Pier Luigi FARNESE

                   Alessandro (1468-1549), the future Pope Paul III (see Paul III
under Paul [Papacy]). His vast culture, as well as the love
affair of his sister Giulia with Pope Alexander VI, assured his
rapid rise at the Roman court. A cardinal from the age of 25,
he was elected pope on Oct. 13, 1534, after a compromise
reached by the French and the imperial parties. In the
prevailing spirit of nepotism, Paul III, at the consistory of
Aug. 19, 1545, detached Parma and Piacenza from the papal
dominions and erected them into duchies
Had issue: Constanza FARNESE, who married the Conte de Santa Fiora,
Bosio II Sforza.
Born at Rome or Canino, 29 Feb., 1468; elected, 12 Oct., 1534; died at
Rome, 10 Nov., 1549. The Farnese were an ancient Roman family whose
possessions clustered about the Lake at Bolsena. Although counted among
the Roman aristocrats, they first appear in history associated with Viterbo
and Orvieto. Among the witnesses to the Treaty of Venice between
Barbarossa and the pope, we find the signature of a Farnese as Rector of
Orvieto; a Farnese bishop consecrated the cathedral there. During the
interminable feuds which distracted the peninsula, the Farnese were
consistently Guelph. The grandfather of the future pontiff was
commander-in-chief of the papal troops under Eugenius IV; his oldest son
perished in the battle of Fornuovo; the second, Pier Luigi, married
Giovannella Gaetani, sister to the Lord of Sermoneta. Among their children
were the beautiful Giulia, who married an Orsini, and Alessandro, later Paul
III. Alessandro received the best education that his age could offer; first at
Rome, where he had Pomponio Leto for a tutor; later at Florence in the
palace of Lorenzo the Magnificent, where he formed his friendship with the
future Leo X, six years his junior. His contemporaries praise his proficiency
in all the learning of the Renaissance, especially in his mastery of classical
Latin and Italian. With such advantages of birth and talent, his
advancement in the ecclesiastical career was assured and rapid. On 20
Sept., 1493 (Eubel), he was created by Alexander VI cardinal-deacon with
the title SS. Cosmas and Damian. He wore the purple for over forty years,
passing through the several gradations, until he became Dean of the Sacred
College. In accordance with the abuses of his time, he accumulated a
number of opulent benefices, and spent his immense revenue with a
generosity which won for him the praises of artists and the affection of
the Roman populace. His native ability and diplomatic skill, acquired by long
experience, made him tower above his colleagues in the Sacred College,
even as his Palazzo Farnese excelled in magnificence all the other palaces
of Rome. That he continued to grow in favour under pontiffs so different in
character as the Borgia, Rovera, and Medici popes is a sufficient proof of
his tact.
He had already on two previous occasions, come within measurable distance
of the tiara, when the conclave of 1534, almost without the formality of a
ballot, proclaimed him successor to Clement VII. It was creditable to his
reputation and to the good will of the cardinals, that the factions which
divided the Sacred College were concordant in electing him. He was
universally recognized as the man of the hour, and the piety and zeal, which
had characterized him after he was ordained priest, caused men to
overlook the extravagance of his earlier years.
The Roman people rejoiced at the election to the tiara of the first citizen
of their city since Martin V. Paul III was crowned 3 Nov., and lost no time in
setting about the most needed reforms. No one, who has once studied his
portrait by Titian, is likely to forget the wonderful expression of
countenance of that worn-out, emaciated form. Those piercing little eyes,
and that peculiar attitude of one ready to bound or to shrink, tell the story
of a veteran diplomat who was not to be deceived or taken off guard. His
extreme caution, and the difficulty of binding him down to a defininte
obligation, drew from Pasquino the facetious remark that the third Paul
was a Vas dilationis. The elevation to the cardinalate of his grandsons,
Alessandro Farnese, aged fourteen, and Guido Ascanio Sforza, aged
sixteen, displeased the reform party and drew a protest from the emperor,
but this was forgiven, when shortly after, he introduced into the Sacred
College men of the calibre of Reginald Pole, Contanini, Sadoleto, and
Caraffa.
Soon after his elevation, 2 June, 1536, Paul III summoned a general council
to meet at Mantua in the following May; but the opposition of the
Protestant princes and the refusal of the Duke of Mantua to assume the
responsibility of maintaining order frustrated the project. He issued a new
bull, convoking a council at Vicenza, 1 May, 1538; the chief obstacle was
the renewed enmity of Charles V and Francis I. The aged pontiff induced
them to hold a conference with him at Nizza and conclude a ten years'
truce. As a token of good will, a granddaughter of Paul was married to a
French prince, and the emperor gave his daughter, Margaret, to Ottavio,
the son of Pier Luigi, founder of the Farnese dynasty of Parma.
