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Had his capacity been at all commensurate with his ambition, he might have deeply influenced the fate of the world; but fortunately no wizard's charm came to the aid of Paul Caraffa, and the triple-crowned monk sat upon the pontifical throne, a fierce, peevish, querulous, and quarrelsome dotard; the prey and the tool of his vigorous enemies and his intriguing relations.
At the time when the French court had resolved to concede to the wishes of the Caraffa family, Admiral Coligny, who had been appointed governor of Picardy, had received orders to make a foray upon the frontier of Flanders. Before the formal annunciation of hostilities, it was thought desirable to reap all the advantage possible from the perfidy which had been resolved upon.
It contains a portrait from life of the said Cardinal Olivieri Caraffa, Bishop of Ostia, who was buried in this chapel in the year 1511, and afterwards removed to the Piscopio in Naples.
The result was to embroil the Catholic King against the Pope and against themselves. The queen was as favorably inclined as the mistress to listen to Caraffa, for Catherine de Medici was desirous that her cousin, Marshal Strozzi, should have honorable and profitable employment in some fresh Italian campaigns. In the mean time an accident favored the designs of the papal court.
Towards evening Alexander VI walked from the Vatican leaning on Caesar's arm, and turned his steps towards the vineyard, accompanied by Cardinal Caraffa; but as the heat was great and the climb rather steep, the pope, when he reached the top, stopped to take breath; then putting his hand on his breast, he found that he had left in his bedroom a chain that he always wore round his neck, which suspended a gold medallion that enclosed the sacred host.
As Caraffa wielded its powers, the Inquisition spread terror throughout Italy. At due intervals groups of heretics were burned before the Dominican Church at Rome; scholars like Peter Martyr were driven over sea; and the publication of an index of prohibited books gave a death-blow to Italian literature. On the verge of eighty the stern Inquisitor became Pope as Paul the Fourth.
In 1542 the fanaticism of Cardinal Caraffa forced on the establishment of a supreme Tribunal of the Inquisition at Rome. The next year saw the establishment of the Jesuits. Meanwhile Lutheranism took a new energy. The whole north of Germany became Protestant.
By accident or design, he was refused permission upon one occasion to pass through the gate as usual. Unwilling to lose his day's sport, and enraged at what he considered an indignity, his excellency, by the aid of his attendants, attacked and beat the guard, mastered them, made his way out of the city, and pursued his morning's amusement. The Pope was furious, Caraffa artfully inflamed his anger.
Afterwards, having arrived in Rome, Filippo painted a chapel in the Church of the Minerva for the said Cardinal Caraffa, depicting therein scenes from the life of S. Thomas Aquinas, and certain most beautiful poetical compositions ingeniously imagined by himself, for he had a nature ever inclined to this.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT: CARAFFA. The Council of Trent was governed in its conclusions by this Catholic reactionary and reforming party. It allowed no curtailing of the prerogatives of the Pope. On points of doctrine in dispute within the pale of the Church, it adopted formulas which the different schools might accept.
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