Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/816

 schism but for whom the pope was unable to secure assistance. Urban sanctioned the order of Jesuates and founded the medical school at Montpellier. On account of the poor repair of Rome, the restlessness of the Romans and the discontent of the French cardinals in Italy, he at length announced his intention of returning to France, avowedly to settle trouble between France and England. He took ship at Corneto on the 5th of September 1370, and, arriving at Avignon on the 24th of the same month, died on the 19th of December. Urban was serious and humble, opposed to all nepotism, simony, and secular pomp. He was himself of blameless morality and reformed many abuses in the curia. He was honoured as a saint immediately after his death, and beatified by Pius IX. in 1870. Urban's successor was Gregory XI.

VI. (Bartolommeo Prignano), pope from the 8th of April 1378 to the 15th of October 1389, was born at Naples in 1318. He was made bishop of Acerenza in 1364, and in 1377 was translated to the archiepiscopal see of Bari and placed in charge of the papal chancery. On the death of Gregory XI., who had finally returned to Rome from Avignon, he was elected pope in a conclave held under circumstances of great excitement, owing to popular apprehension of an intention of the French cardinals to elect a French pope and again abandon Rome. The populace broke into the hall after the election had been made and dispersed the cardinals, but the latter returned and confirmed their action on the following day. Urban VI. turned his attention at once to the reformation of the higher clergy, and, in spite of the warnings of Catherine of Siena, so angered the cardinals by his harsh and ill-tempered measures that they assembled at Anagni in July 1378, and revoked his election, in which they declared they had acted under fear of violence. On the 20th of September they elected at Fondi the Cardinal Robert of Geneva, who called himself Clement VII. and took up his residence at Avignon. Urban, on the other hand, remained at Rome, where he appointed twenty-six new cardinals and excommunicated Clement and his adherents. Thus began the Great Schism which divided the Western Church for about fifty years. Urban deposed Joanna of Naples (21st of April 1380) for adhering to France and Savoy in support of the antipope, and gave her kingdom to Charles of Durazzo. Charles was crowned at Rome on the first of June 1381, but three years later quarrelled with the pope and shut him up in Nocera. Urban succeeded in escaping to Genoa, where he put several of his cardinals to death for suspected disloyalty. On the death of Charles he set out with an army apparently to seize Naples for his nephew if not for himself. To raise funds he proclaimed, by bull of the 11th of April 1389, a jubilee for every thirty-three years, but before the celebration could be held he died of injuries caused by a fall from his mule. Urban was frugal and never practised simony, but harshness, lack of tact, and fondness for unworthy nephews disgraced his pontificate. He was succeeded by Boniface IX.

VII. (Giovanni Battista Castagna), successor of Sixtus V., was born on the 4th of August 1521. He became governor of Bologna, archbishop of Rossano, and was long nuncio to Spain. Gregory XIII. made him a cardinal, 1583; and in 1590 he was elected pope by the Spanish faction, but died twelve days later, on the 27th of September 1590, and was succeeded by Gregory XIV.

. (Maffeo Barberini), pope from 1623 to 1644, was born in 1568, of a wealthy Florentine family. He early entered the prelacy, became prefect of Spoleto, twice nuncio to France, cardinal (1606), and finally, on the 6th of August 1623, succeeded Gregory XV. as pope. Urban was vain, self-willed and extremely conscious of his position; he accepted the papacy chiefly as a temporal principality, and made it his first care to provide for its defence and to render it formidable. He built Castelfranco on the northern frontier; fortified the port of Civita Vecchia; and strengthened the Castel Sant' Angelo, equipping it with cannon made from the bronze of the Pantheon, an act of vandalism which the Romans punished by the epigram, “ Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini.” He also established an arsenal and a factory of arms. But all this provision was to no purpose. The only territory gained during Urban's pontificate, the duchy of Urbino, the last addition to the papal states, was acquired by reversion (1631); and in his one war, with the duke of Parma, for the district of Castro, he met defeat and humiliation (1644). The Thirty Years' War Urban professed to regard as waged for political, not for religious, ends. He therefore took counsel merely with his interest as a temporal prince, threw in his lot with France, supported the duke of Nevers in the Mantuan Succession, and, under stress of fear of Habsburg supremacy, suffered himself to be drawn into closer relations with the Protestants than beseemed his office, and incurred the reproach of rejoicing in the victories of heretics. Later, in keeping with his position, he opposed all concessions to the Protestants; but still showed himself so vacillating that the papacy ceased to be regarded as a serious political factor, and was entirely ignored in the final settlement of Westphalia, 1648. Urban was the last pope to practise nepotism on a grand scale. He failed to found a princely house; but he enriched his family to an extent that astonished even the Romans. Urban bore a hand in the condemnation of Galileo. He acknowledged the genius of the astronomer, and had not approved of the action of the Inquisition in 1616; but subsequently, believing himself to have been caricatured in the Dialogo, he. permitted the Inquisition to have its way and to compel an abjuration (1633). Urban also denounced the doctrines of Jansen, 1644 (see ). He promulgated the famous bull In Coena Domini in its final form, 1627; published the latest revision of the Breviary, 1631; founded the College of the Propaganda for the education of missionaries, 1627; and accorded the title of “eminence” to the cardinals, 1630. Urban did much to embellish the city. Conspicuous among his works are the Barberini Palace, the College of the Propaganda, the Fountain of the Triton, and the baldachin of St Peter's. His hymns and poems, which have frequently been published, are evidence of his literary taste and ability. Urban died on the 29th of July 1644, and was succeeded by Innocent X.