Sixtus V
Sixtus V (December 13, 1521, Grottammare - August 27, 1590, Rome) was pope n.º 227 of the Catholic Church between 1585 and 1590. Coming from a humble family, he entered the Franciscan order while still a boy and never ceased to be a pious and severe friar. He was a famous preacher, hard-working and zealous promoter of the reform of the religious life of the Church, becoming vicar general of the order and cardinal. Elected pope (1585) after the death of Gregory XIII, he governed the Church for 5 years, developing during that brief period an intense and energetic work in the exercise of restoring the Catholic Church.
Origins and formation
Born Srečko Perić, of Serbian origin his family were refugees who fled from Kruševice, Ragusa. The flight was a consequence of the Ottoman invasion, they crossed the Adriatic Sea in a risky journey, to settle in Montalto, near Ancona and then moved to Grottammare. His name translated into Italian is Felice Peretti: both the Dalmatian Srečko and the Italian Felice mean in Spanish 'happy'. Peretti is the translation of the Dalmatian surname Perić.
Coming from a family of humble peasants, farm parents and gardeners; for which years later his enemies reproached him for having been a swineherd as a child; He entered the Franciscan monastery of Montalto at the age of nine, where he began his studies in first letters, which he would complete at the universities of Ferrara and Bologna, and obtained the degree of Doctor of Theology in 1548.
Ecclesiastical career
He was ordained a priest in 1547. Around 1552, after gaining a reputation as a skilful dialectician and preacher, he drew the attention of two future popes, Cardinals Ghislieri (Pius V) and Caraffa (Paul IV), which meant that he began his ecclesiastical career as a sent in 1557 to Venice as general inquisitor of the city, where he stood out for his severity to such an extent that the Venetians demanded his deposition in 1560.
Back in Rome and after a brief period as Attorney General of the Franciscans, he was sent to Spain in 1565 as part of the apostolic legation that, headed by Cardinal Buoncompagni, the future Pope Gregory XIII, intervened in the process opened against the cardinal of Toledo, Bartolomé Carranza. The violent antipathy that arose between these two future popes would mark the future of Felice Peretti. With the enthronement of Pius V he again returned to Rome and in 1566 he was appointed Vicar General of the Franciscans and Bishop of Santa Águeda. Later in 1570 he was made a cardinal being assigned the title of Saint Jerome of the Croats and in 1571 the pope transferred him from Santa Agatha to Fermo, which he resigned in the summer of 1577.
The rise to the papacy of Gregory XIII meant his retirement from public life to dedicate himself to the study and dissemination of the works of Saint Ambrose. This voluntary retirement contributed to a great extent to the fact that, when Gregorio died in 1585, he was chosen as his successor in the pontifical throne.
Pontificate
Cardinal Peretti was unanimously elected pope in the conclave on April 24, 1585, and took the name Sixtus V, after Sixtus IV, a Franciscan like himself. There were many problems that the late Gregory XIII had bequeathed to his successor, among which were the problems of public order and his confrontation with the English Queen Elizabeth I. All of them were faced by the Pope with decision and authority.
Church reform
The main objective of Pope Sixtus V was to reform the Church, reorganize its government and rigorously apply the conciliar decrees of the Council of Trent, bringing a renewed climate of morality mainly among the bishops and prelates.
At the start of his pontificate, Sixtus V began a judicial investigation against Cardinal Matteo Contarelli - who died on November 28, 1585 - who presided over the Apostolic Dataria during the pontificate of Gregory XIII and who was accused of simony in the exercise of his mandate.
As the new head of the dataria, the pope chose Ippolito Aldobrandini, future Pope Clement VIII, who was acting as auditor of the Rota. The datar's representatives received serious reprimands, as Sixtus V wanted them to set an example for others as his servants.
By an apostolic constitution of January 5, 1589, the bishops were ordered under serious penalties to avoid all kinds of simony and other kinds of irregularities in the collation of holy orders. The canonical provisions against illegitimacy had been renewed by Sixtus V on November 26, 1587, and were aggravated on October 21, 1588; and remain rigorous in its compliance.
The pope mainly urged the observance of the Tridentine decree regarding the residence of bishops, cardinals and parish priests. By means of a brief apostolic he introduced penalties greater than those decreed at the Council of Trent against those who broke the decree of residence of ecclesiastics.
