Giovanni Battista Castagna, of Genoese origin although…
September 1590 CE
Giovanni Battista Castagna, of Genoese origin although born in Rome, had been created Cardinal-Priest of S. Marcello in 1584 and been chosen to succeed Pope Sixtus V on September 15, 1590, but dies of malaria twelve days later and before consecration, making his either the shortest or second shortest papal reign in history, depending on whether Pope-elect Stephen is considered a real pope (he has not been so considered by the Catholic Church since 1961).
Castagna had previously served as governor of Bologna and as archbishop of Rossano, and was for many years nuncio to Spain; his election to the papacy was largely backed by the Spanish faction.
Urban VII's short passage in office gives rise to the world's first known public smoking ban, as he had threatened to excommunicate anyone who "took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose".
After Urban’s death, Spanish ambassador Don Enrique de Guzmán y Ribera, Count-Duke of Olivares, presents to the conclave a list of the seven cardinals who would be acceptable to his master Philip II of Spain.