always succeed in realizing his plans, nor did he always execute them happily. Yet his pontificate left an indelible mark on the history of the Church, of the Papal State, and of Rome. Even the anecdotes, true and false, that have grown up around him show how vividly his memory endures. — See pl. XLVIII.