POPE PAOLO III (engraving)

POPE PAOLO III (29 February 1468-10 November 1549), at the century Alessandro Farnese, born in Rome, elected in 1534. Created cardinal by Alexander VI in 1493, at only 25 years old, between 1500 and 1509 he had an affair that gave him four illegitimate sons, then legitimized. In 1538 he excommunicated Henry VIII, resulting in the splitting of the Church of England; approved the Capuchin order in 1536 and that of the Jesuits in 1540; organised the Roman Inquisition and the Holy Office; convened the council of Trent in 1545 to attempt to save the rift caused in the Christian-Catholic world by the Protestant Reformation. He commissioned Michelangelo for frescoes in the Sistine chapel. Engraving by Ant. Daleò on drawing of Metalli, by painting by Titian Vecellio, Italy 1546