By 1545, the Roman Catholic Church was reeling from the forces unleashed by the Protestant Reformation. One by one, countries across northern Europe—Denmark, Sweden, England, large parts of Germany—had turned their backs on Catholicism.
The man charged with halting the church’s downturn was Pope Paul III (1468–1549), an Italian cardinal who was elected pope in 1534 and began the long process of Catholic renewal known as the Counter-Reformation. Beginning with the Council of Trent in 1545, the church moved to reform itself internally while defending its core beliefs.
Paul was born Alessandro Farnese into a wealthy Roman family that included bishops, military leaders, and at least one other pope, Boniface VIII (c. 1235–1303). Farnese was educated in Florence in the palace of Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449–1492). In 1493, when Farnese was only twenty-five, he became a cardinal.
In his youth, the future Paul III embodied many of the abuses that the Protestant reformers decried. His position in the church was a benefice that guaranteed him an enormous income derived from church property, and he spent it on art and palaces.
After he was elected pope, however, Paul recognized more clearly than many other Catholic leaders that without changing its ways, the church was doomed. Over the objection of many cardinals, he convened the Council of Trent to clean up corruption in the church. The council met intermittently for years and did not conclude until after Paul’s death, but it did ban the most unpopular abuses.
In addition to the reforms, however, Paul III also moved to quash dissent and reassert his power over church doctrine. One of his most notorious creations was the Holy Office, also known as the Roman Inquisition, which was given the responsibility in 1542 of identifying and punishing heretics and defending Catholic doctrine.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- Despite his vows of chastity, Paul had an illegitimate son, Pier Luigi Farnese (1503–1547), who was made duke of Parma in 1545 and assassinated in 1547. Pier had a son, Ranuccio (1530–1565)—Paul’s grandson—whom Paul made a cardinal when the boy was only fifteen years old.
- A famous 1537 edict issued by Paul III, Sublimus Dei, prohibited the enslavement of Native Americans in the New World. The order, which was prompted by concerns of Spanish mistreatment of the Indians, was widely ignored by Spain and Portugal.
- After his death, Paul was buried in a tomb in Rome designed by the artist and architect Michelangelo (1475–1564), whom Paul had hired to paint The Last Judgment.
