(1552–1621). When Camillo Borghese was elected pope of the Roman Catholic church in 1605 he took the name Paul V. He is remembered for his battles with the civil authorities of Venice as well as for his patronage of the arts.
Camillo Borghese was born on Sept. 17, 1552, in Rome. He became a distinguished canon lawyer and served as papal envoy to Spain for Pope Clement VIII, who made him cardinal in 1596. He became vicar of Rome in 1603 and on May 16, 1605, was elected as Pope Leo XI’s successor. He became pope at a time when the Kingdom of Naples and the Venetian Republic were violating ecclesiastical rights.
One of his first acts was to excommunicate the recalcitrant minister of Naples for violating the right of clergy to be judged in criminal cases not by civil courts but by church courts. In 1606 a conflict erupted between Paul and rulers of Venice over papal jurisdiction and immunity for the clergy within the republic, where some were urging resistance to papal pronouncements. The situation became critical when Paul’s interdict (or official censure) against Venice (May 1606) caused firmer defiance. A compromise was reached on April 21, 1607, mainly through France’s mediation.
Earlier (in September 1606), Paul had expressly forbidden the Roman Catholics of England to take the new oath of allegiance imposed on them by King James I. His contention with Venice, however, made him politically cautious, and he endeavored to maintain peace elsewhere. He particularly feared an open breach of the Peace of Augsburg, the first permanent legal basis for the coexistence of Lutheranism and Catholicism in Germany. Thus, when in 1618 hostility between German Catholics and Protestants caused fighting that developed into the Thirty Years’ War, Paul gave no support to the Catholic powers.
In terms of church matters, he encouraged missions, notably those in Latin America, and confirmed many new congregations and brotherhoods, including St. Philip Neri’s Oratorians (approved 1613), a congregation of secular priests. To preserve papal documents he founded the privy Vatican archives. In 1612 he authorized a new version of the Rituale Romanum, one of the Roman rite’s liturgical books, which he declared on June 17, 1614.
Paul was guilty, however, of nepotism and is responsible for his family’s inordinate wealth. He especially favored his nephew Marcantonio Borghese, whom he created prince of Vivaro. His excessive fondness for display, which wasted funds needed for more crucial purposes, made him a spectacular patron of the arts and of building, including the chapel in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, where he is buried. He died on Jan. 28, 1621, in Rome. (See also papacy.)