Pope Paul III excommunicates Henry VIII

The day a pontiff finally lost patience with the Tudor king

Pope Paul III was born Alessandro
Farnese and became pope in 1534

Pope Paul III announced the excommunication of King Henry VIII of England from the Catholic Church on this day in 1538 in Rome.

Henry had been threatened with excommunication by the previous pope, Clement VII, in 1533 after he married Anne Boleyn. However, Clement did not act on his threat straight away, hoping Henry might come to his senses.

Henry had been awarded the title of Defender of the Faith by a previous pope because he had written a defence of the seven sacraments of the Catholic church against the protestant leader Martin Luther.

But Clement died the following year and a new pope had to be elected.

Pope Paul III, who was born Alessandro Farnese, became pontiff in 1534 and took on the job of organising the Counter Reformation as well as using nepotism to advance the power and fortunes of the Farnese family.

When it became clear Henry was intent on demolishing the Catholic Church in England, Paul III issued the original papal bull - edict - drawn up by Clement VII.

Henry VIII was punished  for his
attack on the English Catholic Church

He lost patience with Henry after he declared himself head of the Church of England and started ordering the execution of anyone who stood in his way.

In the bull, Paul III specifically referred to Henry’s actions in digging up and burning the bones of St Thomas of Canterbury, scattering his ashes to the winds and driving out the monks from St Augustine’s monastery in the same city, putting his deer in their place.

During the rest of his time as pontiff, Paul III used his diplomatic skills to avoid conflict with both Francis I of France and the Emperor Charles V and he reasserted papal control of central Italy.

He convened the Council of Trent in 1545, which met at Trento in northern Italy for nearly eight years to plan the Catholic resurgence in response to the Protestant Reformation.

The Sistine Hall of the Vatican Library in Rome

Travel tip:

The Vatican Library in Rome is the official library of the Holy See. Established in 1475, it is one of the oldest libraries in the world and has more than one million books. In the 17th century, on the orders of Pope Paul V, the Vatican Archives, containing all the Acts promulgated by the Holy See and other important documents, were separated from the Vatican Library. They remained closed to outsiders until the late 19th century when Pope Leo XIII made them available to researchers again. In 2012, to mark the 400th anniversary of the Vatican Archives, a selection of the documents was put on display in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. They included a letter signed by 81 English noblemen, which had been sent in 1530 to Pope Clement V11 urging him to annul Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn.

Hotels in Rome from TripAdvisor

Pope Paul III renewed Michelangelo's commission to
work on St Peter's Basilica during his time in office

Travel tip:

As well as leading the Counter Reformation, Paul III was a keen patron of the arts and during his reign as Pope he renewed Michelangelo’s commission to paint the Last Judgment on the wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace and oversaw the project until it was completed in 1541. He also appointed Michelangelo to take over the supervision of the building of St Peter’s Basilica after the death of the architect Antonio Sangallo the Younger. He commissioned the building of the Palazzo Farnese in the centre of Rome to reflect his wealth and status. The palace was initially designed by da Sangallo but was given some architectural refinements by Michelangelo.



More reading:

The death of Pope Julius II, the 'warrior pope'

The legacy of Michelangelo

Ranuccio II Farnese - the Duke of Parma who feuded with popes

Also on this day:

546: Rome falls to the Ostrogoths

1749: The birth of composer Domenico Cimarosa

1981: Red Brigades seize Nato boss


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Agostino Chigi - banker and arts patron

Nobleman from Siena became one of Europe’s richest men

A Roman coin bearing the image of Agostino Chigi,
who was one of the 16th century's richest bankers

The banker Agostino Chigi, who was a major sponsor of artists during the Renaissance, was born on this day in 1466 in Siena.

At its height, Chigi’s banking house in Rome was the biggest financial institution in Europe, employing up to 20,000 people, with branches throughout Italy and abroad, as far apart as London and Cairo.

Chigi invested a good deal of his wealth in supporting the arts, notably providing financial backing to almost all the main figures of the early 16th century, including Perugino, Sebastiano del Piombo, Giovanni da Udine, Giulio Romano, Il Sodoma (Giovanni Bazzi) and Raphael.

Perugino painted The Chigi Altarpiece, dated at around 1506-1507, which hangs in the Chigi family chapel in the church of Sant'Agostino in Siena. 

