Paul III

Italian pope (1534-1549)

• Born: February 29, 1468
• Birthplace: Canino, Papal States (now in Italy)
• Died: November 10, 1549
• Place of death: Rome, Papal States (now in Italy)

Pope Paul III was the last of the Renaissance popes, aristocratic, educated in the classics, with the concerns of his family often paramount. Yet he was also the first pope of the Catholic or Counter-Reformation, and it was he who summoned the Council of Trent, whose decisions governed the Church in subsequent centuries.

Early Life

Paul III, born Alessandro Farnese, was part of an old aristocratic family whose lands in central Italy were located between Rome and Florence. Generally supportive of the Papacy in its struggles with the Holy Roman Empire, over time the family owned a large amount of land. Yet it was not until early in the fifteenth century that the Farneses succeeded in becoming important in Rome, an event occasioned by a successful marriage. Educated in classical studies in Florence in the establishment of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Farnese entered the Church, and inasmuch as it was the era of Renaissance Humanism, the choice was probably more for social than for spiritual reasons.

His sister Giulia, the favorite mistress of Alexander VI , head of the Borgia family, was able to advance Farnese’s career, and when he became a cardinal in the Church at the age of twenty-five, many claimed that it was a result of her influence. He well might have succeeded anyway; members of his class often rose to the highest positions in the Church during that era. He was properly educated, intelligent and shrewd, and had a pleasing manner. After becoming a cardinal, he maintained one of the most opulent palaces in Rome. Although as a cleric he could not marry, he did father several children out of wedlock, which was not unusual among the clergy at that time. He subsequently supervised their upbringing and furthered their careers.

Although Farnese had been a cardinal for many years, it was not until he was about fifty that he took holy orders and became a priest. His abilities and ambition had long been recognized. In 1521, he was one of the alternative candidates to Clement VII , and afterward Farnese became Clement’s chief adviser. It was predicted that he would succeed to the papal throne after Clement, and he did so in 1534, against little opposition, at the advanced age of sixty-seven. He took the name Paul III.

Life’s Work

Paul’s accession was acclaimed among most factions in Christendom. Because of his age, many believed that his reign would be brief and his impact on events slight. As a Roman, he was popular among the city’s populace. As he was an aristocrat, his selection was no threat to the hierarchical social order. Because of his Humanistic education, many felt assured that those values would be maintained. Unlike many previous popes, Paul was not tainted with much of the corruption associated with the papal office, this in spite of his own illegitimate children.

It was a complex and difficult time. Paul would probably have preferred to continue in the tradition of most then-recent popes, focusing mainly on secular concerns and pleasures. In 1517, however, Martin Luther began his public criticism of the Catholic Church, and by 1534, the demands of the Protestant Reformers were threatening to tear apart the fabric of the Church and the unity of Christendom. In addition, there were military and political struggles that often impinged on the security of Italy and the Papal States and even, it seemed, the survival of the Church itself. In 1527, the forces of Emperor Charles V had captured and sacked Rome, a traumatic event not only for the Romans but also for the Papacy.

It is probable that Paul was chosen pope as much for his diplomatic and political abilities as for his spiritual commitments. If so, it was a good choice; in the years that followed, Paul succeeded in maintaining his, and the Church’s, independence, and the Papacy did not become merely a pawn in the game of power politics, a possibility that seemed likely at the time of his accession.

Paul believed that, in order to resist the various religious and political threats to the Catholic Church, it was necessary to make changes in the papal court itself. The transitional nature of Paul’s reign can be seen by his choice of new cardinals. Two were his teenage grandsons, but others, such as John Fisher, Reginald Pole, Gasparo Contarini, and Gian Pietro Caraffa, proved to be significant selections. Pope Paul also appointed a commission of cardinals to make recommendations regarding possible reforms. When the report was submitted in 1537, it was critical of many past clerical appointments. The buying and selling of church offices and legal decisions from the various church courts was condemned, as were the abuses in the sale of indulgences. It was argued that even the absolute authority of the popes needed to be changed and that Rome itself should be cleansed of corruption. Paul refused to have the report published, but soon unauthorized editions were circulating throughout Europe. Most Protestants were in the process of weakening the authority of the clergy, but the cardinals, and Paul, were more concerned with strengthening the clergy through reform.

Progress was slow. Paul, cautious and conservative, was unwilling to alter the existing system radically, but in 1540, he ordered the banishment of numerous church officials who were improperly residing in Rome. Paul also entertained the possibility of summoning a general church council to reform the Catholic Church, but he was opposed to any weakening of papal authority, and in the past councils had often attempted to place limits on the Papacy. There was no unity on the matter of a council outside the Church. The Protestants were as reluctant to accept a council’s authority and its decisions as to follow papal demands. Various European rulers, in an age of rising nationalism, were unwilling to compromise their freedom of action to any supranational body such as the Church had been in the Middle Ages. Charles V was especially in a difficult position. He was a loyal Catholic, but by the 1530’s many of his German subjects had become fervent Protestants. His need for peace within Germany and for support against both Francis I of France and the invasion by Muslim Turks, however, meant that he had to make peace with his Protestant citizens. He desired compromise in a world of increasing polarization. An attempt was made in 1541, at Ratisbon, but little was accomplished. The differences between the two factions were already too great.

Many doubted Paul’s own commitment to reform. He had, against considerable opposition, made his illegitimate son a duke from lands of the Papal States, and he continued to help with the private interests of his own family, including negotiating the marriage of a grandson to the illegitimate daughter of Charles V. Could such a figure of Renaissance Rome be taken seriously as a religious reformer? He was committed, but only under the condition that the council remain under the firm leadership of the Papacy. Finally, Paul called for a general council to meet in northern Italy at Trent, a compromise location not too far from Rome but also within the lands of the Holy Roman Empire. For a number of reasons military, political, diplomatic, and personal the council was postponed and did not formally begin until December, 1545. Although meeting only sporadically over many years, it proved to be a momentous event in the furthering of the religious reformation of the Catholic Church itself as well as countering the accomplishments and appeals of Luther, John Calvin, and other Protestants.

