He took orders in middle life, was promoted to the Cardinalate, and attained the supreme honor of the Holy See in 1572. The man responded to his name. He was a good companion, easy of access, genial in manners, remarkable for the facility with which he cast off care and gave himself to sanguine expectations. In an earlier period of Church history he might have reproduced the Papacy of Paul II. or Innocent VIII. As it was, Gregory XIII. fell at once under the potent influence of Jesuit directors. His confessor, the Spanish Francesco da Toledo, impressed upon him the necessity of following the footsteps of Paul IV. and Pius V. It was made plain that he must conform to the new tendencies of the Catholic Church; and in his neophyte's zeal he determined to outdo his predecessors. The example of Pius V. was not only imitated, but surpassed. Gregory XIII. celebrated three Masses a week, built churches, and enforced parochial obedience throughout his capital. The Jesuits in his reign attained to the maximum of their wealth and influence. Rome, 'abandoning her ancient license, displayed a moderate and Christian mode of living : and in so far as the external observance of religion was concerned, she showed herself not far removed from such perfection as human frailties allow.' While he was yet a layman, Gregory became the father of one son, Giacomo. Born out of wedlock, he GREGORY'S RELATIVES. 151 was yet acknowledged as a member of the Buoncompagno family, and admitted under this name into the Venetian nobility. The Pope manifested paternal weakness in favor of his offspring. He brought the young man to Rome, and made him Governatore di Santa Chiesa with a salary of 10,000 ducats. The Jesuits and other spiritual persons scented danger. They persuaded the Holy Father that conscience and honor required the alienation of his bastard from the sacred city. Giacomo was relegated to honorable exile in Ancona. But he suffered so severely from this rebuff, that terms of accommodation were agreed on. Giacomo received a lady of the Sforza family in marriage, and was established at the Papal Court with a revenue amounting to about 25,000 crowns.2 The ecclesiastical party now predominant in Rome, took care that he should not acquire more than honorary importance in the government. Two of the Pope's nephews were promoted to the Cardinalate with provisions of about 10,000 crowns apiece. His old brother abode in retirement at Bologna under strict orders not to seek fortune or to perplex the Papal purity of rule in Rome.3 I have introduced this sketch of Gregory's relations in order to show how a Pope of his previous › The Venetians, when they inscribed his name upon the Libro d'Oro, called him 'a near relative of his Holiness.' This lady was a sister of the Count of Santa Fiora. For a detailed account of the wedding, see Mutinelli, Stor, arc, vol. i. p. 112. • Tiepolo, op. cit. pp. 213, 219–221, 263, 266. habits and personal proclivities was now obliged to follow the new order of the Church. It was noticed that the mode of life in Rome during his reign struck a just balance between license and austerity, and that general satisfaction pervaded society.1 Outside the city this contentment did not prevail. Gregory threw his States into disorder by reviving obsolete rights of the Church over lands mortgaged or granted with obscure titles. The petty barons rose in revolt, armed their peasants, fomented factions in the country towns, and filled the land with brigands. Under the leadership of men like Alfonso Piccolomini and Roberto Malatesta, these marauding bands assumed the proportion of armies. The neighboring Italian States-Tuscany, Venice, Naples, Parma, all of whom had found the Pope arbitrary and aggressive in his dealings with themencouraged the bandits by offering them an asylum and refusing to co-operate with Gregory for their reduction. His successor, Sixtus V., found the whole Papal dominion in confusion. It was impossible to collect the taxes. Life and property were nowhere safe. By a series of savage enactments and stern acts of justice, Sixtus swept the brigands from his States. He then applied his powerful will to the collection of money and the improvement of his provinces. In the four years which followed his election he succeeded in accumulating a round sum of four million 1 Giov. Corraro, op. cit. p. 277. crowns, which he stored up in the Castle of S. Angelo. The total revenues of the Papacy at this epoch were roughly estimated at 750,000 crowns, which in former reigns had been absorbed in current costs and the pontifical establishment. By rigorous economy and retrenchments of all kinds Sixtus reduced these annual expenses to a sum of 250,000, thus making a clear profit of 500,000 crowns.1 At the same time he had already spent about a million and a half on works of public utility, including the famous Acqua Felice, which brought excellent water into Rome. Roads and bridges throughout the States of the Church were repaired. The Chiana of Orvieto and the Pontine Marsh were drained. Encouragement was extended, not only to agriculture, but also to industries and manufactures. The country towns obtained wise financial concessions, and the unpopular resumption of lapsed lands and fiefs was discontinued. Rome meanwhile began to assume her present aspect as a city, by the extensive architectural undertakings which Sixtus set on foot. He loved building; but he was no lover of antiquity. For pagan monuments of art he showed a monastic animosity, dispersing or mutilating the statues of the Vatican and Capitol; turning a Minerva into an image of the Faith by putting a cross in her hand; surmounting the columns of Trajan and Antonine with figures of Peter and Paul; destroying the Septizonium of Severus, and wishing to lay sacri1 See Giov. Gritti, op. cit. p. 333. legious hands on Caecilia Metella's tomb. To mediæval relics he was hardly less indifferent. The old buildings of the Lateran were thrown down to make room for the heavy modern palace. But, to atone in some measure for these acts of vandalism, Sixtus placed the cupola upon S. Peter's and raised the obelisk in the great piazza which was destined to be circled with Bernini's colonnades. This obelisk he topped with a cross. Christian inscriptions, signalizing the triumph of the Pontiff over infidel emperors, the victory of Calvary over Olympus, the superiority of Rome's saints and martyrs to Rome's old deities and heroes, left no doubt that what remained of the imperial city had been subdued to Christ and purged of paganism. Wandering through Rome at the present time, we feel in every part the spirit of the Catholic Revival, and murmur to ourselves those lines of Clough: O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas! Nothing was more absent from the mind of Sixtus than any attempt to reconcile Ancient and Modern. He was bent on proclaiming the ultimate triumph of Catholicism, not only over antiquity, but also over the Renaissance. His inscriptions, crosses, and images of saints are the enduring badges of serf |