On tlie death of Clement VI I, in Ib'Xi, Farnese was elected i)0|)c, just at the crisis when the most urgent applications were made hy the various states of Europe to Kome for the assembling of a general council, which was required hj' the state of the Wcstarn Church, dis- tracted l)y the disavowal of the ])apal supremacy bj' Luther and Zwingli, as well as by the measures of Henry VIII of England. For a while it seemed as if the new pontiff was well adapted for the settlement of the great controversies. He showed himself favorable to the Reforming party within the Church. He made choice of discreet and honorable men for his college of cardinals. Of those to whom Paul III gave the red hat short!}' after his accession were Contarini, Caraffa, Pole, Sadolet, and others, most of whom had belonged to the Orator}' of Divine Love, and some of whom were friendly to the Protestant doctrine of salvation. He also appointed commissioners of reform, whose duty it was to point out and remove the much-coniplained-of abuses in the Roman curia. He even entered into ne- gotiations with the Protestants of Germany, through his nuncio, Peter Paul Vergerius, and it seemed not impossible that the concessions which he was ready to make would once more unite these and all Protestants •with the Romish body. In 1537 Paul gave further expression to his desire for peace and union by his call of the council to meet in Mantua in the month of May. The German Protestants, believing the pontiff sincere in his endeavors, were encouraged to appoint Luther to draw up a clear statement of their grievances and differences of opinion, and at the meeting of the League of Smalcald (q. v.), in February, adopted the articles which Luther had written out and presented. But as they feared that their radical position about the papal and episcopal authority would not be lilvely to lind favor with Romanists, the assembly rejected the invitation to the council, and simply placed in the Lands of the papal nuncio and the imperial vice-chan- cellor the articles adopted. The Romanists, discour- aged and nuddened by the boldness of the Protestant party, now hoped to bring about by threats what they had failed to carry in kindness. They encouraged the leading Roman Catholic estates to join themselves to- gether in Christian union, or, as they called the body, the Noll/ League (q. v.). The Protestants, seeing the hostile array of the Romanists, now strengthened the Smalcald leaguers, and entered into friendly relations with Switzerland. Every preparation was made on both sides for conflict, and not for peace, and yet both claimed to be preparing simply for defence. In 1540 the emperor Charles of Germany called another con- ference, for the purpose of effecting a religious union that might have the approval of the pope. See Inte- KiM OF Ratisbox. The good feeling which prevailed at the opening of this conference at Ratisbon, in 1541, made the sanguine Contarini and his friends very hopeful ; but while Bucer and Melancthon were mod- erate and yielding, Luther was dissatisfied with the platform adopted on account of its want of definiteness, and had no confidence in the practicableness of a union. On the Romish side, the same opposition and distrust manifested itself. Caraft'a would not approve of the terms of the agreement which Contarini had sanc- tioned, though he conceded that there was need of practical and immediate reforms. "Caraffa stood forth as the repre.sentiitive and leader of those who were resolved to defend to the last the polity and dog- mas of the Church against all innovation, while at the same time they aimed to infuse a sjiirit of strict and even iiscetic (lurity and zeal into all its officers, from the highest to the lowest." Paul III took sides with Caraffa and his part}'. Some, and it seems reasonablv, claim that there was jealousy of Charles V at Rome, and that the project of this conference was frustrated because it was feared that Charles V, strengthened by the destruction of tlie Protestant league of Smalcald, would prove treacherous to the papacy, like Henry
VIII of England. The papal party, therefore, not only broke up the Ratisbon conference, but shortly after the papal troops which had been sent Charles were re- called, and Francis I was even induced to side with the Protestants, who were now in conflict with the imperial forces. The result was that the Protestant cause, at the moment when it was possibly on the verge of ex- tinction, was strengthened by its worst enemies (see Fisher, p. 49, 1G5). A general council of the Church was indispensable, if the Protestants were ever to be gained over again to the old fold. Henry VIII had been excommunicated, and England was greatly dis- tanced from papal interests ; and the Jesuitic order, which had been sanctioned, had failed to effect a heal- ing of the discord. In lo42, finally, the call was issued by papal will, but the war between Charles and Fran- cis which was now waging delayed the assembling of the conference (at Trent) until 1545. These delays are also charged upon Paul, but it can hardly be doubted that much of it was due to the difficulties of the times. We need hardly add that the council [see Tkext] failed to bring about the much-desired result. Paul himself did not live to see the close of the coun- cil, which occurred in 1563. He died Nov. 10, 1549, and was succeeded by Julius III (q. v.). Pope Paul was devotedly attached to his own friends, and though he favored reform, he lacked boldness, and feared too much from defections, which were probably never in- tended, or even conceived, except in his own imagina- tion. The charges of vacillation in his dealings with the Protestants may be true or not, but the charges of simony and selfishness which have been presented against him are not so easily answered. He was anx- ious to aggrandize his own family. His natural son, Pier Luigi Farnese, he made first duke of Castro, and afterwards duke of Parma and Piacenza. For his grandson Ottavio he obtained the hand of Margaret, a natural daughter of Charles V, and made him duke of Camerino. The pope subdued the people of Perugia who had revolted against him, put to death several of the leaders, and built a citadel to keep the citizens in awe. He also attacked the Colonna, the most power- ful baronial family in the neighborhood of Rome, took all their strongholds, and obliged the members of that family to take refuge in the fiefs which they held in the kingdom of Naples. He received in the same year the news of the tragical death of his son Pier Luigi, who was murdered at Piacenza, where he had made him- self odious by his tyranny and his lust. Overcome with grief at the news, he told his two grandsons, who were with him at the time, to take warning from their fa- ther's death, and to live in the fear of God. Pope Paul III maintained a correspondence with Erasmus and cardinal Sadolet, and also wrote some Xotes to several of Cicero's letters. See Panvinius, Vila Pauli III ; Querini, Imago pontijids Pauli 111; Raynaldus, An- nates; Ranke, Hist, of the Papacy, i, 112 sq. ; Riddle, Hist, of the Papacy, vol. i ; Gieseler, Eccles. Hist, iv, 165; Burnet, Hist, oj" the Refoi-}nation, vol. ill; Fisher, Hist, of the Reformation, p. 3, 49, 165, 395, 401 ; Lea, Hist, of Sacerdotal Celibacy ; Ffoulkes, f/ist. of the Di- visions of Christendom , i, § 63; Robertson, Hist. ofCharles V; Zeitschrift fur historische Theohgie, April, 1875, art. i ; Wetzer u. Welte, Kirchen-Lexikon (R. C), viii, 231. (J.H.W.)