Книга VII
КОНТРАРЕФОРМАЦИЈА
– Втор период, 1590-1630
Глава 4
Мантованскиот „рат“. – Триесетгодишната војна. –
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УРБАН VIII
...On the death of Gregory XV the French party immediately proposed
him for the pontificate. The aspect of the conclave on that occasion was to a
certain extent different from that of the one proceeding it, inasmuch as that
the last pope had reigned for a short time only. Although he had appointed a
considerable number of cardinals, yet those nominated by his predecessor were
equally numerous; thus the nephew of the last pope and that of the last but
one, met each other in the conclave with a nearly equal force of adherents.
Maffeo Barberino is said to have given each party to understand that he was an
opponent to of the other, and it is affirmed that he thus gained the support of
both – each too upholding him from hatred to the other. But a still more
efficient cause of his success doubtless was that he had always proved himself
a zealous defender of the jurisdictional rights of the Roman Curia, and had
thus rendered the majority of the cardinals favorable to his own interests. Be
this as it may, helped on by his own merits, and by the support of the others,
Maffeo Barberino secured his election, and rose to the pontifical dignity at
the vigorous age of fifty-five.
The court very soon discovered
wide difference between the new pope and his immediate predecessors. Clement
VIII was most commonly found occupied with the works of St. Bernard; Paul V
with the writings of the holy Justinian of Venice; but on the table of Urban
VIII lay the newest poems, or draughts and plans of fortifications.
It will generally be found that
the time at which the character of a man receives its decided direction, is in
those first years of manhood which form the period when he begins to take an
independent position in public affairs or in literature. The youth of Paul V,
who was born in 1552, belonged to a time when the principles of Catholic
restoration were pressing forward with full unbroken vigor, and they were
themselves accordingly imbued with these principles. The first influentially
active portion of Urban’s life, born 1568, coincided, in contrary, with that
period when the papal principality was opposed to Spain – when the
re-establishment of France as a catholic power was one of the reigning topic of
the day; and accordingly, we find that this inclinations follow by preference
the direction than chosen.
Urban VIII considered himself
more particularly as a temporal prince.
He had formed the opinion that
the States of the Church should be secured by fortifications and should render
themselves formidable by their own arms. When the marble monuments of his
predecessors were pointed out to him, he declared that those erected by himself
should be of iron. He built Castelfranco on the Bolognese frontier, and this
place was also called Fort Urbano ; although its military utility was so far from
being obvious, that the people of Bologna
suspected it to be raised against them rather than for their defence. In the
year 1625, he began to strengthen the castle
of St. Angelo in Rome , by the addition of breastworks, and
immediately stored the fortress with provisions and munitions for war, as
though the enemy had been before the gates. He built the high wall that
encloses the papal gardens on Monte Cavallo, without regard to the destruction
thus occasioned to a magnificent relic of antiquity, situated in the Colonna
gardens. He established a manufactory of arms at Tivoli . The rooms beneath the Vatican library
were used as an arsenal, the public ways were thronged with soldiers, and the
seat of the supreme spiritual power of Christendom – the peaceful circuit of
the Eternal City Barbary
corsairs sold the booty of which they had plundered Christian ships. Such was
the purpose to which the labors of the supreme pastor of Christendom became
subservient.
As regarded, all these arrangements
Pope Urban acted with absolute and uncontrolled power. He surpassed his
predecessors, at least in the early years of his pontificate, in the unlimited
exercise of his authority.
If it was proposed to him to take
advice of the college, he would reply that he alone knew more and understood
better than all the cardinals put together. Consistories were very seldom
called, and even when they were assembled, few had courage to express their
opinions freely. The congregations met in the usual manner, but no questions of
importance were laid before them, and the decisions they arrived at were but
little regard. Even for the administration of the state, Urban formed no proper
“consulta”, as had been customary with his predecessors. His nephew Francesco
Barberino, was perfectly justified in refusing, as he did, during the first ten
years of Urban pontificate, to accept the responsibility of any measure,
whatever might be its nature.
The foreign ambassadors
considered themselves most unfortunate in their attempts to transact business
with this pope – they could make no way with him. In giving audience, he talked
himself more than any other person; he lectured and harangued, continuing with
one applicant the conversation he had commenced with another. All were expected
to listen to him, admire him, and address him with the most profound reverence,
even when his replies were adverse to them. Other pontiffs often refused the
request presented to them, but for some given cause – some principle, either of
religion or policy. In Urban, caprice was often perceived to be the only motive
for refusal; no one would conjecture whether he ought to expect a yes, or a no.
