Pope Urban VIII

Pope Urban VIII
A portrait of Pope Urban VIII by Pietro da Cortona (1627)
Papacy began	6 August 1623
Papacy ended	29 July 1644
Predecessor	Gregory XV
Successor	Innocent X
Orders
Consecration	28 October 1604 by Fabius Blondus de Montealto
Created Cardinal	11 September 1606
Personal details
Birth name	Maffeo Barberini
Born	5 April 1568 Florence, Duchy of Florence
Died	29 July 1644 (aged 76) Rome, Papal States
Parents	Antonio Barberini & Camilla Barbadoro
Other popes named Urban

Pope Urban VIII (Latin: Urbanus VIII; baptised 5 April 1568 – 29 July 1644), was Pope from 6 August 1623 to his death in 1644. He was the last pope to expand the papal territory by force of arms^{[citation needed]}, and was a prominent patron of the arts and reformer of Church missions. However, the massive debts incurred during his papacy greatly weakened his successors, who were unable to maintain the papacy's longstanding political and military influence in Europe. He was also involved in a controversy with Galileo and his theory on heliocentrism during his reign.

He is the most recent Pope to date to take the name "Urban" upon being elected as Pope.

Early life

Circa 1598 painting of Maffeo Barberini at age 30 by Caravaggio.

He was born Maffeo Barberini in April 1568 to Antonio Barberini, a Florentine nobleman, and Camilla Barbadoro. His father died when he was only three years old and his mother took him to Rome, where he was put in the charge of his uncle, Francesco Barberini, an apostolic protonotary.<ref name=CE /^[1] At the age of 16 he became his uncle's heir.^[2] He was educated by the Jesuits and received a doctorate of law from the University of Pisa in 1589.

In 1601, Barberini, through the influence of his uncle, was able to secure from Pope Clement VIII appointment as a papal legate to the court of King Henry IV of France. In 1604 the same pope appointed him Archbishop of Nazareth, an office joined with that of Bishop of the suppressed Dioceses of Canne and Monteverde, with his residence at Barletta. At the death of his uncle, he inherited his riches, with which he bought a palace in Rome which he made into a luxurious Renaissance residence.

Pope Paul V also later employed Barberini in a similar capacity, afterwards raising him, in 1606, to Cardinal-Priest, with the titular church of the Church of San Pietro in Montorio and appointing him a papal legate, co-ruling the City of Bologna as a part of the Papal States.

Papacy

Pope Urban VIII, 1643

Papal styles of Pope Urban VIII
Reference style	His Holiness
Spoken style	Your Holiness
Religious style	Holy Father
Posthumous style	None

On 6 August 1623, at the papal conclave following the death of Pope Gregory XV, Barberini was chosen as Gregory's successor and took the name Urban VIII.^[3]

Upon Pope Urban's election, Zeno, the Venetian envoy, wrote the following description of him:^[4]

The new Pontiff is 56 years old. His Holiness is tall, dark, with regular features and black hair turning grey. He is exceptionally elegant and refined in all details of his dress; has a graceful and aristocratic bearing and exquisite taste. He is an excellent speaker and debater, writes verses and patronises poets and men of letters.

Urban's papacy covered 21 years of the Thirty Years' War and was an eventful one even by the standards of the day. He canonized Elizabeth of Portugal, Andrew Corsini and Conrad of Piacenza, and issued the papal bulls of canonization for Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, who had been canonized by his predecessor, Pope Gregory.

Despite an early friendship and encouragement for his teachings, Urban was responsible for summoning Galileo to Rome in 1633 to recant his work.

Urban practiced nepotism on a grand scale; various members of his family were enormously enriched by him, so that it seemed to contemporaries as if were establishing a Barberini dynasty.^[5] He elevated his brother Antonio Marcello Barberini (Antonio the Elder) and then his nephews Francesco Barberini and Antonio Barberini (Antonio the Younger) to Cardinal. He also bestowed upon their brother, Taddeo Barberini, the titles Prince of Palestrina, Gonfalonier of the Church, Prefect of Rome and Commander of Sant'Angelo. Historian Leopold von Ranke estimated that during his reign, Urban's immediate family amassed 105 million scudi in personal wealth.^[6]

Urban was a skilled writer of Latin verse, and a collection of Scriptural paraphrases as well as original hymns of his composition have been frequently reprinted.

