The Historians' History of the World 08

1555 Marcellus II, Marcellus Cervius, dies in three weeks. Paul IV, Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, intolerant and tyrannical. Quarrels with Philip II of Spain who besieges Rome and makes Paul sue for peace.

1559 Pius IV, Giovanni Angelo de’ Medici.

1566 Pius V, Michele Ghislieri. A violent persecutor of dissenters.

1572 Gregory XIII, Ugo Buoncompagni. Introduces the Gregorian calendar.

1585 Sixtus V, Felice Peretti. Builds Vatican library and other great works.

1590 Urban VII, Giovanni Battista Castagna, lives thirteen days. Gregory XIV, Niccolo Sfondrati.

1591 Innocent IX, Giovanni Antonio Facchinetti. Lives two months.

1592 Clement VIII, Ippolito Aldobrandini. The Molinist and Jansenist controversy begins. Ferrara annexed to the papal states.

1604 Leo XI, Alessandro de’ Medici. Dies in four weeks. Paul V, Camillo Borghese. Contest with Venice in regard to ecclesiastical authority.

1621 Gregory XV, Alessandro Ludovisi. Founds the congregation of the Propaganda.

1623 Urban VIII, Maffeo Barberini. Supports France in Thirty Years’ War; annexes Urbino to his states.

1644 Innocent X, Giovanni Battista Pamfili. Condemns Treaty of Westphalia and the Jansenists.

1655 Alexander VII, Fabio Chigi. Louis XIV takes Avignon from him (1662).

1667 Clement IX, Giulio Rospigliosi. Temporary peace between the French Jansenists and Jesuits.

1670 Clement X, Emilio Altieri.

1676 Innocent XI, Benedetto Odescalchi. Controversy with Louis XIV over the ambassador’s privileges at Rome.

1689 Alexander VIII, Pietro Ottoboni. Aids Venice against the Turks.

1691 Innocent XII, Antonio Pignatelli.

1700 Clement XI, Giovanni Francesco Albani. Jansenist controversy renewed in France. Clement aids pretender to the English throne.

1721 Innocent XIII, Michelangelo Conti.

1724 Benedict XIII, Vincenzo Marco Orsini. Makes an ineffectual attempt to reconcile all divisions of Christianity.

1730 Clement XII, Lorenzo Corsini.

1740 Benedict XIV, Prospero Lambertini.

1758 Clement XIII, Carlo della Torre di Rezzonico. The papacy loses Avignon for the second time (1768). The Neapolitans seize Benevento.

1769 Clement XIV, Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli. He suppresses the Jesuits.

1775 Pius VI, Giovanni Angelo Braschi. The French seize his states and carry him to France a prisoner.

1800 Pius VII, Gregorio Luigi Barnaba Chiaramonti. Ratifies concordat with France; crowns Napoleon emperor (1804). The French take his states and imprison him (1809). Is restored 1814.

1823 Leo XII, Annibale della Genga.

1829 Pius VIII, Francesco Castiglione.

1831 Gregory XVI, Bartolommeo Alberto Cappellari.

1846 Pius IX, Mastai Ferretti. Begins as a reformer but afterwards changes his policy. In 1870 the last of his dominions are added to the kingdom of Italy.

1878 Leo XIII, Giacchino Pecci.

CHAPTER I. ORIGIN AND RISE OF THE PAPACY

[42-842 A.D.]

Like almost all the great works of nature and of human power in the material world and in the world of man, the papacy grew up in silence and obscurity. The names of the earlier bishops of Rome are known only by barren lists, by spurious decrees and epistles inscribed, centuries later, with their names; by their collision with the teachers of heretical opinions, almost all of whom found their way to Rome; by martyrdoms ascribed with the same lavish reverence to those who lived under the mildest of the Roman emperors, as well as those under the most merciless persecutors. Yet the mythic or imaginative spirit of early Christianity has either respected, or was not tempted to indulge its creative fertility by the primitive annals of Rome. After the embellishment, if not the invention, of St. Peter’s pontificate, his conflict with Simon Magus in the presence of the emperor, and the circumstance of his martyrdom, it was content with raising the successive bishops to the rank of martyrs without any peculiar richness or fullness of legend.