Chigi’s significant legacy to Rome was to have built a chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Pace, another - his mortuary chapel, the Chigi Chapel - in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, and the superb suburban villa in Trastevere, on the banks of the Tiber, which since 1579 has been known as the Villa Farnesina. 

The altarpiece painted by Perugino
for Agostino Chigi in Siena

Agostino Chigi was the son of the prominent Sienese banker Mariano Chigi, from an ancient and illustrious Tuscan family. He moved to Rome around 1487, taking with him a rich fund of capital.

He grew the wealth of his own bank by lending considerable sums to Pope Alexander VI and others, and by diversifying from regular banking practice by buying monopoly control of salt mining in the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples, as well as that of alum, a mineral used in the textile industry.

After the death of the Borgia pope Alexander VI and his short-lived Sienese successor Pius III Piccolomini, Chigi helped Pope Julius II, in return for which he became treasurer and notary of the Apostolic Camera.  Agostino even accompanied Julius in the field in his military campaigns and went to Venice on his behalf to buy Venetian support for the papal forces in the War of the League of Cambrai.

Work began on his magnificent palace in Trastevere in 1506. Chigi took the unusual step of commissioning an untried pupil of Bramante, Baldassare Peruzzi, to design and oversee the construction of the villa, although he may have been helped Giuliano da Sangallo, the favored architect of Lorenzo de' Medici.

Raphael's fresco The Triumph of Galatea.
in the loggia at the Villa Farnesina

His design differed from that of the typical urban palazzo, which tended to be rectangular, with an enclosed courtyard. This villa, intended as an airy summer pavilion, had a U-shaped plan with a five-bay loggia between the arms, facing north, which was the main entrance.

The best known element of the sumptuous decorations are Raphael's frescoes on the ground floor, both in the loggia depicting the classical and secular myths of Cupid and Psyche, and in the east-facing loggia, depicting The Triumph of Galatea. 

This was a mythological scene from an intended series inspired by the Stanze per la giostra of the Florentine poet Angelo Poliziano. It shows the near-naked sea nymph Galatea on a shell-shaped chariot drawn by two dolphins, surrounded by other sea creatures.

It has been noted that Raphael’s Galatea bore similarities to the courtesan, Imperia Cognati, who was Agostino Chigi's lover and is said to have posed for Raphael on more than one occasion. The art historian and Raphael's near-contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, noted, however, that Raphael had said that Galatea was the product of his imagination, an idealised beauty.

It was at this villa that Chigi held sumptuous banquets. He was recognised as the richest man in Rome but was said to have affected a contempt of money by throwing silver dishes into the Tiber at the end of the parties, although it is thought his servants were on hand to collect them in nets draped under the windows.

The villa was called the Viridario in Chigi's time. It became the property of the Farnese family in 1577, more than a half-century after his death.

The Palazzo Chigi, the current official residence of Italian prime ministers, was bought by Fabio Chigi, related to Agostino as a descendent of his father’s brother, shortly after he became Pope Alexander VII in 1655.

The northern aspect of the Villa Farnesina, which was
Agostino Chigi's summer palace in Rome

Travel tip:

The Villa Farnesina can be found on Via della Lungara in the Trastevere district of Rome.  After the Farnese family, the villa belonged to the Bourbons of Naples and in 1861 to the Spanish Ambassador in Rome, Bermudez de Castro, Duke of Ripalta. Today, it is owned by the Italian State and accommodates the Accademia dei Lincei, a long-standing academy of sciences. The main rooms of the villa, including the Loggia, are open to visitors from 9am to 2pm on Monday to Saturday, and on every second Sunday of the month from 9am to 5pm. For more details, visit http://www.villafarnesina.it

The Palazzo Chigi in Rome was built originally for the
Aldobrandini family before passing to the Chigi family in 1659

Travel tip:

The 16th-century Palazzo Chigi, which overlooks the Piazza Colonna and the Via del Corso in Rome, was begun in 1562 by Giacomo della Porta and completed by Carlo Maderno in 1580 for the Aldobrandini family. It was in the ownership of the Chigi family, who had it remodelled by Felice della Greca and Giovan Battista Contini, from 1659 until the 19th century. It became the residence of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Italy in 1878 before being bought by the Italian state in 1916, when it became the home of the Minister for Colonial Affairs. Later it was the official residence of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and in 1961 became the official meeting place of Council of Ministers, whose president is the head of the Italian government - the prime minister - and can now use the palace as his official residence.


