Urban VIII, Pope

URBAN VIII, Pope. - Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini, b. in Florence, where he was baptized, on 5 April 1568, d. on 29 July 1644. The family, of Marchigian origin, having grown wealthy through commerce, moved from Ancona first to the Val d'Elsa, where it changed the three wasps of its coat of arms into three bees and its original name of Tafani into that of Barberini, from the castle of the same name; then, in the 14th century, it moved to Florence.

Fifth of the six children of Antonio Barberini and Camilla Barbadori, orphaned of his father at the age of three, he studied under the Jesuits in Florence, then in Rome under his uncle Francesco Barberini, apostolic protonotary, and then devoted two years to law in Pisa. Referendary of the Segnatura di Giustizia and, under Gregory XIV, of that of Grazia, he accompanied (1598) Clement VII to Ferrara; he was charged with settling a dispute with Venice over the waters of the Po (1599); then he was governor of Fano. In Oct. 1601 he brought the blessed swaddling clothes from the Pope for the newborn Dauphin Louis, son of Henry IV. Appointed archbishop of Nazareth (Oct. 1604), he was sent as nuncio to Paris and on 11 Sept. 1606 was created cardinal at the age of 38. In 1607 he held the protectorate of Scotland; then the bishopric of Spoleto, whose cathedral he restored; he was legate of Bologna from Aug. 1611 to 1614. Having returned to Rome, he was appointed prefect of the Segnatura di Giustizia and, after the death of Gregory XV on 8 July 1623, following a long Conclave, on 6 Aug. 1623, he was elected pope at the age of 56 thanks to Card. Maurice of Savoy, who in the Conclave won over for him Card. Borghese and Ludovisi. He was consecrated on 29 Sept.

Prudent by temperament and by his experience in affairs, he always distrusted the cardinals whom he knew to be tied to sovereigns, and he wished to impart a personal impulse to the government of the Church. He was extraordinarily generous toward his relatives, in dignities and in revenues: his brother Carlo was appointed governor of Borgo and general of the Church; a son of his, Francesco, was appointed cardinal at 26, another son, Antonio, at barely 20; his brother Taddeo, destined to perpetuate the family, received the prefecture of Rome. Nevertheless, most jealous of his authority, he gave them no part at all in the government of the Church. In the tangle of the conflicting interests of the Catholic powers, U. proposed for himself an impartial and peaceful attitude, and he gave proof of it when, the young son of the old duke Francesco Maria della Rovere having come suddenly to his death through his own disorders, eight days before the end of Gregory XV, he succeeded in having the rights of the Holy See over the Duchy of Urbino recognized and sent Berlinghiero Gessi as governor.

In the more complex question of the Valtellina, whose fortresses Gregory XV had received in deposit, on behalf of France and Spain, U. had Chiavenna added to them, and in two Treaties, concluded in Rome on 24 Feb. 1624, he obtained protection for the Valtellinese Catholics, and for the Spaniards the passage from Italy to Germany through the valley and Bormio. France, supported by the Protestant Grisons, its allies, demanded that the Valtellina be ceded to it. U. resisted, and when a French army, moving from the Engadine, occupied Poschiavo and Brusio and forced the pontifical troops to evacuate the whole Valtellina, U. demanded the punishment of the Marquis of Coeuvres and the return of the fortresses, backing the demand with arms. However, in order not to push things to extremes, disagreeing with the Spaniards, he sent Card. Francesco Barberini, in an attempt at mediation between Spain and France, first to Paris and then to Madrid. The Treaty of Monzón (5 March 1526) concluded between Philip IV and Louis XIII, when the pontifical envoy had just arrived in Barcelona on the road to Madrid, nevertheless gave satisfaction to the Pope, because it restored to him the fortresses, which were to be destroyed, admitted only the Catholic worship in the Valtellina and freed Italy from the threat of war.

