Pope Julius III

Pope Julius III
Bishop of Rome
Portrait by an artist in the circle of Girolamo Siciolante, c. 1550 (oil on canvas, 106 x 86 cm; Rijksmuseum )
Church	Catholic Church
Papacy began	22 February 1550
Papacy ended	23 March 1555
Predecessor	Paul III
Successor	Marcellus II
Previous posts	Archbishop of Manfredonia (1512–1544) Bishop of Pavia (1521–1530) Cardinal-Priest of San Vitale (1537–1542) Cardinal-Priest of Santa Prassede (1542–1543) Cardinal-Bishop of Palestrina (1543–1550)
Orders
Ordination	12 November 1512
Consecration	12 November 1514 by Antonio Maria Ciocchi del Monte
Created cardinal	22 December 1536 by Paul III
Personal details
Born	Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte 10 September 1487 Monte San Savino, Republic of Siena
Died	23 March 1555 (aged 67) Rome, Papal States
Other popes named Julius

Pope Julius III (Latin: Iulius PP. III; Italian: Giulio III; 10 September 1487 – 23 March 1555), born Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 22 February 1550 to his death, in March 1555.

After a career as a distinguished and effective diplomat, Julius was elected to the papacy as a compromise candidate after the death of Paul III. As pope, he made only reluctant and short-lived attempts at reform, mostly devoting himself to a life of personal pleasure. His reputation, and that of the Catholic Church, were greatly harmed by his scandal-ridden relationship with his adopted nephew, Innocenzo Ciocchi Del Monte. He is the most recent pope to take the pontifical name "Julius".

Education and early career

Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte was born in Monte San Savino, the son of a distinguished Roman jurist. He was educated by the humanist Raffaele Brandolini Lippo, and later studied law at Perugia and Siena. During his career, he distinguished himself as a brilliant canonist rather than as a theologian.

Del Monte was the nephew of Antonio Maria Ciocchi del Monte, Archbishop of Manfredonia (1506–1511). His uncle exchanged this see for a position as a Cardinal in 1511; Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte succeeded to Manfredonia in 1513. In 1520, del Monte also became Bishop of Pavia. Popular for his affable manner and respected for his administrative skills, he was twice Prefect of Rome and was entrusted by the papal curia with several duties. At the Sack of Rome (1527) he was one of the hostages given by Pope Clement VII to the Emperor's forces, and barely escaped execution. Pope Paul III created him Cardinal-Priest of San Vitale on 22 December, 1536; and raised him to the dignity of cardinal-bishop with the Diocese of Palestrina on 5 October, 1543. He was employed by him in several important legations, notably as papal legate and first president of the Council of Trent (1545/47) and then at Bologna (1547/48).

Papacy

Election

Paul III died on 10 November 1549, and in the ensuing conclave the forty-eight cardinals were divided into three factions: of the primary factions, the Imperial faction wished to see the Council of Trent reconvened, the French faction wished to see it dropped. The Farnese faction, loyal to the family of the previous Pope, supported the election of Paul III's grandson, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and also the family's claim to the Duchy of Parma, which was contested by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

Neither the French nor the Germans favoured del Monte, and the Emperor had expressly excluded him from the list of acceptable candidates, but the French were able to block the other two factions, allowing del Monte to promote himself as a compromise candidate and be elected on 7 February 1550. Ottavio Farnese, whose support had been crucial to the election, was immediately confirmed as Duke of Parma. But, when Farnese applied to France for aid against the emperor, Julius allied himself with the emperor, declared Farnese deprived of his fief, and sent troops under the command of his nephew Giambattista del Monte to co-operate with governor Ferrante Gonzaga of Milan in the capture of Parma.

Church reforms

At the start of his reign Julius had seriously desired to bring about a reform of the Catholic Church and to reconvene the Council of Trent, but very little was actually achieved during his five years in office. In 1551, at the request of Emperor Charles V, he consented to the reopening of the Council of Trent and entered into a league against the duke of Parma and Henry II of France (1547–59), causing the War of Parma. However, Julius soon came to terms with the duke and France and in 1553 suspended the meetings of the council.