More reading:

Raphael: The precocious genius from Urbino

How the courtesan Imperia Cognati became a 16th century celebrity

Pope Alexander VI - the scheming Borgia pope

Also on this day:

1463: The birth of antiquities collector Andrea della Valle

1797: The birth of composer Donizetti

1850: The birth of Agostino Richelmy, the cardinal who fought with Garibaldi

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Roberto Vittori – astronaut

High-flying Colonel contributed to space research

Roberto Vittori has taken part in three space flights,
including the last by Space Shuttle Endeavour

Roberto Vittori, the last non-American to fly on board the US Space Shuttle, was born on this day in 1964 in Viterbo.

An Italian air force officer, Vittori was selected by the European Space Agency to be part of their Astronaut Corps and has participated in three space flights.

In 2011 Vittori was on board the Space Shuttle that travelled to the International Space Station to install the AMS-02 cosmic ray detector to examine dark matter and the origin of the Universe.

Vittori had to grapple the six-tonne AMS-02 with the Space Shuttle’s robotic arm and move it to the station for installation. This was to be the final flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour.

He is one of five Italians to have visited the International Space Station. The others are Umberto Guidoni, who was the first European to set foot on board when he flew on Space Shuttle Endeavour in 2001, Paolo Nespoli, who visited as recently as 2017 and at 61 is the European Space Agency’s oldest active astronaut, Luca Parmitano and Samantha Cristoforetti, the first Italian woman in space.

Vittori, right, met up with fellow Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli
after arriving at the International Space Station in 2011

Nespoli, who has participated in three International Space Station missions, was coming to the end of a 159-day stay when Vittori visited.

Vittori graduated from the Italian Air Force Academy in 1989 with a degree in Aeronautical Science and afterwards flew with the Italian air force from a base in Piacenza.

After completing his basic training with the US Air Force in 1990, Vittori graduated from the US Navy Test Pilot School in 1995. He also graduated from the Nato Defence College Senior Course in 2006 and completed a Masters degree in Physics in 2007.

Vittori, left, with some of his fellow crew members after
the Endeavour arrived at the International Space Station

In 2002, he flew to the International Space Station on board a Russian Soyuz craft and worked alongside the resident crew overseeing scientific experiments. The mission successfully delivered a new lifeboat for use in the event of an on board emergency.

In 2005, again part of a Soyuz mission, he became the first European to visit the Space Station twice when he went to conduct experiments in upper limb fatigue and the germination of herbaceous plant seeds for possible space nutrition.

After Space Shuttle Columbia was lost in 2003, Vittori served on the accident investigation team.

Now a Colonel in the Italian Air Force, Vittori has logged nearly 2000 miles in more than 40 different aircraft. He is married to Valeria Nardi, who comes from Città di Castello in the province of Perugia, and they have three children.

He was made Commendatore della Repubblica by Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, the then President of the Italian Republic, in 2005.

The impressive Palazzo dei Papi is among many
well-preserved medieval buildings in Viterbo

Travel tip:

Viterbo, where Roberto Vittori was born, is the largest town in northern Lazio, situated about 80km (50 miles) north of Rome. It is regarded as one of the best preserved medieval towns in Italy, with many buildings in the San Pellegrino quarter featuring external staircases. The town’s impressive Palazzo dei Papi, was used as the papal palace for about 20 years during the 13th century. Completed in about 1266, the palace has a large audience hall, which connects with a loggia raised above street level by a barrel vault.

The Piazza Cavalli in Piacenza is so called because of
its two bronze equestrian statues by Francesco Mochi

Travel tip:

Piacenza, where Roberto Vittori was based with the Italian air force after qualifying as a pilot, is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. The main square in Piacenza is named Piazza Cavalli because of its two bronze equestrian monuments featuring Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma and his son Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma, who succeeded him. The statues are masterpieces by the sculptor Francesco Mochi.