In the same way, Sixtus V undertook the reform of the religious orders that existed in the officially Catholic European countries and that had relaxed their discipline.
The pope entrusted various apostolic visitors with the reform of religious orders in the Italian cities of Salerno, Terracina, Naples, Ferrara. In the kingdom of Portugal, in the Italian city of Milan and the Spanish cities of Calahorra and Palencia, the Pope ordered the bishops of the respective cities to carry out the reform of religious orders.
On December 20, 1585, Sixtus V published the apostolic constitution Romanus pontifex which imposed on the bishops the obligation of the Roman visitation Ad limina Apostolorum every four years in order to to inform the Pope of the state of his diocese.
Reform of the Clergy of Rome
Sixtus V personally directed the reform of the diocese of Rome -of which he was bishop- and of the religious orders established in it.
On July 29, 1585, the pastoral visitation of all the churches and colleges of Rome was entrusted to two bishops. During the visit, the bishops had the obligation to know the suitability of the clergy to carry out their religious functions.
In May 1586, the pastoral visit of the monasteries and religious convents of Rome was carried out and strict disciplinary measures were issued to improve the discipline of the religious -especially in the monastic enclosure-.
Reform of the customs of Roman citizens
Sixtus V, concerned about the moral state of civilians in the capital of Catholicism (Rome), issued severe sentences trying to restore discipline in the city as his predecessor Pius V had done in the past.
Draconian penalties were enacted to eliminate gambling, increased luxury, blasphemy, fortune telling, scandalous images, fake news, various kinds of sexual immorality, adultery, abortion, desecration of Sunday, excesses in the carnival, ruffianery and prostitution.
Reorganization of congregations
In order to deal with religious and political problems and to be able to modernize Rome, he had to modify the Roman Curia and so, on January 22, 1588, Sixtus V published the apostolic constitution Immensa Aeterni Dei, with the one that reorganized the Roman Curia, establishing the number of permanent congregations of cardinals at fifteen, assigning each one certain powers: ten were for the government of the Universal Church and the remaining five for the administration of the Papal State. Thus culminated "the process initiated by Paul III, who, in his first consistory, stated that before holding a council the college of cardinals and the Roman Curia should be reformed", although in practice the reforms he came to carry out before the Council were reduced.
On December 3, 1586, Sixtus V published the apostolic constitution Postquam verus ille, with which he reformed the College of Cardinals. The document limited the number of cardinals to seventy members and established rigid disciplinary rules for cardinals.
The Bible of Sixtus V
During his pontificate, fulfilling the provisions of the decree approved by the Council of Trent in the fourth session, on April 8, 1546, Sixtus V ordered the continuation of the necessary work to revise the Vulgate prepared by Jerome; the task was completed during the pope's lifetime, and published the same year of his death (1590); the text of the Sixtine Vulgate could be improved, and that task was continued under the pontificate of Clement VIII, but the fact that this new edition is known as Sixto-Clementine highlights the importance of the work carried out under his pontificate.
Public and economic order
The new pope, a man seasoned in the courts of the inquisition, was the one to confront the instituted banditry into which the Italian peninsula had been plunged upon the death of his predecessor Gregory XIII. At his first consistory, on May 10, 1585, he “made it clear that he wanted to direct his attention as sovereign to two things: to administer justice and to provide his vassals with food at large. He said that for the execution of his attempts he expected God's assistance, in case human means failed ».
Means that he had begun to put in even before his coronation, being adamant in complying with the laws. Subsequently, and using Cardinal Colonna, he had gangs of criminals persecuted through fields and cities, and soon the Sant'Angelo bridge became a large exhibition of heads endowed with enormous deterrent power.
Sixtus V, concerned about the maritime security of his states, constantly threatened by Barbary piracy whose objective was to prevent trade, steal coastal towns and drag Catholics into slavery, decided to create a special naval fleet whose base would be in the city from Civitavecchia.
The pope also brought order to the finances of the Papal States, so that despite the expenses involved in his intense construction activity, "he created a special fund or treasury as a guarantee and resource for cases of extreme necessity."
