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69-596: The history of Grottaferrata identifies largely with that of the Basilian Monastery of Santa Maria , founded here in 1004 by Saint Nilus the Younger . The founding legend narrates that, at the spot where the abbey now stands, the Virgin Mary appeared and bade him found a church in her honour. From Gregory, the powerful Count of Tusculum , father of Popes Benedict VIII and John XIX , Nilus obtained

138-539: A correspondence between him and Gregory Nazianzen at the beginning of his monastic life. St. Basil drew up his Asketikon for the members of the monastery he founded about 356 on the banks of the Iris River in Cappadocia . Before forming this community St. Basil visited Egypt , Coele-Syria , Mesopotamia , and Palestine in order to see for himself the manner of life led by the monks in these countries. In

207-657: A large number of monks, hagiographers , hymnologists , and poets who had a large share in the development of the Greek Liturgy. Among the authors of hymns may be mentioned: Romanus the Melodist ; Andrew of Crete ; Cosmas of Jerusalem , and Joseph the Hymnographer . From the beginning the Oriental Churches often took their patriarchs and bishops from the monasteries. Later, when the secular clergy

276-567: A long line of historians who were also monks: Georgius Syncellus , who wrote a "Selected Chronographia"; his friend and disciple Theophanes (d. 817), Abbot of the "Great Field" near Cyzicus , the author of another "Chronographia"; the Patriarch Nikephoros , who wrote (815–829) an historical "Breviarium" (a Byzantine history), and an "Abridged Chronographia"; George the Monk , whose Chronicle stops at A. D. 842. There were, besides,

345-512: A man and a cow attracted the antiquarian attention of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor , who had the group removed to Lucera. Nilus died soon afterwards (26 December 1005) in the Sant' Agata monastery in Tusculum . The monastic building was carried out by his successors, especially the fourth abbot, Saint Bartholomew , who is usually considered the second founder. Building materials scavenged from

414-853: A period of great difficulty between them and enabling the former to become a significant religious order in the Catholic Church. Gregory XIII was a generous patron of the Jesuit colleges in Rome. The Roman College of the Jesuits grew substantially under his patronage, and became the most important centre of learning in Europe for a time. It is now named the Pontifical Gregorian University . Pope Gregory XIII also founded numerous seminaries for training priests, beginning with

483-684: A powerful feudatary through the acquisition of the Duchy of Sora , on the border between the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples . To raise funds for his endeavours, Gregory confiscated a large proportion of the houses and properties throughout the states of the Church. This measure enriched his treasury for a time, but alienated a great body of the nobility and gentry, revived old factions, and created new ones, and caused economic and social chaos in

552-531: A servant in the employ of his sister-in-law Laura Ferro. The future Pope explains in detail the circumstances of the boy's conception, which took place in 1547 in Bologna after the Council of Trent had moved to that city; his motive was to assure his inheritance rights following the death (in 1546) of his father Cristoforo Boncompagni." He also served as a legate to Philip II of Spain (1556–1598), being sent by

621-584: A ship and an army of 800 men to land in Ireland to aid the Catholics against the Protestant plantations. To his dismay, Stukeley joined his forces with those of King Sebastian of Portugal against Sultan Abdul Malik of Morocco instead. Another papal expedition sailed to Ireland in 1579 with a mere 50 soldiers under the command of Fitzmaurice, accompanied by Sanders as papal legate . They took part in

690-629: A year or two. Austria and Hungary followed in 1587. However, more than a century passed before Protestant Europe accepted the new calendar. Denmark-Norway , the remaining states of the Dutch Republic, and the Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire and Switzerland adopted the Gregorian reform in 1700–01. By that time, the calendar trailed the seasons by 11 days. Great Britain , its American colonies and Ireland adopted

759-609: Is a collection of his responses to questions about the ascetic life—hence the more accurate original name: Asketikon . Attribution of the Rule and other ascetical writings that go under his name to Basil has been questioned. But the tendency is to recognize as his at any rate the two sets of Rules, the Greater Asketikon and the Lesser Asketicon . Probably the truest idea of his monastic system may be derived from

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828-681: The Council of Trent . In the year 1552, Ugo Boncompagni confirmed the paternity of his son Giacomo (or Jacopo). As stated in the online Archivio Digitale Boncompagni Ludovisi: "One of the most valuable items to emerge from the new archival finds from the Villa Aurora is an autograph declaration in Latin and Italian dated 22 December 1552 by Ugo Boncompagni (1502–1585, from 1572 Pope Gregory XIII). Here Ugo confirms his paternity of Giacomo (or Jacopo) Boncompagni (1548–1612) by Maddalena de' Fucchinis,