Many causes contributed to delay the opening of the general council. The
extension of power which a re-united Germany would place in the hands of
Charles was so intolerable to Francis I, that he, who persecuted heresy in
his own realm with such cruelty that the pope appealed to him to mitigate
his violence, became the sworn ally of the Smalcaldic League, encouraging
them to reject all overtures to reconciliation. Charles himself was in no
slight measure to blame, for, notwithstanding his desire for the assembling
of a council, he was led into the belief that the religious differences of
Germany might be settled by conferences between the two parties. These
conferences, like all such attempts to settle differences outside of the
normal court of the Church, led to a waste of time, and did far more harm
than good. Charles had a false idea of the office of a general council. In his
desire to unite all parties, he sought for vague formulÃ| to which all could
subscribe, a relapse into the mistakes of the Byzantine emperors. A
council of the Church, on the other hand, must formulate the Faith with
such precision that no heretic can subscribe to it. It took some years to
convince the emperor and his mediating advisors that Catholicism and
Protestantism are as opposite as light and darkness. Meanwhile Paul III set
about the reform of the papal court with a vigour which paved the way for
the disciplinary canons of Trent. He appointed commissions to report
abuses of every kind; he reformed the Apostolic Camera, the tribunal of
the Rota, the Penitentiaria, and the Chancery. He enhanced the prestige of
the papacy by doing single-handed what his predecessors had reserved to
the action of a council. In the constantly recurring quarrels between
Francis and Charles, Paul III preserved a strict neutrality, notwithstanding
that Charles urged him to support the empire and subject Francis to the
censures of the Church. Paul's attitude as a patriotic Italian would have
been sufficient to prevent him from allowing the emperor to be sole arbiter
of Italy. It was as much for the purpose of securing the integrity of the
papal dominions, as for the exaltation of his family, that Paul extorted
from Charles and his reluctant cardinals the erection of Piacenza and
Parma into a duchy for his son, Pier Luigi. A feud arose with Gonzaga, the
imperial Governor of Milan, which ended later in the assassination of Pier
Luigi and the permanent alienation of Piacenza from the Papal States.
When the Treaty of Crespi (18 Sept., 1544) ended the disastrous wars
between Charles and Francis, Paul energetically took up the project of
convening a general council. Meanwhile it developed that the emperor had
formed a programme of his own, quite at variance in some important points
with the pope's. Since the Protestants repudiated a council presided over
by the Roman pontiff, Charles was resolved to reduce the princes to
obedience by force of arms. To this Paul did not object, and promised to aid
him with three hundred thousand ducats and twenty thousand infantry; but
he wisely added the proviso, that Charles should enter into no separate
treaties with the heretics and make no agreement prejudicial to the Faith
or to the rights of the Holy See. Charles now contended that the council
should be prorogued, until victory had decided in favour of the Catholics.
Furthermore, foreseeing that the struggle with the preachers of heresy
would be more stubborn than the conflict with the princes, he urged the
pontiff to avoid making dogmas of faith for the present and confine the
labours of the council to the enforcement of discipline. To neither of these
proposals could the pope agree. Finally, after endless difficulties (13 Dec.,
1545) the Council of Trent held its first session. In seven sessions, the
last 3 March, 1547, the Fathers intrepidly faced the most important
questions of faith and discipline. Without listening to the threats and
expostulations of the imperial party, they formulated for all time the
Catholic doctrine on the Scriptures, original sin, justification, and the
Sacraments. The work of the council was half ended, when the outbreak of
the plague in Trent caused an adjournment to Bologna. Pope Paul was not
the instigator of the removal of the council; he simply acquiesced in the
decision of the Fathers. Fifteen prelates, devoted to the emperor, refused
to leave Trent. Charles demanded the return of the council to German
territory, but the deliberations of the council continued in Bologna, until
finally, 21 April, the pope, in order to avert a schism, prorogued the council
indefinitely. The wisdom of the council's energetic action, in establishing
thus early the fundamental truths of the Catholic creed, became soon
evident, when the emperor and his semi-Protestant advisers inflicted upon
Germany their Interim religion, which was despised by both parties. Pope
Paul, who had given the emperor essential aid in the Smalcaldic war,
resented his dabbling in theology, and their estrangement continued until
the death of the pontiff.
Paul's end came rather suddenly. After the assassination of Pier Luigi, he
had struggled to retain Piacenza and Parma for the Church and had
deprived Ottavio, Pier Luigi's son and Charles's son-in-law, of these duchies.
Ottavio, relying on the emperor's benevolence, refused obedience; it broke
the old man's heart, when he learned that his favourite grandson, Cardinal
Farnese, was a party to the transaction. He fell into a violent fever and
died at the Quirinal, at the age of eighty-two. He lies buried in St. Peter's in
the tomb designed by Michelangelo and erected by Guglielmo della Porta.
Not all the popes repose in monuments corresponding to their importance
in the history of the Church; but few will be disposed to contest the right
of Farnese to rest directly under Peter's chair. He had his faults; but they
injured no one but himself. The fifteen years of his pontificate saw the
complete restoration of Catholic faith and piety. He was succeeded by
many saintly pontiffs, but not one of them possessed all his commanding
virtues. In Rome his name is written all over the city he renovated. The
Pauline chapel, Michelangelo's work in the Sistine, the streets of Rome,
which he straightened and broadened, the numerous objects of art
associated with the name of Farnese, all speak eloquently of the
remarkable personality of the pontiff who turned the tide in favour of
religion. If to this we add the favour accorded by Paul to the new religious
orders then appearing, the Capuchins, Barnabites, Theatines, Jesuits,
Ursulines, and many others, we are forced to confess that his reign was
one of the most fruitful in the annals of the Church.