Promotion of missions in the Far East
Sixtus V created on February 19, 1588, a bishopric for the islands of Japan with headquarters in Funai in order to provide the country with its own hierarchy. In the same way Sixtus V granted beautiful ornaments and relics to the churches of Japan, he increased the annual subsidy for the Japanese Jesuit schools that Gregory XIII had granted.
The pontificate of Sixtus V includes the beginning of the persecutions against Catholicism in the islands of Japan recently evangelized by the Society of Jesus.
In 1587 the first edict of persecution against the missionaries was issued at the request of the bonze Nichijoshonin. The churches were destroyed and the missionaries were forced to leave the country, but they managed to stay on the islands, largely due to the authorities' failure to comply with the edict of expulsion.
In the same way the islands of the Philippines were raised to the rank of ecclesiastical province by Sixtus V.
International politics
Cardinal Peretti was traditionally linked to the policies of the King of Spain, but dissatisfied with the direction that Philip II had given him, as Pope he saw it necessary to balance the power of Spain with that of France, to ensure greater freedom for church. But the French situation was not easy: before the advance of the Huguenots (Calvinists), who wanted Enrique de Navarra to occupy the French throne, the Catholic League, supported by Spain, had reacted; but other Catholics did not see the Spanish intervention with good eyes and seemed willing to support the king of Navarre. Sixtus V followed a hesitant policy for a time, but finally favored the claims of Enrique de Navarra, whose conversion from Calvinism Catholicism favored and prepared.
The pope aspired to the reestablishment of Catholicism in England and admired Queen Elizabeth's ability to govern, trusting for some time in her conversion, but, once that possibility was eliminated, he supported the invasion planned by Philip II, although the failure of the Invincible Armada made Sixtus V abandon that goal. Something similar happened with regard to the Turkish danger: he financially helped Stephen Bathory, king of Poland, but his death in 1587 closed this path.
Beautification of Rome
Medieval Rome had been devastated. The period from the transfer of the popes to Avignon in 1309 until the end of the Western Schism, with the election of Martin V in 1417, was a time of uncontrolled disorder in Rome with its logical repercussion on the conservation of buildings from the city.
Once the exclusive role of Rome as pontifical seat was definitively reestablished, a plan was initiated to recover the lost prestige of the city. Most of the popes that succeeded Martin V were determined to increase the prestige of the Church through the magnificence of a new Rome, they wanted to revive the greatness that it once had; plans for the recovery of Rome that were relaunched in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation.
The transformation of the city began outside the medieval core, in the Borgo Nuovo, the area that connected the Vatican with the Castel Sant’Angelo. This castle served the popes as a treasure chamber, prison and place of refuge in times of invasions or revolts. Its dominant position is obvious in Giovanni Battista Falda's plan, which also shows the parallel Renaissance streets of the Borgo Nuovo.
Rome's medieval core was a neighborhood nestled in a bend in the Tiber opposite Castel Sant' Angelo, known for its bad climate, which is why it had been left unoccupied throughout the period of the ancient Roman Empire. Medieval Rome had spread from that center in a slow and chaotic way toward the Capitol and the theater of Marcellus, located near the Tiber.
At the time Sixtus V acceded to the pontificate, works were already underway on the Acqua Felice and the Strada Felice, linking Santa Croce in Gerusalemm e with Santa Trinità dei Monti, a task that was completed during the first year of his pontificate, giving these two works his given name (Félix). owes the name of those two works; the obelisk, which was later erected in front of San Pedro, was transported to its location; and some 2,000 laborers were put to work in the drainage of the Pontine marshes. But Sixtus V contributed many of the ideas that provided the final shape of Renaissance and even Baroque Rome. It is not surprising that, already in his time, he was given the title of Restorator urbis.
Sixtus V carried out an extensive program of works -not only architectural, but also urban- using the architect Doménico Fontana for this task. His program was based on 3 priority objectives: first, to repopulate the hills of Rome; second, to integrate into a single system of main streets the various works carried out by his predecessors linking the most important churches and other key points in the city; Lastly, to create an aesthetic city that would mean overcoming the frequent configuration of streets and public spaces as a result of the aggregation of disparate buildings. «In his papal edict of 1480, the Restaurator urbis ordered the removal of protrusions from buildings and obstructions from streets. This was the most important fact to improve the urban conditions of the city."