In the shifting Thirty Years' War, which had broken out a lustrum before the beginning of his pontificate. U. supported Maximilian of Bavaria by sending financial aid; he urged German and Spanish bishops to defend the purity of the faith, promoted the alliance between Spain and France for an attack against England; but he did not accept Richelieu's invitation to join the alliance and send arms and money for the conquest of La Rochelle. The fall of this fortress through famine was hailed by U. with true joy, because it was the premise of victory over Protestantism. U. effectively helped the emperors Ferdinand II and III in the work of re-Catholicizing Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, reformed the morals of the clergy and promoted the Catholic restoration in the Austrian hereditary lands and in other regions of the Empire. He therefore considered unjustified the delay in the publication of the Edict of Restitution (v.; March 1629) and, distrusting what Olivares asserted, that Philip IV "always waged war in behalf of religion," knowing the insatiability of Spanish politico-ecclesiastical claims and the greed for dominion of the Spaniards, he worked for a rapprochement between Bavaria and France, aimed at counterbalancing the power of the Habsburgs. When the succession of the Duchy of Mantua, a fief of the Empire, opened up, in agreement with France he supported the marriage of Charles of Rethel with Maria Gonzaga, to prevent Spain, at the death of Vincenzo II Gonzaga, from incorporating that Duchy with Lombardy or placing a creature of its own there. And when, later, the Spanish-Piedmontese invaded Montferrat, U. insisted on the intervention of French arms to avert the danger of an aggravation of Italy's servitude under the increased Spanish power. But although promising the French King to put 12 thousand soldiers on a war footing, he knew how to resist the prayers 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 servitude for Italy moved U. to urge Bologna, Ravenna and Ferrara to prepare their defense, and to solicit Maximilian and the electors to press Ferdinand II for the pacification of Italy. The investiture of Charles of Nevers, granted by the Emperor, was a diplomatic victory of U. and of the Catholic League. Fe-

always to the Franco-Bavarian Alliance. U. moved Louis XIII of France to become patron of Catholic interests with Gustavus Adolphus, who had penetrated into Germany in 1629, and of an understanding between Catholics and Protestants in Germany. The intervention in war of Gustavus Adolphus could not but appear to U. as a threat to the peace of Italy and of the Catholic world. Therefore he appealed to the Catholic princes for an agreement that would ensure peace, necessary for the defense of the faith and of the Empire against the Swede. U.'s policy triumphed in the Diet of Regensburg, in which Philip IV of Spain, who had threatened to come to Rome to depose U., whom he did not forgive for his hostility to the House of Austria, was isolated and had to be induced to peace. But peace was threatened by the arrogance of the Spanish ambassador, the Count of Oñate, by the intrigues of the Spaniards and by the tergiversations of France, by the Habsburg policy aimed at asserting its power over the princes of the Empire. Nevertheless U.'s understanding with the Catholic League was strengthened, and it was also due to U. that the attempt to restore the Palatinate to Frederick V failed. The Franco-Swedish alliance put the relations between the Habsburgs and U. to a harder test. The Pope urged, in vain, the King of France to become mediator between them and Sweden; he aided financially the League and the Emperor when, after the victory of Breitenfeld, Gustavus Adolphus could constitute a threat to Italy, but he constantly resisted the alliance with the Habsburgs that would have led him to war against a Catholic prince; he indeed carried out an intense diplomatic activity in Madrid, Vienna and Paris to reach an understanding between the Habsburgs and France and to promote a defensive league among the Italian states in May 1632, when the descent of Gustavus Adolphus into Italy seemed imminent. Although his sudden death made such an alliance unnecessary, U.'s situation between the Spaniards and the Habsburgs did not improve: the Spaniards demanded that U. excommunicate Louis XIII of France and recall Cardinal Richelieu. The latter threatened schism when U. showed his discontent with the Franco-Swedish league and demanded that U. ally himself with France, a proposal that U. let drop, as harmful. The Spaniards, dissatisfied with U.'s financial aid alone, threatened to assemble a council against him; in the autumn of 1633, Madrid proposed to him to enter an anti-French league, while France instead asked U. for an understanding for the maintenance of the statu quo in Italy. U., who had vainly suggested separate negotiations for Catholics in Rome and for Protestants in a city to be designated (1641), once war broke out in Italy worked more than ever for peace. Already on Sept. 17, 1635 he appointed a legate for the peace congress. But his appeal remained unheeded, amid the Emperor's threats to make peace with the Protestants and to ally himself with the Turks, if he had not been helped by U. Equally unheeded remained the briefs of Jan. 7, 1644, to the Queen of France and to Mazarin, with which he had attempted to dissolve the new alliance of France with Sweden and with the Hungarian Protestants in bitter struggle against the Empire. Europe was bloodied; vast regions were made desert by war, famine, and plague. Only in Apr. 1644 did the plenipotentiaries gather at Münster for the peace congress. But shortly afterward U. died.

