The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

CHAPTER IV.
Reforming Zeal of Pius V. Reform of the College of
Cardinals, the Curia, and the Roman Clergy.
Everyone who, even by repute, knew his fiery zeal, realized
that with Cardinal Ghislieri the genius to reform and the
spirit of the Council of Trent had ascended the Papal throne.
The advocates of a radical ecclesiastical revival joyfully spread
the news of the election of Pius V.,^ and of his first reforms,
while, at the end of the first year of his reign, a correspondent
summed up his impressions of him as follows ; " The new
Pope, for whom his ill-vv^ishers predicted a short pontificate,^
has strength for another ten years, and reform plans for
another hundred or a thousand years."'* Pius V. himself
made no secret of his intentions. On July ist, 1566, in im-
ploring the Republic to abstain from any further plans of war,
in order that no obstacles might be placed in the way of peace
in Italy, and thus in that of an ecclesiastical revival, he wrote
to Genoa that he wished to reform everything in the Church
of God that stood in need of reform.^ On March 2nd, 1566,
^ Circular in the name of Francis Borgia to the provincials of
the Jesuits, January 15, 1566, S. Franciscus Borgia, IV., 162-167.
^ Cf. circulars of Polanco to the Society of Jesus, of January 25,
April 30, June 17, and October 21, 1566, Anal. Bollatid., VII.
(1888) 46 seqq. These letters were published with some editions
at Cologne in 1567 ; ibtd., XV. (1896), 77 seq.
* Catena, 21.
* *Ciregiola to Cardinal Medici, December 8, 1566 :
" Non solo
supera tutte le stravagante opinioni e umore e male mercantie di
mercato nuovo, ma che havera vita per dieci anni e riforme per
cento a per mille." State Archives, Florence.
^ *[Reformare] sicut instituimus, in Ecclesia Dei quidquid
reformatione indigere perspicimus. Brevia, Arm. 44, t. 12,
n. 79, Papal Secret Archives.
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