Friday, April 24, 2015

U IS FOR POPE URBAN VII

    
     Born Giovanni Batista Castagna, Pope Urban VII (1521 - 1590) was a man ahead of his time; he enacted the world's first public smoking ban, threatening to excommunicate anyone who "took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it through a pipe or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose."  Unfortunately, the other major thing for which Urban VII is known is having had the shortest papacy in history: 12 days (September 15th to 27th, 1590),  ending with his death from malaria.  Kind of makes one wonder what the living conditions were like for popes in those days, doesn't it?
     Remember back, back, through the mists of time, to when I first announced my topic for the A to Z Challenge?  Of course you do.  And as you recall, one of my self-imposed rules was going to be "no religious leaders," although I said there would be one exception.  Well, I thought being Pope for less than two weeks deserved an exception, not to mention that there didn't seem to be many notable 16th-century people whose surnames began with the letter U.  If you know of another one, please give me a shout-out!  But Urban VII (the only Pope Urban during that century - yes, of course I checked the list) is my choice.
     Despite his exceedingly short reign at the peak of his career path, Urban VII led quite an eventful (and very privileged) life up to then.  Born into the nobility in Rome, he finished his studies at the University of Bologna with doctorates in both civil law and canon law.  After what seems to have been a short stint as a constitutional lawyer, he entered the Roman curia (the administrative arm of the Holy See) and became sort of an ecclesiastic civil servant, embarking on a series of assignments, both civil and clerical. 
    
     1553: Archbishop of Rossano
     1555-59: governor of Fano
     1559-1560: governor of Perugia and Umbria
     1562-63: participated in Council of Trent
     1565-72: apostolic nuncio (ambassador) to Spain
     1573-77: apostolic nuncio to Venice
     1576-77: governor of Bologna (I'm not sure how he could be in Venice and Bologna at the same time, but then, he wouldn't have been the last absentee governor, would he?)
     1578-80: papal legate to Flanders and Cologne
     1583: became a Cardinal; served in San Marcello
     1586: inquisitor general (yes, that Inquisition)
    
     Urban was not a fan of the tradition of nepotism; he would not employ any of his relatives in the court offices, and forbade them from assuming new titles based on their connection to him.  Urban ordered the poor of Rome to be numbered so that he could distribute alms to them.  In his will, he left all of his considerable fortune to the Fraternity of the Annunciation to be used as dowries for impoverished girls.  Sounds like he would have been a good Pope.  That is all.
    

12 comments:

  1. Sounds like he would have made a great pope indeed. Too bad he only lasted 12 days. So sad!

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    1. Yes, it is sad. But he had a full and productive life until then, and he lived to be almost 70 - much older than a lot of the people I've been posting about. Thank you for visiting!

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  2. Wow. Excommunication for smoking in a church--he took clean air seriously, didn't he? Interesting that eschewed nepotism and that he cared for the poor, but the whole inquisitor general thing gives one pause. :)

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    1. You would take clean air seriously too if you had malaria!! Apparently he began exhibiting symptoms of it just after being named Pope (although I really don't think there was any connection between his illness and his anti-smoking stance). But yeah, there does seem to be a bit of a disconnect between his charitable inclinations and his running the Inquisition...

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  3. Not a fan of nepotism? That is seriously unusual.

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    1. I know, right? If he had lived, he might have really shaken up the status quo. Thank you for stopping by here!

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  4. Numbering the poor...hmmmm...that must have been quite a task. Wonder if today's 'urban' as a word has any connection to Pope Urban. Wonder how he contracted malaria? Lots of questions about this short term Pope.
    Sue at CollectInTexas Gal
    AtoZ 2015 Challenge
    Minion for AJ's wHooligans

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    1. Sue - I just checked out your blog and saw that you reposted my Johannes Trithemius post! How extremely kind of you! Thanks SO much! You're my new Yellow Rose of Texas!!

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    2. Thank-you....yellow roses are my favorites!

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  5. Sue, I remember from high-school Latin that "urbs" is the word for city. I don't know why popes took "Urban" as their name, though. Nor do I know how he contracted malaria. There are definite limits to how much research I can do on 26 people in 30 days!! Good questions, though!

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    1. Wow...high school Latin! A week in Latin class would be enough research and learning to last me a lifetime. I doubt I'd gotten to the 'u's'...so I'm duly impressed you know off the top of your head the origin of urban. No worries on how he contracted malaria....there are some things that the world does not need to know....privacy...ya know.

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    2. Thanks for understanding! But I'm not sure that even then, anyone knew how he got malaria. There was an awful lot people didn't know about the spread of diseases.

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