A Short History of Italy (476-1900)Sedgwick, Henry Dwight
History
A Short History of Italy (476-1900)
Sedgwick, Henry Dwight
Italy -- History
But these Popes of the Revival, who carried into effect the papal
principles of the Council of Trent, vigorous, and in many respects
admirable, as they were, need not detain us, for the history of the
Papacy in this period scarcely belongs to Italy. It has a far wider
reach, and is intimately bound up with the great Catholic, one might say
the great Latin, effort to restore or extend Catholicism and Latin
supremacy throughout the world. In the British Isles, in Scandinavia, in
Poland, in Russia, in Germany, Austria, France, and Switzerland, the
Church fought with the old Roman spirit of conquest. Everywhere the
Jesuit fathers went, busy, devoted, heroic. The ardour of St. Francis
Xavier, the self-abnegation of St. Francis de Sales, the passionate
mysticism of St. Theresa, infected and controlled thousands of
disciples. Everywhere were great manifestations of activity. In South
America there were bishops and archbishops, hundreds of monasteries and
innumerable priests. In Mexico there were schools of theology. In India,
thousands and thousands of converts clustered around the city of Goa. In
China and Japan the Jesuits built churches, and converted to
Christianity disciples of Confucius and Buddha. The Church had founded
an empire on which the sun never set. But our business is not with this
great Latin conquest, this great Catholic revival. We must pass on to
the next series of Popes, less memorable for their imitation of Scipio
and Caesar, than of Lucullus and Crassus. Here we find the names of the
founders of great papal families, so familiar in Rome, not as
missionaries, teachers, or martyrs, but as owners of palaces, villas,
pictures and statues: Borghese (Paul V, 1605-21), the Pope who
quarrelled with the Venetian Republic; Ludovisi (Gregory XV, 1621-23),
in whose pontificate the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (College for
Propagating the Faith) was established; Barberini (Urban VIII, 1623-44),
whose family, famous from the squib "Quod non fecerunt Barbari fecerunt
Barberini," built its palaces out of Roman ruins. During the pontificate
of Barberini, Galileo was brought before the Holy Office, and his
opinion that the earth moved condemned as "absurd, false in philosophy,
and essentially heretical."
Under his successor Panfili (Innocent X, 1644-55), Catholic Europe
stopped fighting Protestant Europe, and the Thirty Years' War was closed
by the Peace of Westphalia (1648). The Catholic Powers gave over the
attempt to reduce the Protestant States, and acknowledged their
independence. Panfili launched his bull against the treaty, but the
weary world disregarded the old man's curses. After him came Chigi
(Alexander VII, 1655-67), Rospigliosi (Clement IX, 1667-69), Odescalchi
(Innocent XI, 1676-89), whose names mean little to us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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