235 



URBAN VI. 



URBAN VIII. 



236 



residing at Avignon, was that Urban, who had the character of an 

 austere, zealous churchman, but destitute of all spirit of charity or 

 conciliation, began his pontificate by assuming a harsh, haughty tone 

 towards the cardinals, upbraiding them with their dissolute lives, 

 their sinioiiiacal practices, and threatening them with severe measures 

 of reform, which were certainly wanted, but which, after the inveterate 

 habits of relaxed discipline contracted during the long absence of the 

 Papal court from. Rome, could only have been effected gradually and 

 with caution. As it was, Urban by his intemperate conduct, instead 

 of a reform, effected a schism in the church. He also contrived to 

 offend, by his imprudent words and uncourteous behaviour, Joanna of 

 Naples his natural sovereign, who had sent her husband, Otho of 

 Brunswick, with a splendid retinue to congratulate him on his exalta- 

 tion. The consequence was that Queen Joanna, as well as King 

 Charles V. of France, gave their countenance to the French cardinals 

 at Anagni, who on the 9th of August declared Urban to be a usurper, 

 and excommunicated him. On the 20th of September they elected as 

 pope, Robert, cardinal of Geneva, a man notorious for his unclerical 

 habits, and for the atrocities which he had committed at the head of 

 the bands of foreign mercenaries in the Romagna, and especially at 

 Cesena, a few years before. He assumed the name of Clement VII., 

 but he is placed in the list of antipopes ; for although Urban's subse- 

 quent conduct was far from laudable, there is no doubt of his having 

 been legally and canonically elected. 



Pope Urban, seeing himself forsaken by all his cardinals, for even 

 the few Italian cardinals had left him, .promoted twenty-six eccle- 

 siastics, mostly persons of merit, to the rank of cardinal, and excom- 

 municated the others as rebels against the head of the church. Thus 

 began the great Western schism, as it is called, which lasted nearly 

 half a century, and was the occasion of the famous Council of Con- 

 stance. France, Savoy, and Naples eided with the antipope Clement; 

 the rest of the Catholic world with Urban. Both issued bulls and 

 decretals ; both conferred livings and sees, causing thereby great 

 contention and confusion in church and state. Clement took up his 

 residence at Avignon. Urban remained at Rome, where, in 1379, he 

 proclaimed a crusade against the antipope and Queen Joanna, and 

 took into his pay the mercenary troop called the Company of St. 

 George, commanded by Alberico da Barbiano, an Italian condottiere, 

 who defeated, near Marino, in the Campagna, the Breton company or 

 troop in the service of Queen Joanna. In the following year Pope 

 Urban deposed the Queen, by a bull, as being schismatic, heretic, and 

 guilty of high treason, aud released her subjects from their allegiance. 

 He also excommunicated and deposed the Archbishop of Naples for 

 having acknowledged the antipope, and he appointed another in his 

 place. Lastly, he wrote to Louis, king of Hungary, and offered him 

 the kingdom of Naples. Louis, being old, gave up his claims to his 

 . cousin Charles of Durazzo, who, having raised an army in Hungary, 

 went to Italy in 1381, and after being crowned at Rome by Pope 

 Urban, marched to Naples, which he occupied without much fighting, 

 and took Queen Joanna prisoner, and some time after put her to 

 death. Urban had stipulated with Charles that he should give to 

 Francis da Prignano, surnamed Butillo, the pope's nephew, the duchy 

 of Capua, with Nocera and other territories; and as Charles, now 

 settled in the throne of Naples, delayed performing his promise, the 

 pope set out for Naples, and saw his nephew put in possession of his 

 duchy in 1383. From Naples Urban went to Nocera, where he 

 remained for a long time with no apparent object. There he had 

 disputes with King Charles, aud also with the cardinals of his retinue, 

 who, tired of their uncomfortable and forced residence at Nocera, 

 began to express their opinion of the wayward obstinacy and strange 

 caprice of the pontiff A series of questions were published about 

 that time by Bartolino, a jurist of Piacenza, about the propriety of 

 appointing curators to the pope in case he showed neglect or inca- 

 pacity in the performance of the duties of his high office. It was 

 reported to Pope Urban that six of his cardinals had discussed these 

 questions and held the affirmative, and in fact that there existed a 

 conspiracy to arrest him and condemn him as a heretic. Urban 

 became furious at this report, which appears to have been greatly 

 exaggerated; and in January 1385, he had the six cardinals seized and 

 loaded with chain?, and gave them in charge to his nephew Butillo, 

 who put them to the torture. One of them, the Bishop of Aquila, 

 was induced, by the acutenees of the pain, to acknowledge all that he 

 and his colleagues were accused of. Meantime the pope, dissatisfied 

 that King Charles still kept a garrison in the fortress of Capua, which 

 place had been given to Butillo, the pope's nephew, reproached him 

 for not fulfilling this and other conditions of the investiture, and 

 threatened to resume the kingdom as a fief of the Roman see. King 

 Charles sent a force, under the great constable of the kingdom, to 

 besiege Nocera, upon which the pope excommunicated Charles, aud 

 he used to show himself daily on the town-walls, and then at the sound 

 of a bell he loudly repeated his anathemas against Charles and against 

 his troops that were encamped around the town. At last the pope was 

 relieved from siege by Sanseverino and other barons, and escorted to 

 the coast of Paestum, where he embarked on board a Genoese squadron 

 which lay in waiting, and went to Genoa, taking along with him 

 the cardinals as prisoners, except the Bishop of Aquila, who died or 

 was put to death on the road. The others were privately put to death 

 by Urban's order ia Genoa ; some eay that they were drowned in 



sacks, others that they were strangled in his own palace. The citizens 

 of Genoa were disgusted at this shameless abuse of authority, and 

 Urban left Genoa for Lucca, where he spent the Christmas of 1385. 

