GREGORY XIII

original name Ugo Boncompagni, or Buoncompagni born June 7, 1502, Bologna, Romagna died April 10, 1585, Rome, Papal States pope from 1572 to 1585, who promulgated the Gregorian calendar and founded a system of seminaries for Roman Catholic priests. Educated at the University of Bologna, he 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 cardinal in 1565 and emissary to Spain. He was elected pope on May 14, 1572, succeeding St. Pius V. 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, whom he patronized. 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 Aug. 24, 1572, and spread throughout France. He celebrated the massacre with a Te Deum (hymn of praise to God) at Rome. Aided chiefly by the Neapolitan astronomer and physician Luigi Lilio Ghiraldi (d. 1576) and the German Jesuit and mathematician Christopher Clavius, Gregory corrected the errors of the Julian calendar created by Julius Caesar in 46 BC and issued the Gregorian calendar in 1582. Gregory's building program, which included the Quirinal Palace in Rome, together with his political ventures, exhausted the papal treasury, causing serious repercussions in the Papal States.