Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/26

 GREGORT

GREGORY

work was finally completed in 1582. In the Briefs "Cum pro munere", dated 1 July, 1580, and " Emen- dationem", dated 2 June, 1582, Gregory XIII ordered that henceforth only the emended official text was to be used and that in the future no other text should be printed.

It has already been mentioned that Gregory XIII spent large sums for the erection of colleges and sern- inaries. No expense appeared too high to him, if only it was made for the benefit of the Catholic re- ligion. For the education of poor candidates for the priesthood he spent two million scudi during his pontificate, and for the good of Catholicity he sent large sums of money to Malta, Austria, England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. In Rome he built the magnificent Gregorian chapel in the church of St. Peter, and the Quirinal palace in 1580; a capa- cious granary in the Thermse of Diocletian in 1575, and fountains at the Piazza Navona, the Piazza del Pantheon, and the Piazza del Popolo. In recognition of liis many improvements in Rome the senate and the people erected a statue in his honour on the Capito- line Hill, when he was still living.

The large sums of money spent in this manner necessarily reduced the papal treasury. Acting on the advice of Bonfigliuolo, the secretary of the Camera, he confiscated various baronial estates and castles, because some forgotten feudal liabilities to the papal treasury had not been paid, or because their present owners were not the rigntfu! heirs. The barons were in continual fear lest some of their property would be wrested from them in this way. The result was that the aristocracy hated the papal government, and incited the peasantry to do the same. The papal in- fluence over the aristocracy being thus weakened, the barons of the Romagna made war upon each other, and a period of bloodshed ensued which Gregory XIII was helpless to prevent. Moreover, the imposition of port charges at Ancona and the levy of import taxes on Venetian goods by the papal government, crippled commerce to .a consitlerable extent. The banditti who infested the Caniijagna were protected by the barons and the peasantry, and became daily more bold. They were headed by young men of noble families, such as Alfonso Piccolomini, Roberto Mala- testa, and others. Rome itself was filled with these outlaws, and the papal officers were always and every- where in danger of life. Gregory was helpless against these lawless bands. Their suppression was finally effected by his rigorous successor, Sixtus V.

CiAPPi, Com-pendio delle af'inni e santa vita di Gregorio XIII (Rome, 1591); Bompl.\ni. Historia Pont. Gre^. XIII (Dillingen, 16851: Pal.\tius, Gesln Pontificum liomanorum (Venice, 1688), IV, 329-366; Maffei, Annates Greaorii XIII, 2 vols. (Rome, 17-12); P.\ni, Brei'iarium Gestarum. Pontiftcnm Romannnim (Antwerp, 1753), VI, 718-863; Ranke, Die rumisehen Pavste, tr. Foster, Hislori, of the Pnpex (London, 1906), I, 319-333; ISrosch, <7e.sr-/i. des Kirchenstoates (Gotha, 1880), I, 300 sqq. ; MlLEY, Histonj of the Papal states.

Michael Ott.

Gregory XIV, Pope (Niccolo Sfondrati), b. at Somma,nf'ar Milan, 11 Feb., 15.35; d.at Rome, 15 Oct., 1591. His father Francesco, a Milanese senator, had, after the death of his wife, been created cardinal by Pope Paul III, in 1544. Niccolo studied at the I'lii vorsities of Perugia and Padua, wa-; ordained priest, and then ap- l>iiintcd Bishop of Cremona. in 1560. He participated in the .sessions of the Council of Trent, 1561-1,563. and was created Cardinal-Priest of Santa Cecilia bv Gregory XIII on 12 December. 1583^ Urban VII Asms of Gregory liaving died on 27 September, 1.590. •^^^ Sfondrati was elected to succeed

him on 5 December, 1590, after a protracted con- clave of more than two months, and took the name

of Gregory XIV. The new pope had not aspired to the tiara. Cardinal Montalto, who came to his cell to inform him that the Sacred College had agreed on his election, found him kneeling in praj'er before a crucifix. When on the next daj- he was elected he burst into tears and said to the car- dinals: "God forgive you! what have you done?" From his youth he had Ijeen a man of piety and morti- fication. Before entering the ecclesiastical state he was a constant companion of Charles Borromeo, and when cardinal, he was an intimate friend of Phihp Neri whose holy life he strove to imitate.

As soon as he became pope, he gave his energetic support to the French League, and took active meas- ures against Henrj' of Navarre, whom Sixtus V, in 1585, had declared a heretic and excluded from suc- cession to the French throne. In accordance with the Salic law, after the death of Henry III in 1589, Henry of Navarre was to succeed to the French throne, but the prevalent idea of those times was that no Protests ant could become King of France, which was for the most part (_'athoHe. The nobles, moreover, threatened to rise up against the rule of Henry of Navarre unless he promised to become a Catholic. In order to recon- cile the nobility and the people to his reign, Henry declared on 4 August, 1589, that he would become a Catholic and uphold the Cathohc religion in France. When Gregory' XIV became pope. Henry had not yet fulfilled his promise and gave httle hope of doing it in the near future. The pope, therefore, decided to assist the French League in its efforts to depose Henry by force of arms and in this he was encouraged by Philip II of Spain. In his monitorial letter to the Council of Paris, 1 March, 1591, he renewed the .sen- tence of e.xcommuuication against Henry, and ordered the clergy, nobles, judicial functionaries, and the Third Estate of France to renounce him. under pain of severe penalties. He also sent a monthly subsidy of 15,000 scudi to Paris, and dispatched his nephew Er- cole Sfondrati to France at the head of the papal troops. In the midst of these operations against Henry. Gregorv XIV died, after a short pontificate of 10 months and 10 days.

Gregory XIV created five cardinals, among whom was his nephew Paolo Camillo Sfondrati. He vainly tried to induce PhiUp Neri to accept the purple. On 21 September, 1.591, he raised to the dignity of a reUgious order the Congregation of the Fathers of a Good Death (Clerici regulares ministrantes infirmis) founded by St. Camillus de Lellis. In his Bull "Cogit nos", dated 21 March, 1.591, he forbade imder pain of excommunication all bets concerning the election of a pope, the duration of a pontificate, or the creation of new cardinals. In a decree, dated 18 April, 1591, he ordered reparation to be made to the Indians of the Philippines by their conquerors wherever it was possible, and commanded under pain of excommuni- cation that all Indian slaves in the islands should be set free. Gregory XIV also appointed a commission to revise the Sixtine Bible and another conuni.ssion to continue the re\-ision of the Pian Breviary. The former commi-ssion had its first session on 7 Feb., 1.591 , the latter on 21 April, 1591. Concerning these two commissions see Baumer, "Geschichte des Breviers" (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1895), pp. 479-90.

Ranke, HiMnry nf the Popes (London, 1P06). II. 33-8; Brosch. Gcsrhichte des Kirchmstaates (Goth.T. ISSO), I. .300 sq.; Palattus. Gesta Pontificum Homanoruin (Venire, 16SS), IV. 42.'^36; CiACoNlue-OLDO-Jlcs, Hiitoria; Romannrum Pontificum (Rome, 1677). IV, 213 sq.

Michael Ott.

Gregory XV, Pope (Alessandro Ludoviri'), b. at Bologna, 9 or 15 Januar>'. 1554; d. at Rome, 8 July, 1623. After completing the humanities and philoso- phy under Jesuit teachers, partly at the Roman and partly at the German College in Rome, he returned to Bologna to devote himself to the study of juris-