More reading:

Samantha Cristoforetti - Italy's record-breaking first woman in space

How astronaut Umberto Guidoni launched a career in politics

Giovanni Schiaparelli and 'canals on the moon'

Also on this day:

1764: Edward Gibbon's moment of inspiration

1905: The birth of footballer Angelo Schiavio, whose goal won Italy's first World Cup


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Ranuccio II Farnese – Duke of Parma

Feuding with the Popes led to the destruction of a city

A portrait of Ranuccio II Farnese by the Flemish
Baroque painter Jacob Denys

Ranuccio II Farnese, who angered Innocent X so much that the Pope had part of his territory razed to the ground, was born on this day in 1630 in Parma.

Ranuccio II was the eldest son of Odoardo Farnese, the fifth sovereign duke of Parma, and his wife, Margherita de’ Medici.

Odoardo died while Ranuccio was still a minor and, although he succeeded him as Duke of Parma, he had to rule for the first two years of his reign under the regency of both his uncle, Francesco Maria Farnese, and his mother.

The House of Farnese had been founded by Ranuccio’s paternal ancestor, Alessandro Farnese, who became Pope Paul III. The Farnese family had been ruling Parma and Piacenza ever since Paul III gave it to his illegitimate son, Pier Luigi Farnese. He also made Pier Luigi the Duke of Castro.

While Odoardo had been Duke of Parma he had become involved in a power struggle with Pope Urban VIII, who was a member of the Barberini family. The Barberini family were keen to acquire Castro, which was north of Rome in the Papal States.

When Odoardo found himself unable to pay his debts, Urban VIII responded to the creditors’ pleas for help, by sending troops to occupy Castro.

How Castro may have looked before it was destroyed by
the army of Innocent X

One of the Pope’s Cardinals negotiated a truce, but then the Pope’s military leaders discovered that Odoardo was building up his own troops in case the discussions had come to nothing. What became known as the First War of Castro ensued and the Papal forces were defeated.

However, Ranuccio II refused to pay the debts incurred by his father, despite the fact Oduardo had signed a peace treaty agreeing to do so. He also refused to recognise the new Bishop of Castro, appointed by Urban VIII’s successor, Innocent X.

In 1649, the new bishop, Cardinal Cristoforo Giarda, was murdered on his way to Castro. Innocent X accused Ranuccio of ordering the murder and in retaliation sent troops to besiege Castro and then raze it to the ground.

Later the same year, Ranuccio’s troops were crushed in another battle, leaving him with no means of winning back his lost territory, but in 1672 he bought Bardi and Compiano, small towns near Parma, to increase the size of the Duchy.

Ranuccio II was married three times and had 14 children, of whom only six lived to become adults.

He died in Parma in 1694 at the age of 64 and was succeeded as Duke of Parma by his eldest surviving son, Francesco.

Ranuccio II is buried in the Sanctuary of Santa Maria della Steccata in Parma.

The Ducal Palace in modern Ischia di Castro

Travel tip:

Castro in Lazio was a fortified city on a cliff, near the border between Tuscany and Lazio. The city and surrounding area was created a Duchy in 1537 by Pope Paul III, who made his illegitimate son, Pier Luigi Farnese, its duke, to be followed by his first born male heirs. The Duchy stretched from the Tyrrhenian Sea to Lago di Bolsena. Ranuccio II Farnese, the last Duke of Castro, was forced to cede the land back to Pope Innocent X. The present day comune, Ischia di Castro, in the province of Viterbo, takes its name from the ancient city of Castro destroyed by papal forces. Ischia di Castro still has a Ducal Palace, where members of the Farnese family used to live.

The Renaissance church of Santa Maria della Steccata
in the centre of Parma, where Ranuccio II was buried

Travel tip:

The Shrine of Santa Maria della Steccata, where Ranuccio II was buried, is a Renaissance church in the centre of Parma. The name derives from the fence, or steccata, used to contain the many pilgrims who came to visit the image of a Nursing Madonna enshrined within the church. The crypt of the church contains the tombs of 26 members of the Farnese family, including that of Ranuccio II.

More reading:

How a war against Parma backfired on Pope Urban VIII

The legacy of the great Parma painter known as Parmigianino

Innocent X - a pope dominated by his sister-in-law

Also on this day:

1688: The birth of Maria Luisa of Savoy, who ruled Spain as a teenager

1944: The birth of climber Reinhold Messner


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