Pope Paul III (1468 - 1549). Counter-reformer, liked art. Pope Paul III, born Alessandro Farnese, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 October 1534 to his death in 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Protestant Reformation. His pontificate initiated the Counter-Reformation with the Council of Trent in 1545, as well as the Wars of religion with Emperor Charles V's military campaigns against the Protestants in Germany. He recognized new Catholic religious orders and societies such as the Jesuits, the Barnabites, and the Congregation of the Oratory. His efforts were distracted by nepotism to advance the power and fortunes of his family, including his illegitimate son Pier Luigi Farnese. Paul III was a significant patron of artists including Michelangelo, and it is to him that Nicolaus Copernicus dedicated his heliocentric treatise. Born in 1468 at Canino, Latium, Alessandro Farnese was the oldest son of Pier Luigi I Farnese, Signore di Montalto and his wife Giovanna Caetani, a member of the Caetani family which had also produced Pope Boniface VIII. The Farnese family had prospered over the centuries but it was Alessandro's ascendency to the papacy and his dedication to family interests which brought about the most significant increase in the family's wealth and power. Alessandro's humanist education was at the University of Pisa and the court of Lorenzo de' Medici. Initially trained as an apostolic notary, he joined the Roman Curia in 1491 and in 1493 Pope Alexander VI appointed him Cardinal-Deacon of Santi Cosma e Damiano. Farnese's sister, Giulia, was reputedly a mistress of Alexander VI, and might have been instrumental in securing this appointment for her brother. For this reason, he was sometimes mockingly referred to as the Borgia brother-in-law, just as Giulia was mocked as the Bride of Christ. As a young cleric, Alessandro lived a notably dissolute life, taking a mistress, Silvia Ruffini, and having three sons and two daughters with her, including Pier Luigi II Farnese, whom he created Duke of Parma, as well as Ranuccio Farnese and Costanza Farnese. Another epithet leveled at him was Cardinal Fregnese. As Bishop of Parma, he came under the influence of his vicar-general, Bartolomeo Guidiccioni. This led to the future pope breaking off the relationship with his mistress and committing himself to reform in his Parma diocese. Under Pope Clement VII he became Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and Dean of the College of Cardinals, and on the death of Clement VII in 1534, was elected as Pope Paul III. The elevation to the cardinalate of his grandsons, Alessandro Farnese, aged fourteen, and Guido Ascanio Sforza, aged sixteen, displeased the reform party and drew a protest from the emperor, but this was forgiven when, shortly after, he introduced into the Sacred College Reginald Pole, Gasparo Contarini, Jacopo Sadoleto, and Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, who became Pope Paul IV. The fourth pope during the period of the Protestant Reformation, Paul III became the first to take active reform measures in response to Protestantism. Soon after his elevation, 2 June 1536, Paul III summoned a general council to meet at Mantua in the following May; but the opposition of the Protestant princes and the refusal of the Duke of Mantua to assume the responsibility of maintaining order frustrated the project. Paul III first deferred for a year and then discarded the whole project. In 1536, Paul III invited a committee of nine eminent prelates, distinguished by learning and piety alike, to report on the reformation and rebuilding of the Church. In 1537 they produced the celebrated Consilium de emendenda ecclesia, exposing gross abuses in the Roman Curia, the church administration, and public worship; and proffering bold proposals aimed at abolishing such abuses. The report was widely printed, and the Pope was in earnest when he took up the problem of reform. He clearly perceived that Emperor Charles V would not rest until the problems were grappled with in earnest. But to the Protestants the report seemed far from thorough; Martin Luther had his edition prefaced with a vignette showing the cardinals cleaning the Augean stable of the Roman Church with foxtails instead of brooms. In the end, no results followed from the committee's recommendations. As a consequence of the extensive campaign against idolatry in England, culminating with the dismantling of the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury, the Pope excommunicated Henry VIII on 17 December 1538 and issued an interdict. Around this time, family complications arose.