Pope Urban VIII

Lore & Background

Elected pope on 6 August 1623 after a conclave, Urban VIII was described as tall, dark, elegant, and a skilled speaker and poet. His papacy saw the trial of Galileo in 1633, whom he ordered to recant his work. Urban VIII practiced extensive nepotism, enriching his family members and elevating them to high positions. He issued the 1638 bull Commissum Nobis protecting Jesuit missions in South America and opened China and Japan to non-Jesuit missionaries. He also banned tobacco use in holy places in 1642.

Reader's Guide

Urban VIII's significance lies in his dual role as a patron of the arts and a political expander of papal territory, yet his legacy is deeply tied to the Galileo affair, where he opposed Copernican heliocentrism and ordered the astronomer's trial. His massive accumulation of debt through military campaigns and family enrichment weakened the papacy's political and military influence in Europe for his successors. He was the last pope to extend the Papal States, incorporating Urbino and Castro, and his pillaging of bronze from the Pantheon for cannon and St. Peter's baldacchino became a famous lampoon. His pontificate also saw the first canonical coronation of a Marian icon and the creation of 74 cardinals, including his future successor, Pope Innocent X.

Did You Know?

• Urban VIII was the last pope to date to take the papal name Urban.
• He granted the first canonical coronation of a Marian icon, La Madonna della Febbre, in 1631.
• He issued a 1642 letter making use of tobacco in holy places punishable by excommunication.
• Massive bronze girders were taken from the Pantheon's portico for cannon and the baldacchino in St Peter's, leading to the lampoon: 'what the barbarians did not do, the Barberini did.'