Paul III

Youth

The grandfather of the future pontiff was commander as a chief of the papal troops under Eugene IV; his/her oldest son perishes with the Bataille of Fornuovo; the second, Pier Luigi, married Giovanelle Gaetani, sister of the lord of Semoneta. Among the children, there were beautiful Giulia, which married Orsini, and Alessandro, later Paul III.

Alessandro accepted best education than its time could offer; initially in Rome, where it had as tutor Pomponio Leto; then with Florence with the palate of Laurent Splendid the, where with the future Leon X was born its friendship, six years its junior. Its contemporaries rent his scholarship in all the disciplines of the Renaissance, particularly its control of the Latin and Italian traditional letters. With such advantages of birth and talent, its advance in the ecclesiastical career was fast.

Career curiale

The September 20th 1493, it was high with the row of cardinal-deacon of S. Like and Damien by Alexandre VI. He carried purple during more than forty years, crossing all the ranks until becoming senior of the Sacré College. In phase with the abuses its time, it accumulated many opulent benefit, but it spent its immense income with a generosity which was worth the praise of the artists and the affection of the Roman people to him. Its natural capacities and its diplomatic skill, acquired long experience, were worth a great prestige to him among his/her colleagues of Crowned College, more especially as its Palais Farnèse exceeded in magnificence all the other places of Rome. That it continued to grow in favor under pontiffs of natures as opposite as the Borgia, Della Rovere and Médicis, is a reasonable evidence of its skill.

It, on two preceding occasions, had already passed to two fingers of the tiara, when the Conclave of 1534, almost with the formality of a plebiscite, proclaimed it successor of Clément VII. It is to be put at the credit of its reputation and with the good will of the cardinals, that the factions which divided Crowned the College heard on its election. He was universally recognized like the man of the moment, and the piety and the zeal which had characterized it since he had become priest made it possible to forget extravagances of its youths.

Pope

The people of Rome are delighted by the election to the tiara of the first citizen of their city since Martin {{Romanian|V|5}}. Paul III|3 the November 3rd was crowned and did not waste time to harness itself with the essential reforms. Nobody, after having seen his portrait by Titien, can forget the marvellous expression of reserve of this worn and émaciée figure. These small piercing eyes, and this particular attitude somebody ready to leap or move back in says long on this diplomat aguerri, whom one would in vain have sought to deceive or cause a drop in his guard. Of its extreme prudence, and difficulty of diverting it obligations of its load, Pasquino drew the facetious remark that the third Paul was a Vas dilationis (vase of handing-over). Rise with the cardinalat in its grandsons, Alessandro Farnese, fourteen years old, and Guido Ascanio Sforza, sixteen years old, displeased with the party of the reform and involved the protests of the emperor, but that was forgiven, when a little later it introduced with Crowned College of the men of the hardening of Reginald Pole, Contanini, Sadoleto and Caraffa.

The council of Thirty

Shortly after its rise, on June 2nd, 1536, Paul III|3 a ecumenical council with Mantoue for next May convened; but the opposition of the princes Protesting S and the refusal of the Duke of Mantoue to assume the responsibility to maintain the order thwarted the project. It published a news bubble, convening a council with Vicence for on May 1st, 1538; the major hurdle was there the renewal of hostility between Charles-Quint and François {{Romanian|I|1}} {{er}}. The old pontiff managed to convince them to hold with him a conference to Nice and to conclude a truce from ten years. Like good will guarantees, a little girl of Paul was married with a French prince, and the emperor gave his daughter, Marguerite, with Octave (Ottavio), the son of Pierre Louis (Pier Luigi), founder of the dynasty Farnèse of Parma.

Many causes contributed to delay the opening of the ecumenical council. The increase in power that a Germany reunified would have put between the hands of Charles was so intolerable in Francois, that him, who persecuted the heresy in his own kingdom with as well of cruelty as the pope had to call it with réfréner his violence, became the faithful ally of the smalcaldic Ligue, than it encouraged to reject all the openings of reconciliation. Charles himself was not to blame because, in spite of its desire for the behavior of a council, it held with the idea that the religious differences in Germany could be regulated by conferences joining together the two parts. These conferences, like any attempt at this kind to regulate the differences apart from the courses normals of the Church, led to a waste of time, and made much more evil than of good. Charles had an false idea of the organization of an ecumenical council. In its desire to link all the parts, he sought a vague formula to which all could have subscribed, falling down in the error of the Byzantine emperors. A council of the Church, on the contrary, must formulate the faith with such a precision that no one Hérétique cannot subscribe to it: that took several years to convince the Emperor and his advisers that the Catholicisme and the Protestantisme are as opposite as the light and darkness. During this time, Paul III|3 dealt with the reform of the papal court with a strength which paved the way of the disciplinary guns of Thirty. It named commissions to raise the abuses of any kind; it reformed the Apostolic Cour, the court of Rote, the apostolic Pénitencerie, and the apostolic Chancellerie. It reinforced the prestige of papacy by doing itself what its predecessors entrusted to a council. In the permanent quarrel between François I|1 er and Charles-Quint, Paul III|3 a strict neutrality preserved, although Charles pressed it to support the Empire and to subject François to the censure of the Church. The attitude of Paul, like Italian patriot, is enough to prevent the emperor from being only referee of the Italy. It is as much to preserve the pontifical territories, that to promote its family interests that Paul exhorted trustworthy Charles and his cardinals, with the erection of Pleasure and Parma in a duchy for his/her son Pier Luigi Farnese. A quarrel occurred with Gonzaga, the imperial governor of Milan, which ended later in the assassination of Pier Luigi and the final loss of Pleasure for the States Pontificaux.