Henry had threatened to withdraw recognition from the Pope if the new Pope was pro-Habsburg in orientation, and when Julius III reconvened the Council of Trent, Henry blocked French bishops from attending and did not enforce the papal decrees in France. Even after Julius III suspended the council again he proceeded to bully the pope into taking his side against the Habsburgs by threatening schism.

Julius increasingly contented himself with Italian politics and retired to his luxurious palace at the Villa Giulia, which he had built for himself close to the Porta del Popolo. From there he passed the time in comfort, emerging from time to time to make timid efforts to reform the Church through the reestablishment of the reform commissions. He was a friend of the Jesuits, to whom he granted a fresh confirmation in 1550; and through the papal bull, Dum sollicita of August 1552, he founded the Collegium Germanicum, and granted an annual income.

During his pontificate, Catholicism was restored in England under Queen Mary in 1553. Julius sent Cardinal Reginald Pole as legate with powers that he could use at his discretion to help the restoration succeed. In February 1555, an envoy was dispatched from the English Parliament to Julius to inform him of the country's formal submission, but the pope died before the envoy reached Rome.

Shortly before his death, Julius dispatched Cardinal Giovanni Morone to represent the interests of the Holy See at the Peace of Augsburg. His inactivity during the last three years of his pontificate may have been caused by the frequent and severe attacks of gout.

Artistic endeavors

The pope's lack of interest in political or ecclesiastical affairs caused dismay among his contemporaries. When his efforts at church reform proved ineffective, Julius III focused his attentions instead on artistic and architectural commissions as well as his lavish Villa Giulia. He spent the bulk of his time, and a great deal of papal money, on entertainments at the Villa Giulia, created for him by Vignola. Bartolomeo Ammannati designed a number of garden features under the general direction of Giorgio Vasari, with guidance from the knowledgeable pope and Michelangelo, who worked there. Today the Villa Giulia houses the National Etruscan Museum, a collection of Etruscan art and artifacts.

More significant and lasting was his patronage of the great Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whom he brought to Rome as his maestro di cappella.

The Innocenzo scandal

Julius' papacy was marked by scandals, the most notable of which is centered around the pope's adoptive nephew, Innocenzo Ciocchi Del Monte. Innocenzo del Monte was a teenaged beggar found in the streets of Parma who was hired by the family as a lowly hall boy in their primary residence, the boy's age being variously given as 14, 15, or 17 years. After the elevation of Julius to the papacy, Innocenzo Del Monte was adopted into the family by the pope's brother and was then promptly created cardinal-nephew by Julius. The pope showered his favourite with benefices, including the commendatario of the abbeys of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy and Saint Zeno in Verona, and, later, of the abbeys of Saint Saba, Miramondo, Grottaferrata and Frascati, among others. As rumours began to circle about the particular relationship between the pope and his adoptive nephew, Julius refused to take advice. The cardinals Reginald Pole and Giovanni Carafa (who would be elected pope in 1555) warned Julius of the "evil suppositions to which the elevation of a fatherless young man would give rise".

The courtier and poet Girolamo Muzio, in a 1550 letter to Ferrante Gonzaga (governor of Milan), wrote: "They write many bad things about this new pope; that he is vicious, proud, and odd in the head."

The poet Joachim du Bellay, who lived in Rome through this period in the retinue of his relative, Cardinal Jean du Bellay, expressed his scandalised opinion of Julius in two sonnets in his series Les regrets (1558), which alluded to the beautiful young Innocenzo's appointment by referencing "a Ganymede with the red hat on his head".

The Pope's political enemies likewise made hay with the scandal. In Italy, it was said that Julius showed the impatience of a "lover awaiting a mistress" while awaiting Innocenzo's arrival in Rome — and that he boasted of the boy's prowess in bed. The Venetian ambassador reported that Innocenzo Del Monte shared the pope's bed "as if he [Innocenzo] were his [Julius'] own son or grandson." "The charitably-disposed told themselves the boy might after all be simply his bastard son."

For some time afterwards, Protestants, too, seized upon the rumours in the cause of polemic. As late as 1597, in his work The Theatre of God's judgement, the English Puritan clergyman Thomas Beard, asserted that it was Julius' "custome... to promote none to ecclesiastical livings, save only his buggerers".

