Pope Urban VIII - Papacy

Papacy

On 6 August 1623, after the papal conclave following the death of Pope Gregory XV, he was chosen as Gregory's successor and took the name Urban VIII.

Upon his election, Zeno, the Venetian envoy, wrote the following description of him:

The new Pontiff is 56 years old. His Holiness is tall, dark, with regular features and black hair turning grey. He is exceptionally elegant and refined in all details of his dress; has a graceful and aristocratic bearing and exquisite taste. He is an excellent speaker and debater, writes verses and patronises poets and men of letters.

Urban's papacy covered twenty-one years of the Thirty Years' War and was an eventful one even by the standards of the day. He canonised Elizabeth of Portugal and Andrew Corsini and issued the Papal bulls of canonisation for Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier who had been canonized by his predecessor, Gregory XV.

Despite an early friendship and encouragement for his teachings, Urban was responsible for summoning Galileo to Rome in 1633 to recant his work.

He practiced nepotism on a grand scale; various members of his family were enormously enriched by him, so that it seemed to contemporaries as if were establishing a Barberini dynasty. He elevated his brother Antonio Marcello Barberini (Antonio the Elder) and then his nephews Francesco Barberini and Antonio Barberini (Antonio the Younger). He also bestowed upon their brother, Taddeo Barberini, the honorific title Prince of Palestrina; Palestrina being the comune owned by the Barberini family. During the Wars of Castro, Taddeo was also appointed Commander of the Papal Army.

Urban was a skilled writer of Latin verse, and a collection of Scriptural paraphrases as well as original hymns of his composition has been frequently reprinted.

A 1638 papal bull protected the existence of Jesuit missions in South America by forbidding the enslavement of natives who joined a mission community. At the same time, Urban repealed the Jesuit monopoly on missionary work in China and Japan, opening these countries to missionaries of all orders.

Urban VIII issued a 1624 papal bull that made the use of tobacco in holy places punishable by excommunication; Pope Benedict XIII would later repeal the ban.