URBAN VIII, POPE. — Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini, born in Florence, where he was baptized, on 5 April 1568, died on 29 July 1644. The family, originally from the Marches, had grown wealthy through commerce, and moved from Ancona first to Val d’Elsa, where they changed the three wasps in their coat of arms to three bees and altered their original surname of Tafani to Barberini, after the homonymous castle; then, in the 14th century, they moved to Florence.
The fifth of six children of Antonio Barberini and Camilla Barbadori, orphaned of his father at the age of three, he studied with the Jesuits in Florence, then in Rome under his uncle Francesco Barberini, apostolic protonotary, and then spent two years studying law in Pisa. He became referendary in the Segnatura di Giustizia and, under Gregory XIV, of Grace; in 1598 he accompanied Clement VII to Ferrara; he was entrusted with settling a dispute with Venice over the waters of the Po (1599); then he was governor of Fano. In October 1601 he carried the blessed swaddling bands from the Pope to the newborn Dauphin Louis, son of Henry IV. Appointed archbishop of Nazareth in October 1604, he was sent as nuncio to Paris, and on 11 September 1606 he was created cardinal at the age of 38. In 1607 he held the protectorate of Scotland; then the bishopric of Spoleto, which he restored, including its cathedral; he was legate of Bologna from August 1611 to 1614. Returning to Rome, he was named prefect of the Segnatura di Giustizia, and after the death of Gregory XV on 8 July 1623, following a long conclave, he was elected pope on 6 August 1623, at the age of 56, thanks to the support of Cardinal Maurizio of Savoy, who in the conclave had won over Cardinals Borghese and Ludovisi. He was consecrated on 29 September.
Prudent by temperament and by experience in affairs, he always distrusted cardinals whom he knew to be tied to sovereigns, and wished to impress his personal stamp on the government of the Church. He was extraordinarily generous toward his relatives, granting them dignities and revenues: his brother Carlo was named governor of Borgo and general of the Church; a son of Carlo, Francesco, was made a cardinal at the age of 26, and another son, Antonio, at barely 20; his brother Taddeo, destined to perpetuate the family, was given the prefecture of Rome. Yet, jealous of his authority, he gave them no share in the government of the Church. Amid the tangle of conflicting interests among the Catholic powers, Urban sought an impartial and pacific stance, and gave proof of this when, after the sudden death of Gregory XV eight days before the end of his term, the young son of the aged Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere, he managed to secure recognition of the Holy See’s rights over the Duchy of Urbino and sent Berlinghiero Gessi as governor.
In the more complex question of the Valtellina, whose fortresses Gregory XV had received on deposit from France and Spain, Urban had Chiavenna added to them, and in two treaties concluded in Rome on 24 February 1624, he obtained protection for the Catholic Valtelliners and for the Spaniards the right of passage from Italy to Germany through the valley and Bormio. France, backed by its Protestant allies the Grisons, demanded that the Valtellina be ceded to II. Urban resisted, and when a French army advancing from the Engadine occupied Poschiavo and Brusio and forced the papal forces to evacuate the entire Valtellina, he demanded punishment of the Marquis of Coevuves and the return of the fortresses, backing his demand with arms. Yet, unwilling to push matters to extremes, and disagreeing with the Spaniards, he sent Cardinal Francesco Barberini to attempt a mediation between Spain and France, first in Paris and then in Madrid. The Treaty of Monzón (5 March 1626), concluded between Philip IV and Louis XIII just as the papal envoy was arriving in Barcelona on his way to Madrid, nonetheless gave satisfaction to the Pope, since it restored the fortresses (which were to be destroyed), admitted only Catholic worship in the Valtellina, and freed Italy from the threat of war.