Despite the damage which the scandal was inflicting on the church, it was not until after Julius' death in 1555 that anything could be done to reduce Innocenzo's visibility. He underwent temporary banishment following the murder of two men who had insulted him, and then again following the rape of two women. He tried to use his connections in the College of Cardinals to plead his cause, but his influence waned, and he died in obscurity. He was buried in Rome in the del Monte family chapel. One outcome of the cardinal-nephew scandal, however, was the upgrading of the position of Papal Secretary of State, as the incumbent had to take over the duties Innocenzo Del Monte was unfit to perform: the Secretary of State eventually replaced the cardinal-nephew as the most important official of the Holy See.

Other activities

Consistories

Throughout his pontificate, Julius III named twenty new cardinals in four consistories, including one cardinal whom he nominated "in pectore" in 1551 and revealed in the following year.

Beatifications

While he did not canonize any saints during his papacy, Julius III did beatify the Basilian monk and hermit Silvester of Troina.

Death

Julius III died at 7:00pm on 23 March 1555. Having suffered from gout in his later years (which he tried to cure simply by fasting), he died as a result of stomach ailments. As he was dying, he had difficulties in swallowing to the point that he ate little, having found it uncomfortable. It was believed after his death that the pope had died from stomach or esophageal cancer.

In fiction

In the novel Q by Luther Blissett, Julius appears toward the end of the book as a moderate cardinal favouring religious tolerance, in the upheavals caused by the Reformation and the Roman Church's response during the 16th century. His election as pope and the subsequent unleashing of the Inquisition form the last chapters of the novel.

See also

• Cardinals created by Julius III

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Pope Julius III — (GIAMMARIA CIOCCHI DEL MONTE).

Born at Rome, 10 September, 1487; died there, 23 March, 1555. He was the son of a famous Roman jurist, studied jurisprudence at Perugia and Siena, and theology under the Dominican, Ambrosius Catharinus. In 1512 he succeeded his uncle Antonio del Monte as Archbishop of Siponto (Manfredonia), and in 1520 as Bishop of Pavia, retaining, however, the administration of Siponto. Later he became vice-legate of Perugia, and under Clement VII was twice appointed prefect of Rome. After the Sack of Rome (1527) he was one of the hostages given by Clement VII to the Imperialists, and would have been killed by the imperial Landsknechte in the Campo di Fiori, had he not been secretly liberated by Cardinal Pompio Colonna. In 1534 he became legate of Bologna, the Romagna, Parma, and Piacenza. Pope Paul III created him Cardinal-Priest of SS. Vitalis, Gervasius, and Protasius on 22 December, 1536, and raised him to the dignity of cardinal-bishop with the Diocese of Palestrina on 5 October, 1543. As early as 1542 he had been entrusted with work preparatory to the convocation of the Council of Trent, and in a consistory held on 6 February, 1545, he was appointed first president of the council. In this capacity he opened the council at Trent on 13 December with a short oration (cf. Ehses, "Concilium Tridentinum", IV, Freiburg im Br., 1904, p. 516). At the council he represented the papal interests against Emperor Charles V, with whom he came in conflict on various occasions, especially when on 26 March, 1547, he transferred the Council to Bologna.

After the death of Paul III on 10 November, 1549, the forty-eight cardinals present in Rome entered the conclave on 29 November. They were divided into three factions: the Imperials, the French, and the adherents of Farnese. The friends of Farnese united with the Imperial party and proposed Reginald Pole and Juan de Toledo as their candidates. The French party rejected both and, though in the minority, they were strong enough to prevent the election of either candidate. The adherents of Farnese and the French party finally reached a compromise and agreed upon Cardinal del Monte, who was duly elected on 7 February, 1550, after a conclave of ten weeks, although the emperor had expressly excluded him from the list of candidates. The new pope took the name of Julius III. In fulfilment of promises made in the conclave, Julius restored Parma to Ottavio Farnese a few days after his accession. But, when Farnese applied to France for aid against the emperor, Julius allied himself with the emperor, declared Farnese deprived of his fief, and sent troops under the command of his nephew Giambattista del Monte to co-operate with Duke Gonzaga of Milan in the capture of Parma. In a Bull, dated 13 November, 1550, Julius transferred the council from Bologna back to Trent, and ordered that its sessions be resumed on 1 May, 1551, but he was compelled to suspend it again on 15 April, 1552, because the French bishops would take no part in it, and, to escape his enemies, the emperor had to flee from Innsbruck. The success of the French arms in Northern Italy also compelled Julius on 29 April, 1552, to make a truce with France, in which it was stipulated that Farnese was to remain in the peaceful possession of Parma for two years.