He worked much for the defense of the Catholic faith, making use of the Congregation of the Inquisition. Among the condemned were some who had plotted against U., others for sorcery and necromancy. Among the investigated was Tommaso Campanella (v.) and among the condemned Galileo (v.), though esteemed by U. as a scientist.

U. instituted (1623) a special cardinalitial Congregation so that the ecclesiastical jurisdictions and immunities, regulated by Gregory XV, would be respected. It had much work to do especially in Savoy, where the new nuncio had to call attention to the heretics of Pinerolo and regain what was lost; in Lucca, rebellious with respect to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, Rome issued the interdict (Apr. 2, 1640) from which the city was freed only three years later; with Venice, to other grounds of dispute was added the claim of precedence between the Venetian ambassador to Rome Giovanni Pesaro and the prefect of Rome. With Spain, though never reaching a rupture, inadvisable for political and religious calculations, there were frequent mistrusts, due to the Caesaropapist claims of the Catholic King and to the resentment of the Spanish Court for the denial of the cardinal's hat to Abbot Francesco Peretti, supported by the court, to the insolence of the Spanish nuncio, who, when U. was ill (May 10, 1637), already spoke of a conclave, while the Barberini hired three hundred Corsicans to avoid surprises; and due also to the attempt to paralyze the tribunal of the nuncio and to bend U. with flattery and threats to statize the ecclesiastical nunciature. Only after the insurrection of Catalonia (July 1640), supported by France and by U., and the detachment from Spain of Portugal, whose new sovereign, Duke of Braganza (John IV), declared himself devoted to the Holy See, did Spain come to an agreement (Apr. 27, 1641), which saved the independence of the nunciature and averted its statization. In Sicily, the tribunal of the "Sicilian monarchy" (v.) threatened to annihilate every legal jurisdiction and, with the "letters of safeguard," every independence of the bishops. Philip IV removed from his post as lieutenant the archbishop of Palermo, Cardinal Giovanni Doria, who confronted the tribunal of the monarchy and appealed to the Council of Trent.

To U. is owed the Urban College of Propaganda fide, with an attached studentship for 12 young Orientals, the polyglot printing press and the new seat. To him the institution of not a few colleges, the sending of Franciscan, Dominican, Jesuit, 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, Castello di Orvieto, Civitavecchia, whose port he restored and enlarged, equipping it with an arsenal. He increased the arms factory of Tivoli, improved the armament against the Barbary pirates. Other measures were aimed at improving agriculture, especially of the Roman countryside, and at regulating the grain supply. A poet and man of letters of fine sensibility, he wrote poetry, with religious (reform of the hymns of the Breviary [v.]) and civil intentions, in Italian, Latin and Greek. Highly meritorious for the Vatican Library, which he enriched with books and rare manuscripts. In his house he collected the rarest and most beautiful things that could be found in statues, paintings, frescoes, cameos, archaeological remains, manuscripts and incunabula. To him is also owed the merit of having fixed the canonical procedure for beatifications and canonizations (v. CANONIZZAZIONE).

The pontificate of U. coincided with the most flourishing period of the Roman Baroque and of the work of Lorenzo Bernini, whom U. held close. Famous are: the baldachin of St. Peter's, the church of S. Andrea della Valle, the funeral monument of U. where, beside the Pope, the statues of Justice and Charity tower; the Trevi Fountain and that of Piazza Barberini; a great part of Piazza Navona, and finally the Palazzo Barberini, in which his genius shone. U. worthily continued the patronage of Sixtus V, Clement VIII and Paul V. Great artists worked, invited and cherished by him: besides Bernini, Pietro da Cortona, Andrea Sacchi, Maderno, Domenico Castelli, Vincenzo della Greca, Bartolomeo Braccioli.

Raffaele Ciasca