A 1638 papal bull protected the existence of Jesuit missions in South America by forbidding the enslavement of natives who were at the Jesuit Reductions.^[7] At the same time, Urban repealed the Jesuit monopoly on missionary work in China and Japan, opening these countries to missionaries of other Orders and missionary societies.^[8]

Urban issued a 1624 papal bull that made the use of tobacco in holy places punishable by excommunication;^[9] Pope Benedict XIII would repeal the ban one hundred years later.^[10]

Politics

Urban's military involvement was aimed less at the restoration of Catholicism in Europe than at adjusting the balance of power to favour his own independence in Italy. In 1626 the duchy of Urbino was incorporated into the papal dominions, and, in 1627, when the direct male line of the Gonzagas in Mantua became extinct, he controversially favoured the succession of the Protestant Duke Charles of Nevers against the claims of the Catholic Habsburgs. He also launched the Wars of Castro in 1641 against Odoardo Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, whom he excommunicated. Castro was destroyed and its duchy incorporated into the Papal States.

Urban was the last pope to extend the papal territory. He fortified Castelfranco Emilia on the Mantuan frontier and commissioned Vincenzo Maculani to fortify the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome. Urban also established an arsenal in the Vatican, an arms factory at Tivoli and fortified the harbour of Civitavecchia.

For the purposes of making cannon and the baldacchino in St Peters, massive bronze girders were pillaged from the portico of the Pantheon leading to the well known lampoon: quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini, "what the barbarians did not do, the Barberini did."^[8]

Patron of the arts

Urban and his family patronized art on a grand scale. He expended vast sums bringing polymaths like Athanasius Kircher to Rome and funding various substantial works by the sculptor and architect Bernini who was particularly favored during Urban's reign. Artistic and architectural commissions included the family palace in Rome, the Palazzo Barberini, the College of the Propaganda Fide, the Fontana del Tritone in the Piazza Barberini, the cathedra in St Peter's Basilica and other prominent structures in the city. He also rebuilt the Church of Santa Bibiana and the Church of San Sebastiano al Palatino on the Palatine Hill.

The Barberini patronised painters such as Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain. One of the most eulogistic of these artistic works in its celebration of his reign, is the hugh Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power painted by Pietro da Cortona on the ceiling of the large salon of the Palazzo Barberini.

Later life and legacy

Statue of Pope Urban VIII sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his students between 1635 and 1640, and currently on display at the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome.

A consequence of these military and artistic endeavours was a massive increase in papal debt. Urban VIII inherited a debt of 16 million scudi, and by 1635 had increased it to 28 million.

According to contemporary John Bargrave, in 1636 members of the Spanish faction of the College of Cardinals were so horrified by the conduct of Pope Urban VIII that they conspired to have him arrested and imprisoned (or killed) so that they could replace him with a new pope; namely Laudivio Zacchia.^[11] When Urban travelled to Castel Gandolfo to rest, the members of the Spanish faction met in secret and discussed ways to advance their plan. But they were discovered and the Pope raced back to Rome where he immediately held a consistory and demanded to know who the new pope was. To put an end to the conspiracy, the pope decreed that all Cardinal-Bishops should leave Rome and return to their own churches.^[11]

With the Spanish plan having failed, by 1640 the debt had reached 35 million scudi, consuming more than 80 percent of annual papal income in interest repayments.^[12]

Urban's death (29 July 1644) is said to have been hastened by chagrin at the result of the Wars of Castro. Because of the costs incurred by the city of Rome to finance this war, Urban VIII became immensely unpopular. On his death, the bust of Urban that lay beside the Palace of the Conservators on the Capitoline Hill was rapidly destroyed by an enraged crowd, and only a quick-thinking priest saved the sculpture of Urban belonging to the Jesuits from a similar fate.^[13]

His unpopularity swayed the papal conclave not to elect Cardinal Giulio Sacchetti who was closely associated with the Barberini. Instead, it elected Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphili as his successor at the papal conclave of 1644, who took the name of Innocent X.

Private revelation

Numerous books that allege private revelations have a disclaimer in the beginning that quotes an alleged saying of Pope Urban VIII. The disclaimer usually goes:

In cases which concern private revelations, it is better to believe than not to believe, for, if you believe, and it is proven true, you will be happy that you have believed, because our Holy Mother asked it. If you believe, and it should be proven false, you will receive all blessings as if it had been true, because you believed it to be true.^[14]

Whether or not Urban VIII said this is debated.^[15][16][17]

Pope Urban VIII did make a public statement about private revelations and their dissemination in the Catholic Church in his Constitution, Sanctissimus Dominus Noster of 13 March 1625.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Urbanus VIII.

• Barberini
• Wars of Castro
• Portrait of Maffeo Barberini
• Cardinals created by Urban VIII

References

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