897-640: The Council of Trent . He mandated that cardinals reside in their sees without exception, and designated a committee to update the Index of Forbidden Books . Gregory XIII was also the patron of a new and greatly improved edition of the Corpus juris canonici . In a time of considerable centralization of power, Gregory XIII abolished the Cardinals Consistories , replacing them with Colleges and appointing specific tasks for these colleges to work on. He

966-655: The German College at Rome , and put them in the charge of the Jesuits. In 1575, he gave official status to the Congregation of the Oratory , a community of priests without vows, dedicated to prayer and preaching (founded by Saint Philip Neri ). In 1580 he commissioned artists, including Ignazio Danti , to complete works to decorate the Vatican and commissioned The Gallery of Maps . Gregory also transformed

1035-768: The Muslim conquest, a large number of monasteries were destroyed, especially those monasteries in Anatolia and the region around Constantinople. After the Great Schism most Basilian monasteries became a part of the Eastern Orthodox Church ; however, some Basilian monasteries which were in Italy remained in communion with the Western Church. St. Nilus the Younger was a monk and a propagator of

1104-712: The Second Desmond Rebellion . All of the soldiers and sailors on board, as well as the women and children who accompanied them, were beheaded or hanged on landing in Kerry in the Smerwick Massacre . In 1580, he was persuaded by English Jesuits to moderate or suspend the Bull Regnans in Excelsis (1570), which had excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I of England. Catholics were advised to obey

1173-501: The Seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicaea of 787. In 885, a decree of Emperor Basil I proclaimed Mount Athos a place of monks, and no laymen or farmers or cattle-breeders are allowed to be settled there. The Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai , built in 548, goes back to the early days of monasticism, and is still occupied by monks. Fine penmanship and the copying of manuscripts were held in honor among

1242-535: The destruction of Tusculum in 1191, the greater part of the monastic community sought refuge in a dependency of the abbey, the Benedictine protocaenobium of Subiaco . In the middle of the 13th century the Emperor Frederick II made the abbey his headquarters during the siege of Rome, while in 1378 Breton and Gascon mercenaries held it for the antipope Clement VII . The fifteenth century saw

1311-471: The iconoclastic persecution; the stand they took in this aroused the anger of the imperial controversialists. The Faith had its martyrs among them; many of them were condemned to exile, and some took advantage of this condemnation to reorganize their religious life in Italy . Of all the monasteries of this period the most celebrated was that of St. John the Baptist of Stoudio , founded at Constantinople in

1380-695: The Basilian Monastery of Santa Maria, in Grottaferrata ; it was completed by his disciple Bartholomew of Grottaferrata , who was also of Greek heritage. The emigration of the Greeks to the West after the fall of Constantinople gave a certain prestige to these communities. Cardinal Bessarion , who was Abbot of Grottaferrata, sought to stimulate the intellectual life of the Basilians by means of

1449-618: The Basilians. Among the monasteries which excelled in the art of copying were the Stoudios, Mount Athos, the monastery of the Isle of Patmos and that of Rossano in Sicily; the tradition was continued later by the monastery of Grottaferrata near Rome . These monasteries, and others as well, were studios of religious art where the monks toiled to produce miniatures in the manuscripts, paintings, and goldsmith work. The Byzantine monasteries furnish

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1518-691: The Dominican studium founded in the 13th century at Rome into the College of St. Thomas in 1580, as recommended by the Council of Trent. This college was the precursor of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas Angelicum . Pope Gregory XIII is best known for commissioning the Gregorian calendar , initially authored by the physician/astronomer Aloysius Lilius and aided by Jesuit priest/astronomer Christopher Clavius , who made

1587-615: The East and were not well preserved in that region. Pope Benedict IX died and was buried in this abbey. Grottaferrata is twinned with: The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is " Csa " (Mediterranean Climate). [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). " Abbey of Grottaferrata ". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company. Basilian monk Basilian monks are Greek Catholic monks who follow

1656-453: The East. Those of Armenia , Chaldea , and of the Syrian countries in general preferred instead those observances which were known among them as the Rule of St. Anthony . Protected by the emperors and patriarchs the monasteries increased rapidly in number. The monks took an active part in the ecclesiastical life of their time. Their monasteries were places of refuge for studious men. Many of

