CLEMENT VIII. (Ippolito Aldobrandini), pope from 1592 to 16o5, was born at Fano in 1535. He became a jurist and in 1585 was made a cardinal. On Jan. 3o, 1592, he was elected pope, to succeed Innocent IX. To emancipate the papacy from undue Spanish influence, Clement cultivated closer relations with France. In 1595 he granted absolution to Henry IV., and so removed the last objection to the acknowledgment of his legitimacy. The peace of Vervins (1598), which ended the opposition of Philip II. to Henry, was mainly his work. He remonstrated against the ex clusion of the Jesuits from France, and obtained their re-admis sion. Upon the failure of the line of Este, Clement claimed the reversion of Ferrara and re-incorporated it into the States of the Church (1598) . His hopes of recovering England through James I. were never realized. Under Clement the publication of the re vised edition of the Vulgate, begun by Sixtus V., was finished; the Breviary, Missal and Pontifical revised; the Index was expanded; the Vatican library enlarged ; and the Collegium Clementinum founded. Clement was an unblushing nepotist, but, on the other hand, promoted to the cardinalate such men as Baronius, Bellar mine and 'Toledo. He died on March 5, 1605.
See the contemporary Vita by Ciaconius (Rome, 16or) ; Francolini, Ippolito Aldobrandini the fu Clemente VIII. (Perugia, 1867) ; Ranke's Popes (Eng. trans. Austin), ii. 234 seq.; v. Reumont, Gesch. der Stadt Rom. iii. 2, 599 seq.; Brosch, Gesch. des Kirchenstaates (188o), i. 3oi seq.