The quick-sighted Venetians found out that he loved to contradict; that he was
inclined, by an almost involuntary disposition, to give the contrary decision
to that proposed to him. In order to gain their point, therefore, they adopted
the expedient of starting objections to their own wishes; and in seeking for
arguments to oppose these, he fell of himself upon propositions to which all
the persuasion in the world would not otherwise have obtained his assent. This
is a character of mind which sometimes exhibits itself in a certain manner
among men of subordinate station also, and was not un-frequently observed in those
times among Spaniards and Italians. It would seem to consider a public office
as a tribute, due to its merit and personal importance; and men thus
constituted are far more powerfully influenced in the administration of their
duties, by their own feelings and impulses, than by the exigences of the case.
They are not greatly dissimilar to an author, who occupied by the consciousness
of his talents, does not so much devote his thoughts to the subject before him,
as give free course to the fancies of his caprice.
And Urban himself really belonged
to this class of authors; the poems of his compositions still remaining to us
considerable talent and wit; but how strangely are sacred subjects handled in
them! The psalms and axioms, alike of the Old and New Testaments, are compelled
to accommodate themselves to Horatian measures. The song of praise of the aged
Simeon is presented in two Sapphic strophes! It is manifest that no
characteristic of the text remain: the matter is forced to adapt itself to a
form in direct contradiction with its character, and adopted only because
preferred by the author.
But these talents, the brilliant
appearance they cast about the person of the pope, nay, even the robust health
that he enjoyed, all contributed to increase that self-complacency with which
his lofty position, bad of itself, inspired him.
I don’t know any pope in whom
this self-consciousness attained to so high degree. An objection derived from
ancient papal constitutions was one opposed to some design of his; he replied
that the spoken word of a living pope was worth more than the maxims of a
hundred dead ones.
The resolution adopted by the
Roman people of never raising a statue to any pope during his life was
abrogated by Urban, with a declaration that “such a resolution could not apply
to a pope like himself”.
The mode in which on of his
nuncios had conducted himself under very difficult circumstances having being
represented to him with praise, he remarked, that “the nuncio had but proceeded
in accordance with his instructions”.
To such a man it was, so filled
with the idea of being a mighty prince, so well disposed to France, both from
his early occupation in that country, and the support it had afforded him; so
self-filled, energetic, and full of self importance; to such a man, that the
conduct of the supreme spiritual power over Catholic Christendom, was committed
at this critical moment.
On his decision – on the line of
conduct that he should pursue among the Catholic powers – was now principally
to depend the progress or interruption of that universal restoration of
Catholicism, with which the world was occupied.
But it had very early bee
remarked that this pontiff betrayed a disinclination towards the interests of
Austrian Spain.
Cardinal Borgia complained of his
aversion and harshness as early as 1625. “The king of Spain – he said
– could not obtain the slightest concession from him, everything was refused to
his majesty”.
The same prelate further
maintained that Urban did not willingly terminate the affairs of the Valtelline;
he affirmed that the king of Spain
had offered to resign the disputed passes, but that the pope had not taken any
notice of the offer.
It was also unquestionable Urban
was in part to blame for the failure of the alliance proposed between the house
of Austria
and that of Stuart. In completing the dispensation already drown up by his
predecessor, he added to the former conditions a demand that the public
churches for Catholic worshipers should be built in every English county; this
was a requisition with which the majority of an irritated Protestant population
rendered compliance impossible, and which the pope desisted of himself, from
pressing in the case of the French marriage. He seemed indeed, to be unwilling
that Spain should acquire
that increase of power which must have resulted to her from a connection with England .
Negotiations were carried on in profound secrecy by the nuncio, than resident
of Brussels ,
for the marriage of the electoral prince palatine – not with an Austrian – but
with a Bavarian princess.
In the complexities of the
Mantuan succession also, Pope Urban VIII took an equally efficient part. The
recent marriage of the young princess with Rethel, on which the whole affair
depended, could not have been completed without the papal dispensation. The
pontiff granted this without having consulted the nearest kinsmen of the lady –
Philip of Spain and the emperor; and it was besides prepared precisely at the
moment required.
All these things sufficed to
render the dispositions of the pope clearly manifest: his most earnest wish was
that of all the other Italian sovereignties, the seeing a prince entirely
independent of Spain
take possession of the Mantuan duchy.
He did not even wait until the
initiative had been taken by Richelieu . His representations
to the imperial court having failed of their effect, the proceedings of Austria being indeed more and more threatening,
while the siege of Casale was still persisted in, the pope turned of his own
accord to France .
He caused the most urgent entreaties
to be used. “The king – he said – might send an army into the field even before
the reduction of La Rochelle was effected; an
expedition for the assistance of Mantua
would be quite as pleasing to God as the beleaguering of that chief bulwark of Huguenots.
Let the king only appear at Lyons , and declare
himself for the freedom of Italy ,
and the pope on his part would not delay to bring his forces into action and
unite himself with the king”.
…
(“The HISTORY OF THE POPES, their
CHURCH AND STATE, and especially THEIR CONFLICT WITH PROTESTANTISM in the XVI
and XVII centuries” by LEOPOLD RANKE in 3 volumes; London , Henry G. Bohn, York street, Covent
Garden – 1853)
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