 Meantime Charles of Durazzo was murdered iu Hungary, whither he 

 had gone to claim that crown, and his infant son Ladislaus was pro- 

 claimed at Naples. He had a competitor in Louis II. of Anjou. 

 Pope Urban, being applied to by the queen-dowager, countenanced 

 the claims of Ladislaus, whilst Louis of Anjou was supported by the 

 antipope Clement, who gave him the investiture at Avignon. The 

 kingdom was divided between the two parties. Pope Urban, having 

 raised troops, removed from Perugia, where he then was, to Ferentiuo, 

 near the frontiers of Naples, but on the way he fell from his mule 

 and was much bruised. He was carried to Rome, and died in October 

 1389. His violence, which bordered upon frenzy, his excessive pride, 

 his obstinacy, his cruelty, his worldliness, disgraced his pontificate, 

 and were the cause of many crimes and many calamities. His 

 character and doings bear considerable resernblauce to those of Boni- 

 face VIII. Theodore von Niem, who was Urban's familiar and an eye- 

 witness of his deeds at Nocera, has given many particulars ia his 

 ' Historia de Schismate sui tempori?.' Thomas, bishop of Acerno, 

 wrote ' Opusculum de creatione Urbani VI.' Muratori, iu his ' Annals 

 of Italy,' gives several other authorities for his account of Urban's 

 pontificate. He was succeeded by Boniface IX. 



URBAN VII., Gio. Batista Castagna, born at Rome of a Genoese 

 family, was elected after the death of Sixtus V., in September, 1590, 

 and died a few days after. Gregory XIV. was then elected iu his 

 place. 



URBAN VIII., Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, succeeded Gregory XV. 

 He was born at Florence in 1568, of a noble family, and after studying 

 with great success at Rome, where his uncle Francesco Barberini filled 

 an office in the Papal administration, he was promoted successively 

 to several important offices, was made referendary of justice, proto- 

 notary of the Papal court, legate in Fiance to Henri IV., cardinal 

 bishop of Spoleto, legate of Bologna, and lastly pope, aud was crowned 

 in September, 1628. He displayed from the beginning of his pontifi- 

 cate a liberal mind, being geuerous, affable, fond of literature, and of 

 classical studies, in which he was well versed, and well acquainted 

 with state affairs. He found the court of Rome involved iu the 

 tedious and perplexing affair of the Valtellina, which, from being 

 originally a war of religion between the inhabitants of that country 

 and the Grisons, had become an intricate political question, in which 

 the courts of France, Spain, Austria, Savoy, and Home took a lively 

 part, and which endangered the peace of Europe. Urban, whose 

 policy was rather comprehensive than narrow, was not inclined to add 

 to the already overgrown Spanish power in Italy, and he leaned rather 

 to the side of France, but he was obliged to manoeuvre and conceal 

 his real sentiments, until the treaty of Moncon, in March, 1626, 

 between France aud Spain, set the question at rest, at least for a time. 

 The next affair of importance was that of the Duchy of Urbino, a 

 fief of the Roman see, whose duke, Francesco Maria II. della Rovere, 

 was nearly eighty years old, and had lately lost his only son, who 

 left no male issue. Pope Urban induced the duke to make a donation 

 ' iuter vivos,' of his duchy to the see of Rome, after securing for 

 himself a competent income. Thus that fine country, which stood 

 between the Papal provinces of the Marches and Romagna, was 

 incorporated with the Papal State in 1626. Next came the war about 

 the succession to the duchy of Mantua, between the emperor Ferdinand 

 and the court of Spain on one side, and the French on the other, 

 which lasted several years, and which spread desolation all over 

 North Italy and brought in the plague into Lombardy. Pope Urban 

 endeavoured repeatedly to restore peace to Italy, but did not succeed 

 till 1631, by the treaty of Cherasco, concluded between the king of 

 France, the duke of Savoy, and the emperor. Meanwhile the great 

 war, called ' the Thirty Years' War,' was raging in Germany, and 

 Gustavus Adolphus, at the head of the Protestant party, was iu the 

 full tide of success. Italy began to feel alarmed, and several princes 

 urged Pope Urban to assist the emperor by all the means at his 

 disposal as the head of the Catholic world. Urban however showed 

 himself rather cool on the subject; he did nob feel very friendly 

 towards the house of Austria, since the war of Mantua, aud once iu 

 full consistory he imposed silence on and ordered away Cardinal 

 Borgia, the Spanish ambassador, who was remonstrating loudly with 

 him on his duties as pontiff. 



In 1C33 Giaciuto Centini, nephew of Cardinal Centini of Ascoli, 

 wishing to pee his uncle pope, betook himself to sorcery in company 

 with other infatuated men, in order to effect the destruction of Urban. 

 The absurd conspiracy being revealed, the judges, who themselves 

 believed in magic, made it a capital case : Centini was beheaded, 

 others were burnt, and others sent to the galleys. In the same year, 

 Galileo, being summoned to Rome by the court of the Inquisition, 

 was obliged to abjure solemnly his solar system, after which he was 

 allowed to return to his country-house near Florence. In lil' 

 broke out again in Italy between the French and the dukes of Savoy 

 and of Parma on one side, and the Spaniards, who ruled in Lombardy, 

 on the other. Pope Urban, in order to allay the storm, sent to Paris 

 the nuncio Giulio Mazzarino, a young man of abilities, who was then 

 pushing forwards in the world. This embassy was the beginning of 

 the extraordinary fortune of Mazzarino, for Cardinal Richelieu found 



