- Original name:
- Ugo Boncompagni or Ugo Buoncompagni
- Born:
- June 7, 1502, Bologna, Romagna [Italy]
- Died:
- April 10, 1585, Rome, Papal States (aged 82)
- Title / Office:
- pope (1572-1585)
- Founder:
- Pontifical Gregorian University
- Subjects Of Study:
- Gregorian calendar
Gregory XIII
What was Gregory XIII known for?
Which pope is associated with a dragon?
What educational institutions did Gregory XIII establish?
Gregory XIII (born June 7, 1502, Bologna, Romagna [Italy]—died April 10, 1585, Rome, Papal States) was the pope, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, from 1572 to 1585. He promulgated the Gregorian calendar, which reformed the existing Julian calendar and is used by most of the world to this day. Gregory also instituted other changes in response to the Protestant Reformation and founded a system of seminaries for Roman Catholic priests.
Education and election to the papacy
Educated at the University of Bologna, Ugo Boncompagni taught jurisprudence there from 1531 to 1539. Because of his expertise in canon law, he was sent by Pope Pius IV in 1561 to the Council of Trent (Trento, Italy), where he remained until 1563. Pius made him a cardinal in 1565 and papal emissary to Spain. He was elected pope on May 14, 1572, succeeding St. Pius V.
Church reforms and controversies
Gregory began promoting church reform and the Counter-Reformation by pledging to execute the reforming decrees of the Council of Trent. He appointed committees of cardinals to investigate abuses among ecclesiastics and to draft the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (“Index of Forbidden Books”). To carry out the council’s decree ordering the establishment of seminaries, he founded several colleges and seminaries, including the Gregorian University, and delegated their direction to the Jesuits, of whom he was a patron. These schools trained missionaries for those countries that had established Protestant state religions.
Gregory is often criticized for backing the Irish rebels against the anti-Catholic actions of Queen Elizabeth I of England and for his reaction to the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, the slaughter of Huguenots (French Protestants) that began in Paris on August 24, 1572, and spread throughout France. He celebrated the massacre with a Te Deum (hymn of praise to God) at Rome.
Gregory’s building program, including the Quirinal Palace in Rome, along with his political ventures, exhausted the papal treasury, causing serious repercussions in the Papal States.
The Gregorian calendar
Aided chiefly by the Neapolitan astronomer and physician Luigi Lilio Ghiraldi (died 1576) and the German Jesuit and mathematician Christopher Clavius, Gregory corrected the errors of the Julian calendar created by Julius Caesar in 46 bce. The new Gregorian calendar, introduced on February 24, 1582, in the bull Inter gravissimas (“In the Gravest Concern”), advanced the date by 10 days (October 4 was to be followed by October 15 that year) and relied on a new method of calculating leap years.
Although the reform was welcomed by such astronomers as Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe and by the Catholic princes of Europe, many Protestants saw it as the work of the Antichrist and refused to adopt it. This view was fueled by Gregory’s papal insignia, which featured the Boncompagni family’s emblem of a dragon; anti-Catholic propaganda equated the image with the seven-headed beast in the Book of Revelation. The Gregorian calendar was gradually accepted by the countries of Europe, though Russia did not accept it until 1918.
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