When the Traité of Crespi (September 18th, 1544) put an end to the disastrous wars between Charles-Quint and François I|1 er, Paul vigorously started again the project of behavior of an ecumenical council. During this time, it occurred that the emperor had developed a program of grown sound, cantilever on several essential points with that of the pope. Since the Protestants repudiated a council chaired by the Roman Pontiff, Charles was solved to subject the princes by the weapons. Paul did not oppose it, and he promised to help it with three hundred and thousand ducats and twenty thousand men of foot; but he added the condition wisely that Charles should not conclude any treaty separated with the heretics and not to make any agreement prejudicial to the Faith and the rights of the Holy See. Charles wished whereas the council was prolonged until the victory of the Catholics. Moreover, expect that the fight with the preachers of the heresy would be been obstinated more than the conflict with the princes, it pressed the pontiff to avoid formulating Dogme S of faith for the present and confining work of the council to the reinforcement of the discipline. The pope could subscribe to none of these ideas.

Finally, after ceaseless difficulties (December 13rd, 1545), the Concile of Thirty held its first session. In seven sessions, the last having taken place on March 13rd, 1547, the fathers drew up themselves with strength vis-a-vis the most important questions of the faith and the discipline. Without listening to the threats and the protests of the imperial party, he formulated for all times the catholic doctrines on the writings, the original sin, the justification and the sacraments. The council had started its work well, when the release of the Peste to Thirty obliged with an adjournment: The council was transferred to Bologna. the Paul pope was not the instigator of the adjournment of the council; he ratified only the decision of the fathers. Fifteen prelates, devoted to the emperor, refused to leave Thirty. Charles required the return of the council in German territory, but its deliberations continued in Bologna until, finally, the April 21st, the pope, with an aim of avoiding a Schisme, deferred the council for one unlimited duration. The wisdom of the energetic action of the council, to thus establish the fundamental truths of the catholic creed, became soon obvious, when the emperor and his advisers semi-Protestants inflicted in Germany their Intérime religion, which was scorned by the two parts. the Paul pope, who had brought to the emperor an essential help in the smalcaldic Guerre, now measured the theological amateurism of Charles, and their dissensions lasted from now on until the death of the pontiff.

End

The end of Paul came suddenly. After the assassination of Pier Luigi, it had fought to retain Plaisance and Parma in the bosom of the church and had deprived Ottavio, the son of Pier Luigi and son-in-law of Charles Quint, of these duchies. Ottavio, entrusting to the generosity of the emperor, refused to obey; what broke the heart of the old man, when he learned that his favorite grandson, the Farnèse Cardinal, was recipient in the transaction. It was taken of a violent fever and died in Quirinal, at the age of eighty-two years.

It rests in the Basilique Saint-Pierre in the tomb drawn by Michel-Angel and set up by Guglielmo della Porta. All the popes do not rest in a monument corresponding to their importance in the History; but well little will dispute the right of Farnèse to rest right under the pulpit of Pierre. In Rome, its name is written in all the city that it renovated. The Vault Pauline, work of Michel-Angel to the Vault Sixtine, the streets of Rome, which it lengthened and widens, the many associated objets d'art in the name of Farnèse, all speaks with eloquence about the remarkable personality about the pontiff who turned over the course of the things in favor of the religion. So to that we add the favor which Paul granted to the new religious orders (Capuchins, Barnabites, Théatins, Jésuites, Ursulines and well of others), we are obliged to recognize that its reign was one of most profitable of the history of the Church.

See too

On slavery

As of 1537, Paul III condemned officially in writing twice this practice, putting at it the weight of its authority of pope. The economic imperatives, doubled of a manifest loss of political power of papacy since the end of the Middle Ages and especially the secession Anglican, did not have an effect on the sovereigns of Occident, except Charles Quint which, on recommendation of its Commission of the Indies had prohibited this one before even as the Church did not give an opinion.

Veritas ipsa
Sublimis Deus
Controversy of Valladolid

Sources

P. Sforza Pallavicini (transl. H. Migne), History of the council of Thirty , imp. Migne, 1844;
O. Ponvinio, Pontificorum Romanorum vitæ .

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