PIUS V. (Michele Ghislieri), pope from 1566 to 1572, was born on Jan. 17, 1504, in the Milanese. At the age of fourteen he became a Dominican monk. He was appointed inquisitor in Como, where his zeal provoked such opposition as to compel his recall (155o). The chief inquisitor, Caraffa, convinced of his value, straightway sent him upon a mission to Lombardy, and in 1551 appointed him commissary-general of the Holy Office. When Caraffa became pope, Ghislieri was made bishop of Nepi and Sutri, cardinal (1557), and finally grand inquisitor. In this office he was continued by Pius IV., whom, however, he antagonized by his censoriousness and obstinacy. But after the death of Pius IV., the rigorists, led by Borromeo, had no difficulty in making him pope (Jan. 7, 1566). Retaining his ascetic mode of life, Pius immediately began the work of reform. Decrees and ordinances were rapidly issued; the papal court became a model of sobriety; prostitutes were driven from the city, or confined to a certain quarter ; penalties were attached to Sunday desecration, profanity and animal baiting ; clerical residence was enforced ; conventuals were compelled to live in strict seclusion according to their vows; catechetical instruction was enjoined. A new catechism appeared in 1566, followed by an improved breviary (1568), and an im proved missal (157o). The use of indulgences and dispensations was restricted, and the penitential system reformed.
Pius was the avowed enemy of nepotism. One nephew, it is true, he made cardinal, but allowed him no influence : the rest of his relatives he kept at a distance. By the constitution Admonet nos (March 29, 1567), he forbade the reinvestiture of fiefs that should revert to the Holy See, and bound the cardinals by oath to observe it. In March 1569 Pius ordered the expulsion of the Jews from the States of the Church. For commercial reasons they were allowed to remain in Rome and Ancona, but only upon humiliating conditions. In February 1571, the Umiliati, a degen erate monastic order of Milan, was suppressed on account of an attempt upon the life of the archbishop, Carlo Borromeo.
The rules governing the Holy Office were sharpened ; old charges, long suspended, were revived; rank offered no protection, but rather exposed its possessor to fiercer attack; none were pur sued more relentlessly than the cultured, among whom many of the Protestant doctrines had found acceptance; princes and states withdrew their protection, and courted the favour of the Holy See by surrendering distinguished offenders. Cosimo de' Medici
handed over Pietro Carnesecchi (and two years later received in reward the title of grand duke, Sept. 1569); Venice delivered Guido Zanetti ; Philip II., Bartolome de Carranza, the archbishop of Toledo. In March 1571 the Congregation of the Index was established, and hundreds of printers took flight to Switzerland and Germany. The regret of Pius was that he had sometimes been too lenient. He spurred Philip II. on in the Netherlands, and commanded the utter extermination (ad internecionem usque) of the Huguenots; he protested against the tolerance shown by the emperor. One of his cherished schemes was the dethronement of Elizabeth, whom he excommunicated and declared a usurper (Feb. 25, 1570); but he had to content himself with abetting plots and rebellions. He effected an alliance with Spain and Venice against the Turks, and contributed to the victory of Lepanto (Oct. 6, 1571). Pius died on May 1, 1572; and was canonized by Clement XI. in 1712.
See Ciaconius, Vitae et res gestae summorum pontiff. rom. (Rome, 16o1-.o2 ; a contemporary of Pius) ; Acta sanctorum, maij, tom. i. pp. 616 seq., containing the life by Gabuzio (1605), based upon an earlier one by Catena (15g6) ; Falloux, Hist. de St. Pie V. (3rd ed., Paris, 1858), eulogistic; Mendham, Life and Pontificate of St. Pius V. (London, 1832), a bitter polemic. The life of Pius has also been written by Fuenmayor (Madrid, 1595), Paolo Alessandro Maffei (Rome, 1712), and by T. M. Granello (Bologna, 1877) . His letters have been edited by Catena (vide supra), Goubau (Antwerp, 1640), and a select number in a French translation, by de Potter (Paris, 1826).
See also Hilliger, Die Wahl Pius V. zum Papste (Leipzig, 1890 ; Ranke, Popes (Eng. trans., Austin), i. 361 seq., 384 seq.; and von Reumont, Gesch. der Stadt Rom. iii. 2, 557 seq.