The Renaissance

the Council of Trent, which set down new
doctrine to be enforced by the members
of the church. Making alliances with
Catholic rulers, such as the Emperor
Charles V, the popes sought to return Prot-
estant lands to Catholicism, with mixed
results. The popes claimed civic as well as
religious authority in several principalities
of central Italy, known as the Papal States.
During the sixteenth century, the Papacy
conquered many important cities of Italy
and imposed direct rule over them. The
power of the Papacy over even Catholic
rulers declined after the Renaissance, until
the Papal States were finally dissolved in
the nineteenth century and the Papacy be-
came a purely religious institution.

SEEALSO: Alexander VI; Julius II; Papal
States; Reformation, Protestant

Papal States ......................................

The states where the Catholic pope held
direct “temporal” authority in central Italy,
beginning in the middle of the eighth cen-
tury, and where papal sovereignty ended
with the unification of Italy in 1870. The
fall of Rome in the fifth century left the
popes as the strongest power in the city
and its surrounding region. When Italy
was under the threat of total conquest by
the Lombards, Pope Stephen II sent for
help from the Franks and their king Pepin
the Short. The Franks invaded Italy de-
spite the efforts by the eastern Roman
(Byzantine) empire to establish rule over
the peninsula and restore the empire. In
756, the Franks turned over territories un-
der their control to the church, an event
known as the Donation of Pepin. The do-
mains of the popes expanded in the
Middle Ages, to include Naples, Sicily, and
Sardinia under Pope Sylvester I, and Tus-
cany in the early twelfth century. From
1305, the seat of the Papacy was in Avi-

gnon, France, and the Papal States fell un-

der the authority of secular princes.

The restoration of the Papacy in Rome

led to the expansion of papal authority in

central Italy, beginning in the late fifteenth

century. Pope Alexander VI sanctioned a

campaign by his son Cesare Borgia to con-

quer these small principalities, which did

not have effective defenses against Borgia’s

large and disciplined forces. Cities of the

Romagna, a region centered in the valley

of the Po River in northern Italy, and the

Marches, along the central Adriatic coast,

came directly under the pope’s authority.

The power of the Papacy was strengthened

in the late Renaissance, after Pope Julius II

and later popes abolished secular govern-

ments in several key cities, including Fer-

rara and Urbino. The Papal States re-

mained independent of more powerful

states that were emerging in the north

(such as Venice and Tuscany) and the

south (including Naples). In 1796 a French

army under Napoléon Bonaparte, a deter-

mined opponent of the church’s civic au-

thority, invaded and disbanded the Papal

States, which were restored for a last time

in 1815. The last remnant of the Papal

States is Vatican City, a small enclave in

Rome that is the seat of the modern

Catholic Church.

SEEALSO: Italy; Julius II; Papacy

Paracelsus .......................................

(1493–1541)

Germany physician and alchemist who

pioneered a new approach to treating ill-

ness, and helped usher medicine out of its

medieval occultism and into the more ra-

tional scientific philosophies of the Re-

naissance. The son of a physician, his given

name was Philippus Aureolus Theophras-

tus Bombast von Hohenheim. He was born

and raised in the town of Einsiedeln in

Paracelsus