1725-736: The Gregorian calendar and has been almost universally adopted. Much of the populace bitterly opposed this reform; they feared it was an attempt by landlords to cheat them out of a week and a half's rent. However, the Catholic countries of Spain , Portugal , Poland-Lithuania , and the Italian states complied. France , some states of the Dutch Republic and various Catholic states in the Holy Roman Empire and Switzerland (both countries were religiously split) followed suit within

1794-644: The Papal States. The pope canonized four saints during his pontificate and in 1584 beatified his predecessor Pope Gregory VII . During his pontificate, the pope created 34 cardinals in eight consistories; this included naming his nephew Filippo Boncompagni to the cardinalate in the pope's first consistory in 1572. Gregory XIII also named four of his successors as cardinals all in 1583: Giovanni Battista Castagna (Urban VII), Niccolò Sfondrati (Gregory XIV), Giovanni Antonio Facchinetti (Innocent IX), and Alessandro de' Medici (Leo XI). The pope suffered from

1863-680: The Pope to investigate the Archbishop of Toledo Bartolomé Carranza . He formed a lasting and close relationship with the Spanish king, which aided his foreign policy aims as Pope. After Pope Pius V (1566–1572) died, the conclave chose Cardinal Boncompagni, who assumed the name of Gregory XIII in homage to Gregory the Great , a 6th-century reforming pope. It was a very brief conclave, lasting less than 24 hours. Many historians have attributed this to

1932-761: The Vatican. In Rome, Gregory XIII built the Gregorian chapel in the Basilica of St. Peter and extended the Quirinal Palace in 1580. He also turned the Baths of Diocletian into a granary in 1575. He appointed his illegitimate son Giacomo , born to his mistress at Bologna before his papacy, castellan of Sant'Angelo and Gonfalonier of the Church ; Venice , anxious to please the Pope, enrolled his son among its nobles, and Philip II of Spain appointed him general in his army. Gregory also helped his son to become

2001-417: The abbey church consecrated by John XIX in 1024, little can be seen in the interior except the mosaics in the narthex and over the triumphal arch, the medieval structures having been covered or destroyed during the "restorations" of various abbots in commendam . Some fragmentary thirteenth-century frescoes were revealed in a partial restoration of the church in 1904 to commemorate its novecentennial, when it

2070-462: The ambitious ensemble of Cosmatesque inlay, only the polychrome stone paving remains. The abbey's possessions in lands were numerous and widespread, and in 1131 King Roger II of Sicily made the abbot Baron of Rossano with an extensive fief. Between the 12th and 15th centuries the monastery suffered from the continual strife of warring factions: Romans and Tusculans, Guelphs and Ghibellines , popes and antipopes, Colonna and Orsini . From 1163 till

2139-434: The basis for most Eastern Orthodox and some Greek Catholic monasticism. Benedict of Nursia , who fulfilled much the same function in the West, took his Regula Benedicti from the writings of Basil and other earlier church fathers . Under the name of Basilians are included all the religious that follow the Rule of St. Basil. The "Rule" is not intended to be a constitution like various Western monastic Rules ; rather, it

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2208-519: The bishops and patriarchs were chosen from their ranks. They gave to the preaching of the Gospel its greatest apostles. The position of the monks in the empire was one of great power, and their wealth helped to increase their influence. Thus their development ran a course parallel to that of their Western brethren. The monks, as a rule, followed the theological vicissitudes of the emperors and patriarchs, and they showed no notable independence except during

2277-598: The bloody feuds of the Colonna and the Orsini raging round the walls. According to the humanist Ambrogio Traversari , in 1432 the appearance of the abbey was that of a barracks rather than a monastery. In 1462 began a line of non-resident abbots in commendam , fifteen in number, of whom all but one were cardinals . The most distinguished were the Greek Bessarion , Giulio della Rovere (afterwards Julius II ), and

2346-730: The daily life, as a supplement to St Basil's Rules. He therefore drew up constitutions, afterwards codified, which became the norm of the life at the Stoudios monastery, and gradually spread thence to the monasteries of the rest of the Greek empire. Thus to this day the Rules of Basil and the Constitutions of Theodore the Studite , along with the canons of the Councils, constitute the chief part of Greek and Russian monastic law. The monastery

2415-566: The dangers of the Protestants . He encouraged the plans of Philip II to dethrone Elizabeth I of England (reigned from 1558 to 1603), resulting in English Protestants suspecting Catholics as potential traitors and subversives. In 1578, to further the plans of exiled English and Irish Catholics such as Nicholas Sanders , William Allen , and James Fitzmaurice FitzGerald , Gregory outfitted adventurer Thomas Stukeley with

