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CHAPTER II.

Election of Cardinal Alessandrino to the Papal throne under the name of Pius V.-Ceremonies of Election-Coronation-First Acts of the new Pontiff-Council of Trent-Inquisition-Index of Prohibited Books-Catechism-Sovereigns during the Pontificate of Pius V.— Corrupt morals of the Roman Clergy—Germany and the Emperor— The Turks.

THE proceedings and intrigues of a Conclave for the election of a new pontiff of Rome are amongst the most uninviting of all historic narratives, except to the individuals immediately connected with papal interests and politics. It is sufficient, on the present occasion, to state, that the heads of the Sacred College were, cardinals Carlo Borromeo and Marco Sitico Altaemps, nephews of the deceased pope. Unable to adjust their respective interests, among many papable subjects*, Altaemps inclined to Alessandrino ; and, notwithstanding some objections against him, particularly as being of an austere nature, and continually conversant in the Tribunal of the Inquisition, by a miraculous unanimity at which themselves wondered, and therefore ascribed to the Holy Spirit,

*Soggetti Papabili. Gabutius has substituted a favourable paraphrase for this short and expressive designation.

the whole body felt themselves irresistibly impelled to adore Michele Ghislieri as their future head. He was elected January 7, 1566, after some exhibition of decorous reluctance. Preceding visions, which it is not necessary to detail, indicated the event. Fuenmayor, having observed, that it was a general complaint that Spain made and unmade popes, proceeds to represent Don Luis de Requesenes, ambassador of the king of Spain, as having principally directed the choice of the Conclave to the individual eventually elected, upon the ground of his eminent qualifications for the office in the existing necessities of the church. The tempests of heresy and schism, by which the bark of St. Peter was now buffeted, demanded a pilot of experienced courage and vigour. It was easily seen what individual he meant to describe.

To gratify the two principal cardinals, and at the request of cardinal Colonna, Alessandrino assumed the name of PIUS THE FIFTH.

On the occasion of this election we have a story, for which we are indebted to Fuenmayor, of some interest to Englishmen, as discovering what kind of place this country held in the mind of a Spaniard, whose sove

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reign had known something of the island, and would have known more. He ends his first book by observing, that, at the time of the event, in the capital of England were 'seen terrific fires in the air, two comets with large bloody tails following the sun at midday. A hand horribly great, with a drawn sword, threatened in the clouds. And well 'deserved England to be advertised of the ' election of Pius V., as a most formidable calamity for a kingdom, which he persecuted with arms and censures: for to the 'wicked no prodigy is more dreadful than 'the empire of the just.' The last of the three biographers, adopting this, has added other similar relations, which are not worth repeating.

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He presents us, however, with something of more value, in the account which he here introduces of the ceremony at the election of a pope. His account is, indeed, supported by no authority: I propose therefore to supply that defect, as the subject is not without instruction, and papal writers learn to be somewhat reserved in disclosures of their church's arcana.

The mode of creating a pontiff of Rome is threefold-by scrutiny, when two-thirds of the

suffrages of the Conclave appear in favour of an individual-by accessus, when, in defect of such majority, the electors are allowed orally to change their vote and accede to a different object of choice-and by adoration, the way in which Alessandrino obtained his election, as well as some others, particularly a not very distant or dissimilar successor, Sixtus V. Some of the more sober of the Roman communion object to this method, as being more frequently the result of juvenile ardour, hurrying down in its sudden and impetuous tide the sedate and yielding, than a literal impulse of the Divine Spirit. All, except Romanists, believe it anything but the latter. In the earlier editions of the Pontificale, a ritual of the highest authority in the Roman church, the ceremony of election of the pontiff and its consequences had a place, which is sought in vain in the later ones. It has long been left to be found in the Libri Sacrarum Ceremoniarum, first printed at Venice in 1516, where the pontiff elected finds himself in new company, and at the head of emperors and kings, effectually, severed from his former associates of his own order, archbishops, bishops, and presbyters. The Cæremoniale for this exalted election has since been pub

lished separately, and free from all contact with simple humanity. The ceremonies in each of these authorities is substantially the same. When the pope, then, after his election and adoration, comes to the last door of the Vatican palace, he proceeds, after some ceremonies, to St. Peter's; there, to the chapel of St. Gregory; and, in due time, to the high altar, where various genuflexions are performed. At length, incense having been offered to him, he ascends the highest chair (cathedram eminentem) there prepared for him, and sitting upon it, receives the reverence and foot-salutation of the cardinals and others. Praises are offered to him with uncovered heads, and plenary indulgences are published. When the coronation is performed, which, in the case of the pontiff, with whom we are concerned, was ten days after his election, to make it fall on his birth-day, January 17, preparations are made for the procession to the church of St. John de Lateran. In his nearly southward progress through almost the whole length of the city in that direction, (among other places on which we shall have some observations to make,) the spiritual monarch comes to Mount Jordan, where he is met by a company of

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