Aware, moreover, of the immense urban planning problems of Rome and of his own time constraints, Sixtus V devised a unique method to trace the main axes that would guide the reconstruction in the future; For this he placed obelisks at the points where, in future centuries, the most important squares were to be urbanized.
Another of Sixtus V's plans was to unite the pilgrimage stations; it was possible to go from San Juan de Letran to Santa Maria la Mayor, finishing via Merulana, to the coliseum and to San Pablo Outside the Walls. The Via Panisperna allowed to go from Santa Maria la Mayor to San Lorenzo Outside the Walls. Through a street in a straight line of 3300 meters, La estrada Felice, it was possible to go from the Holy Cross of Jerusalem to the Trinita dei Monti, and even if it had been prolonged, to Piazza del Popolo.
These interventions show what they wanted to make of Rome with its nearly 100,000 inhabitants: a capital and an international city, an essential point of reference in the modern world.
During his pontificate, Sixtus V had a large number of great monuments and buildings built, completed, or repaired in the city of Rome. Among the architectural works carried out in his pontificate, it is worth mentioning the construction of the Sistine Chapel of Santa María la Mayor, the completion of the Quirinal Palace, the modifications of the Lateran Palace, the completion of the dome of the Basilica of San Pedro, the Restoration of the aqueduct of Septimius Severus. In the key piece of the dome of San Pedro he had written: & # 34; For the glory of Saint Peter, Sixtus V, Pope, in the year 1590 and the fifth year of his pontificate & # 34;.
In his demerit is argued his lack of appreciation for the works of classical Rome, which led him to use many of them as construction material; however, it has been noted that the use of materials from constructions in ruins or in danger of ruin was also common among the architects of the time, in this sense it must be taken into account that "Bramante or Fontana did not believe they were doing no harm if they destroyed remains of Antiquity". The Pope commissioned the restoration of the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, these works were completed in 1587 placing a statue of Saint Peter on the Trajan column and on the Aurelian one, of Saint Pablo; it was about highlighting the role of these apostles as "glorious princes of the earth [...] lamps or beacons of faith, columns of the Church".
Although other popes had restored the water supply in the lower parts of the city, they had not been able to do the same in the upper neighborhoods. To bring water to the Quirinal, Viminal and Esquilino hills, Sixtus V built the Acqua Felice between 1585 and 1589 (so called because Sixtus V's name was originally Felice Peretti). This aqueduct was made by incorporating parts of the ancient Roman aqueducts, Acqua Marcia and Acqua Claudia; Its length was about 25 kilometers and due to the rigorously limited difference in level between its origin and its destination, it meant the construction of 11 kilometers of elevated aqueduct and many others in tunnels. It supplied more than 18,000 cubic meters per day.
Regarding environmental conditions, in addition to increasing the supply of drinking water, it created a garbage truck service for the periodic collection of household waste; he perfected the sewage system and built public laundries. Although his public investment program provided work for thousands of people, he failed to solve Rome's chronic unemployment problem. In the last year of his pontificate, he undertook an ambitious plan – which was never started – to turn the Colosseum into a wool spinning mill, with workshops on the ground floor and accommodation for the workers on the upper floors.
Measures on Jews
With the Bull Christiana pietas (1586), Sixtus V abolished part of the provisions contained in the Gens Hebraeorum of Pius V (1569), considering them too punitive. It allowed Jews to live in the cities and major centers, allowed commerce again (excluding only wheat and other foods), abolished the use of the yellow wheel, and allowed Jewish doctors to treat Christians. Jews were able to return to live in Rome without the obligation to reside in the ghetto.
Canonizations
During his pontificate, Sixtus V canonized Saint Hermenegild (1585) at the request of King Philip II of Spain.
He proclaimed the Spaniard Diego de Alcalá a saint (November 13, 1588).
He also beatified Simonino di Trento (1588).
Finally, he proclaimed Saint Bonaventure of Fidanza a doctor of the Church (Bull Triumphantis Hierusalem of 1588).
Death
Pope Sixtus V died of malaria on the afternoon of August 27, 1590 in the Quirinal Palace.
He was buried in the chapel built by himself in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (Santa Maria Maggiore); His heart is preserved in the Church of Saints Vincent and Anastasius in Trevi, in Piazza Trevi.