Discouraged at his failure as an ally of Charles V, the pope henceforth abstained from interfering in the political affairs of Italy. He withdrew to his luxurious palace, the Villa Giulia, which he had erected at the Porta del Popolo. Here he spent most of his time in ease and comfort, occasionally making a weak effort at reform in the Church by instituting a few committees of cardinals for reformatory purposes. He was a liberal supporter of the rising Jesuit Order, and at the instance of St. Ignatius issued the Bull of foundation for the Collegium Germanicum on 31 August, 1552, and granted it an annual subsidy. During his pontificate the Catholic religion was temporarily restored in England by Queen Mary, who succeeded Edward VI on the English throne in 1553. Julius sent Cardinal Reginald Pole as legate to England with extensive faculties to be used at his discretion in the interests of the Catholic restoration. In February, 1555, an embassy was sent by the English Parliament to Julius III to inform him of its unreserved submission to the papal supremacy, but the embassy was still on its journey when the pope died. Shortly before his death Julius III sent Cardinal Morone to represent the Catholic interest at the Religious Peace of Augsburg. At the beginning of his pontificate Julius III had the earnest desire to bring about a reform in the Church and with this intent he reopened the Council of Trent. That the council was again suspended was due to the force of circumstances. His inactivity during the last three years of his pontificate may have been caused by the frequent and severe attacks of the gout to which he was subject. The great blemish in his pontificate was nepotism. Shortly after his accession he bestowed the purple on his unworthy favourite Innocenzo del Monte, a youth of seventeen whom he had picked up on the streets of Parma some years previously, and who had been adopted by the pope's brother, Balduino. This act gave rise to some very disagreeable rumours concerning the pope's relation to Innocenzo. Julius was also extremely lavish in bestowing ecclesiastical dignities and benefices upon his relatives.

MASSARELLI, De Pontificatu Julii II diarium, edited by DÖLLINGER in Ungedruckte Berichte und Tagebücher zur Gesch. des Konzils von Trient, I, i (Nördlingen, 1876), 259-326; PASTOR, Gesch. der Päpste seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, V (Freiburg, 1909), passim; DE LAVA, La Guerra di Papa Giulio III contra Ottavio Farnese in Rivista storica Italiana (Turin, 1884), 632 sq.; IDEM, L'elezione de Papa Giulio III, ibid., 32 sq.; CIACONIUS, Vitœ et res gestœ Pontificum Romanorum et S. R. E. Cardinalium, III (Rome, 1677), 741-98; CARDELLA, Memorie storiche de' cardinali della s. romana chiesa, IV (Rome, 1792), 397-401; RANKE, Die römischen Päpste (Leipzig, 1889), 177 sq., tr. FOSTER, History of the Popes, I (London, 1906), 206-11. See also bibliography under TRENT, COUNCIL OF.

Bibliography

• P. Messina, 'Del Monte, Innocenzo', Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Vol 38, Rome, 1990.

• Burkle-Young, Francis A., and Michael Leopoldo Doerrer. The Life of Cardinal Innocenzo del Monte: A Scandal in Scarlet. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1997.
• Dall'Orto, Giovanni, "Julius III." Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History from Antiquity to World War II. Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon, eds. London: Routledge, 2001. 234–35.
• Edwards, John (2016). Archbishop Pole. Routledge. ISBN 9781409420576.
• Kelly, J. N. D. The Oxford Dictionary of Popes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

• Smith, Marc (2002). "Julius III". In Levillain, Philippe (ed.). The Papacy: Gaius-Proxies. Routledge. ISBN 9780415922302.
• O'Malley, John W (2009). A History of the Popes: From Peter to the Present. Government Institutes. ISBN 9781580512299.

External links

• Career of Innocenzo Ciocchi Del Monte