Paul also gave his support to two other significant events of the Counter-Reformation. In 1540, he gave his consent to the formation of a new religious order, the Society of Jesus, under the leadership of Ignatius of Loyola. Loyola had been a controversial figure and had been imprisoned by Catholic officials in Spain before moving to Paris and then to Rome in 1538. Initially, Paul was reluctant to grant Loyola’s request: Too much fanatical enthusiasm was suspect by the Farnese aristocrat. Yet one of his own cardinals, Gasparo Contarini, convinced him to charter the Jesuits, who then owed allegiance directly to the Papacy. Under Loyola and his successors, the order, in its commitment to missionary activity and to the teaching of approved Catholic doctrine, became one of the most important elements in the Counter-Reformation.

In 1542, Paul granted to Cardinal Gian Pietro Caraffa, another of his appointments to the curia, the office of inquisitor-general of the Inquisition, giving Caraffa full authority in Italy. Influenced by the earlier Spanish Inquisition, Caraffa soon made his mark in rooting out Lutherans and other heretics within and without the clergy. Under Paul, a person of the Renaissance, Caraffa’s Inquisition was somewhat limited, but when Caraffa was elected pope as Paul IV in 1554, the Inquisition became more threatening to the unorthodox in religious belief and practice.

Paul III reigned as pope for fifteen years in spite of his advanced age. In 1545, somewhat reluctantly, he gave Parma and Piacenza to his illegitimate son, Pier Luigi. The lands belonged to the Papal States, but it was argued that they could be better defended by their own ruler. It was an extravagant example of papal nepotism. Pier Luigi became the first duke. The decision was not popular, and Pier Luigi was assassinated in 1547. Emperor Charles V demanded the cession of Parma, and when Paul considered instead making a member of the Orsini family the new duke of Parma, his own grandchildren, fearing a loss of their recently achieved patrimony, began negotiations with the emperor. The rebellion of his family was too much for the eighty-one-year-old pope, and he died in Rome on November 10, 1549.

Significance

In 1543, Titian painted the portrait of Paul III. The pope was then in his mid-seventies, a formidable age. In the artist’s rendition, however, Paul still shows his qualities of authority and perseverance. His white beard and aged wrinkles are countered by the focus of his eyes, which appear to be concentrating on one of his many concerns Charles V, Francis I, Loyola, or Caraffa. His years as pope were as momentous as any in the long history of the Catholic Church. An individual of the Renaissance, he was forced to confront an era of spiritual renewal that was perhaps foreign to his essential nature. As leader of the Church universal, he faced a world of rising nationalism. Nevertheless, Paul, while remaining a product of his immediate past, also transcended it.

By cautiously committing himself to the reform of the Church, he helped pave the way for its rehabilitation. At one time, it seemed as if the Protestants would totally replace the Roman church with a reformed church, or churches, but that was not to be. For his support of change within the papal curia, his willingness to countenance the activities of new Catholic reformers such as Loyola, his support of the Inquisition under Caraffa, and most of all his summoning of the Church council that met at Trent, Paul, in spite of his secular background, his family concerns, and his conservative nature, must rank among the most important of the popes during the early modern period.

Bibliography

Burns, Edward McNall. The Counter Reformation. Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1964. The author has combined a brief narrative of the events and figures of the era with a selection of documents. There is no full biography of Paul III in English, but Burns gives a succinct account of his life and activities.

Dickens, A. G. The Counter Reformation. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969. Dickens, an English academic, is one of the most influential historians of sixteenth century religion. This volume is an excellent survey, with many illustrations, of the era of the Counter-Reformation.

Freedman, Luba. Titian’s Portraits Through Aretino’s Lens. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995. This study of painterly and poetic portraiture contains a chapter on Pope Paul III and his relationship to his portraits. Includes illustrations, bibliographic references, and index.

Luebke, David M., ed. The Counter-Reformation: The Essential Readings. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999. Collection of essays surveying Counter-Reformation scholarship in the second half of the twentieth century from the points of view of a variety of disciplines. Includes bibliographic references and index.

Mullett, Michael A. The Catholic Reformation. New York: Routledge, 1999. Building on his earlier scholarship, Mullett traces the entire history of the Catholic Reformation, beginning with its roots in the Middle Ages, as well as the impact of the movement on the arts and on the daily lives of ordinary people. One chapter details the mutual influence of the Papacy on the Counter-Reformation and of the Counter-Reformation on the Papacy. Includes bibliographic references and index.

Mullett, Michael A. The Counter-Reformation and the Catholic Reformation in Early Modern Europe. London: Methuen, 1984. This brief pamphlet not only covers the major events but also provides a bibliographical account of the various interpretations by historians of the Catholic reformation and the era of Paul III.

Ranke, Leopold von. The History of the Popes During the Last Four Centuries. Translated by E. Foster. London: George Bell & Sons, 1907. Ranke, the great German historian of the nineteenth century and the father of scientific history, portrays Paul III as a secular figure, diplomatically and politically astute, whose support for the religious reform of the Catholic Church had little to do with any deeply felt spiritual concerns.

Solari, Giovanna R. The House of Farnese. Translated by Simona Morini and Frederic Tuten. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968. The author has written a popular history of the Farnese family, beginning with the life of Alessandro Farnese, Paul III. The volume focuses primarily on personalities and family activities.