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Bible Encyclopedias
Paul V
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or V. (Camillo Borghese), successor of Leo XI., was born in Rome on the 17th of September 1552, of a noble family. He studied in Perugia and Padua, became a canon lawyer, and was vice-legate in Bologna. As a reward of a successful mission to Spain Clement VIII. made him cardinal (1596) and later vicar in Rome and inquisitor. Elevated to the papacy, on the 16th of May 1605, his extreme conception of papal prerogative,. his arrogance and obstinacy, his perverse insistence upon the theoretical and disregard of the actual, made strife inevitableHe provoked disputes with the Italian states over ecclesiastical rights. Savoy, Genoa, Tuscany and Naples, wishing to avoid a rupture, yielded; but Venice resisted. The republic stood upon her right to judge all her subjects, and by her demands. touching benefices, tithes and papal bulls showed her determination to be supreme in her own territory. Excommunication and interdict (April 17, 1606) were met with defiance. The cause of the republic was brilliantly advocated by Fra Paolo Sarpi, counsellor of state; the defenders of the papal theory were Cardinals Baronius and Bellarmine. The pope talked of coercion by arms; but Spain, to whom he looked for support, refused to be drawn into war, and the quarrel was finally settled by the mediation of France (March 22, 1607). Notwithstanding certain concessions, the victory remained with the republic (see Sarpi).
Paul became involved in a quarrel with England also. After the Gunpowder Plot parliament required a new oath of allegiance to the king and a denial of the right of the pope to depose him or release his subjects from their obedience. Paul forbade Roman Catholics to take the oath; but to no purpose, beyond stirring up a literary controversy. By his condemnation of Gallicanism (1613) Paul angered France, and provoked the defiant declaration of the states general of 1614 that the king held his crown from God alone.
Paul encouraged missions, confirmed many new congregations and brotherhoods, authorized a new version of the Ritual, and canonized Carlo Borromeo. His devotion to the interests of his family exceeded all bounds, and they became enormously wealthy. Paul began the famous Villa Borghese; enlarged the Quirinal and Vatican; completed the nave, facade and portico of St Peter's; erected the Borghese Chapel in Sta Maria Maggiore; and restored the aqueduct of Augustus and Trajan ("Acqua Paolina"). He also added to the Vatican library, and began a collection of antiquities. Paul died on the 28th of January 1621, and was succeeded by Gregory XV.
See Bzovius (Bzowski), De vita Pauli V. (Rome, 1625; contained in Platina, De vitis pontiff. rom., ed. 1626), who depicts Paul as a paragon of all public and private virtues; Vitorelli, continuator of Ciaconius, Vitae et res gestae summorum pontiff. rom. (a contemporary of the pope); Goujet, Hist. du pontifical de Paul V., ( 1765); Ranke, Popes (Eng. trans. by Austin), ii. 330 seq., iii. 72 seq.; v. Reumont, Gesch. der Stadt Rom, iii. 2, 605 seq.; Brosch, Gesch. des Kirchenstaates (1880), i. 351 seq. The Venetian version of the quarrel with the pope was written by Sarpi (subsequently translated into English, London, 1626); see also Cornet, Paolo V. et la repub. veneta (Vienna, 1859); and Trollope, Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar (London, 1860). An extensive biography will be found in Herzog-Hauck, Realencylkopddie, s.v. " Paul V." (T. F. C.)
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Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Paul V'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/p/paul-v.html. 1910.