In the shifting Thirty Years’ War, which had broken out shortly before the start of his pontificate, Urban supported Maximilian of Bavaria by sending financial aid; he urged German and Spanish bishops to defend the purity of the faith; he promoted an alliance between Spain and France for an attack on England; but he declined Richelieu’s invitation to join the alliance and send arms and money for the conquest of La Rochelle. The fall of that stronghold by starvation was greeted by Urban with genuine joy, since it was the premise for victory over Protestantism. Urban gave substantial aid to the emperors Ferdinand II and III in their work of recatholicization in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia; he reformed the morals of the clergy and promoted Catholic restoration in the Austrian hereditary lands and in other parts of the Empire. He therefore deemed the delay in publishing the Edict of Restitution (q.v.; March 1629) unjustified, and distrusting what Olivares claimed—that Philip IV “always waged war for the sake of religion”—and aware of the insatiable political-ecclesiastical pretensions and the lust for dominion of the Spaniards, he worked for a rapprochement between Bavaria and France, aimed at counterbalancing Habsburg power. When the succession to the Duchy of Mantua, a fief of the Empire, opened up, he supported in agreement with France the marriage of Charles of Rethel to Maria Gonzaga, to prevent Spain from incorporating that duchy into Lombardy or placing one of its own creatures there at the death of Vincenzo II Gonzaga. And when later the Spanish-Piedmontese invaded Montferrat, Urban insisted on French military intervention to avert the danger of increased servitude for Italy under the growing power of Spain. Yet even while promising the French king to put 12,000 soldiers in the field, he knew how to resist pleas and threats to join the league proposed by the French king, who, having crossed the Montgenèvre, aimed to replace Spanish servitude with French. The threat of a descent of German troops into Italy and the fear that the fall of Mantua would aggravate Italy’s servitude moved Urban to urge Bologna, Ravenna, and Ferrara to prepare their defenses, and to press Maximilian and the electors to insist with Ferdinand II for the pacification of Italy. The investiture of Charles of Nevers, granted by the Emperor, was a diplomatic victory for Urban and the Catholic League.
URBANO VIII, PAPA - Monument to U. VIII. Work by Bernini. Basilica of St Peter.
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The tensions arose from the pretensions of the Caesaropapist Catholic King and the resentment of the Spanish Court over the refusal of the cardinal’s hat to Abbot Francesco Peretti, who was supported by the court, as well as from the insolence of the Spanish nuncio, who, while UMBERTO (10 May 1637) was ill, already spoke of a conclave, while the Barberini hired three hundred Corsicans to prevent surprises; they were also due to the attempt to paralyze the tribunal of the nuncio and to bend UMBERTO with flattery and threats toward the state control of the ecclesiastical nunciature. Only after the uprising in Catalonia (July 1640), supported by France and by UMBERTO, and the secession from Spain of Portugal, whose new sovereign, the Duke of Braganza (GIOVANNI IV), declared himself devoted to the Holy See, did Spain reach an agreement (27 April 1641) that safeguarded the independence of the nunciature and prevented its state control. In Sicily, the tribunal of the “Sicilian monarchy” (q.v.) threatened to annihilate every legal jurisdiction and, with “letters of safeguard,” every independence of the bishops. PHILIP IV removed from his post as lieutenant the archbishop of Palermo, Cardinal GIOVANNI DORIA, who had opposed the tribunal of the monarchy and had appealed to the Council of Trent.
To UMBERTO we owe the Urban College of Propaganda Fide, with an attached boarding school for twelve young Orientals, the polyglot printing press, and the new seat. To him belongs the establishment of not a few colleges, the dispatch of Franciscan, Dominican, Jesuit, and Augustinian missionaries to India, Siam, the Moluccas, the Philippines, Japan, and of the Jesuit Antonio D’Andrade to Tibet. Nor did he neglect to strengthen the State militarily, for which he carried out works at Castel S. Angelo, completed the fortifications of Loreto, Ancona, Sinigallia, Pesaro, Rimini, the Castello of Orvieto, and Civitavecchia, whose port he restored and enlarged by equipping it with an arsenal. He increased the arms factory at Tivoli and improved armaments against the Barbary corsairs. Other measures were aimed at improving agriculture, especially in the Roman countryside, and at regulating the grain supply. A poet and man of letters of refined sensibility, he composed poetry with religious (reform of the hymns of the Breviary [q.v.]) and civic intent, in Italian, Latin, and Greek. A notable benefactor of the Vatican Library, which he enriched with books and rare manuscripts. In his home he gathered together whatever was rarest and most beautiful in statues, paintings, frescoes, cameos, archaeological remains, manuscripts, and incunabula. To him is also due the merit of having established the canonical procedure for beatifications and canonizations (q.V. CANONIZZAZIONE).
The pontificate of URBAN VIII coincided with the most flourishing period of Roman Baroque and the work of Lorenzo Bernini, whom URBAN VIII held in high regard. Famous works include: the baldachin of St Peter’s, the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, the funerary monument of URBAN VIII where, beside the Pope, the statues of Justice and Charity towered; the Trevi Fountain and that of Piazza Barberini; much of Piazza Navona; and finally Palazzo Barberini, in which his genius shone forth. URBAN VIII continued in worthy fashion the patronage of Sixtus V, Clement VIII and Paul V. Great artists worked under his patronage, invited and favoured by him: besides Bernini, Pietro da Cortona, Andrea Sacchi, Maderno, Domenico Castelli, Vincenzo della Greca and Bartolomeo Braccioli.