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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Paul V Biography PAUL V (Pope, 1605-21), Camillo Borghese. He was born in Rome in 1550. In his early life he was a distinguished canonist and theologian, and after the ordinary prelatical career at Rome he rose first to the post of Nuncio at the Spanish court and afterward to the cardinalate under Clement VIII. His pontificate is rendered memorable by the celebrated conflict with the Republic of Venice, into which he was plunged at the very outset of his career. The original ground of dispute was the question of the immunity of the clergy from the jurisdiction of civil tribunals. The Venetian Senate resisted the claim of the clergy to be tried by ecclesiastical tribunals, and further causes of dispute were added by a mortmain law, and a law prohibiting the establishment of new religious orders or associations unless with the sanction of the Senate. Each party remaining inflexible in its determination, Paul issued a brief, directing a sentence of excommunication against the Doge and Senate and placing the Republic under an interdict unless submission should be made within 24 days. The Senate persisted, and an animated conflict, as well of acts as of writings, ensued, in the latter of which the celebrated Fra Paolo Sarpi (q.v.) on the side of the Republic, and on the papal side Bellarmine (q.v.) and Baronius, were the leaders. Preparations were even made for actual hostilities; but, by the intervention of Henry IV of France, the dispute was accommodated and peace restored in 1607, although dissatisfaction afterward arose on the subject of the nomination of a patriarch. Paul's administration was vigorous and marked by the development of religious orders and missionary enterprise. He added to the splendors of Rome and the wealth of his own family. Consult his Life by T. A. Trollope (London, 1861), and Leopold von Ranke, History of the Popes, vol. ii (ib.. 1908). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XVIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 183-184. |