Pope Clement VII, his pontificate marked by…

Pope Clement VII, his pontificate marked by indecision and miscalculation, has instituted no vigorous measures to meet the demands of the Protestant Reformation.

A patron of artists, including Cellini, Raphael, and Michelangelo, Clement VII is remembered for having ordered, just a few days before his death, Michelangelo's painting of The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.

Johann Widmanstetter (alternately spelled John Widmanstad), a secretary of Clement VII, had in 1533 explained the Copernican system to the Pope and two cardinals.

The Pope was so pleased that he gave Widmanstetter a valuable gift.

Towards the end of his life, Clement VII once more gives indications of a leaning towards a French alliance, which is averted by his death on September 24, 1534 in Rome.

It has been said that he died from eating poisonous mushrooms, but the symptoms and length of illness do not fit this theory.

In the words of his biographer Emmanuel Rodocanachi, "In accordance with the custom of those times, people attributed his death to poison."

His body is interred in Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

His successor, Alessandro Farnese, born in 1468 at Canino, Latium, Papal States, 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 is to be Alessandro’s ascendency to the papacy and his dedication to family interests that brings about the most significant increase in the family’s wealth and power.

Alessandro’s humanist education had been at the University of Pisa and the court of Lorenzo de' Medici.

Initially trained as an apostolic notary, he had 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 may 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 bishop of Parma, he had come under the influence of his vicar general, Bartolomeo Guidiccioni.

This leads to the world-weary future pope breaking off the relationship with his mistress and committing himself to reform in his Parma diocese.

Under Pope Clement VII, he has became Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and dean of the College of Cardinals, and on the death of Clement VII in 1534, is elected as Pope Paul III.

Alessandro had been a notably dissolute young cleric, taking for himself a mistress and having three sons and two daughters with her.

By Silvia Ruffini, he had fathered Pier Luigi Farnese, whom he will soon create Duke of Parma; others include Ranuccio Farnese and Costanza Farnese.

The elevation to the cardinalate of his grandsons, Alessandro Farnese, aged fourteen, and Guido Ascanio Sforza, aged sixteen, displeases the reform party and draws a protest from the emperor, but this is forgiven, when shortly after, he introduces into the Sacred College men of the caliber of Reginald Pole, Gasparo Contarini, Jacopo Sadoleto, and Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, who will become Pope Paul IV.