2484-523: The end of the twelfth century, but was restored by order of Leo XIII in 1881. The Basilian abbey has always been a home of Greek learning, and Greek hymnography flourished there long after the art had died out within the Byzantine Empire. Monastic studies were revived under Cardinal Bessarion and again in 1608. On 11 August 1901 the first electricity reached Grottaferrata from the hydroelectric plant in S. Bartholomew fall. On 26 September 1937,

2553-619: The fifth century. It acquired its fame in the time of the iconoclastic persecution while it was under the government of the saintly hegoumenos (abbot) Theodore, called the Studite. In 781, Platon, a monk in the Symbola Monastery in Bithynia, and the uncle of Theodore the Studite , converted the family estate into the Sakkoudion Monastery . Platon served as abbot, with Theodore as his assistant. In 794, Theodore

2622-419: The final modifications. This calendar is more accurate than the Julian calendar , which treats each year as 365 days and 6 hours in length, even though the actual length of a year is slightly less (365 days, 5 hours, and 49 minutes). As a result, the date of the vernal equinox had slowly, over the course of 13 centuries, slipped to 10 March, while the computus (calculation) of the date of Easter still followed

2691-408: The influence and backing of the Spanish king. Charles Borromeo and the cardinals wishing reform accepted Boncompagni's candidature and so supported him in the conclave, while the Spanish faction also deemed him acceptable due to his success as a nuncio in Spain. Once in the chair of Saint Peter , Gregory XIII dedicated himself to reform of the Catholic Church. He implemented the recommendations of

2760-440: The last Pope to have left issue. At the age of 36 he was summoned to Rome by Pope Paul III (1534–1549), under whom he held successive appointments as first judge of the capital, abbreviator , and vice-chancellor of the Campagna e Marittima . Pope Paul IV (1555–1559) attached him as datarius to the suite of Cardinal Carlo Carafa . Pope Pius IV (1559–1565) made him Cardinal-Priest of San Sisto Vecchio and sent him to

2829-431: The last of the line, Cardinal Consalvi , secretary of state to Pius VII . Cardinal Bessarion, himself a Basilian monk , increased the scanty and impoverished community and restored the church. Cardinal Giulio della Rovere, for more selfish motives, erected the castle and surrounded the whole monastery with the imposing fortifications that still exist. Cardinal Alessandro Farnese replaced the ceiling. Gian Lorenzo Bernini

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2898-486: The latter country and in Syria the monastic life tended to become more and more eremitical and to run to great extravagances in the matter of bodily austerities. When Basil formed his monastery in the neighborhood of Neocaesarea in Pontus , he deliberately set himself against these tendencies. He declared that the cenobitical life is superior to the eremitical; that fasting and austerities should not interfere with prayer or work; that work should form an integral part of

2967-662: The literary treasures which their libraries contained. Other Italian monasteries of the Basilian Order were affiliated with the monastery of Grottaferrata in 1561. The Spanish Basilians were suppressed with the other orders in 1835 and have not been re-established. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Rule of St. Basil". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company. Gregory XIII Pope Gregory XIII ( Latin : Gregorius XIII ; Italian : Gregorio XIII ; 7 January 1502 – 10 April 1585), born Ugo Boncompagni ,

3036-433: The marble portal with a mosaic above it, an example of Italo-Byzantine art of the twelfth century. In the interior is a baptismal font supported on winged lions, of the tenth or eleventh centuries. Noteworthy also is the Romanesque campanile (twelfth century), with five storeys of tripartite arched windows. The library of the Abbey, which contains some 50,000 volumes, has a paper conservation Laboratorio di Restauro , which

3105-411: The members would have questions. His responses were written down and formed the "Small Asketikon", published in 366. He limits himself to laying down indisputable principles which will guide the superiors and monks in their conduct. He sends his monks to the Sacred Scriptures; in his eyes the Bible is the basis of all monastic legislation, the true Rule. The questions refer generally to the virtues which

3174-431: The monasteries themselves. In some of them theological instruction is given both to clerics and to laymen. In the East the convents for women adopted the Rule of St. Basil and had constitutions copied from those of the Basilian monks. St. Cyril and St. Methodius , the Apostles of the Slavs were noted missionaries. In 1980, Pope John Paul II declared them co-patron saints of Europe, together with Benedict of Nursia. During

3243-535: The monastery had come from Calabria and brought with them the tradition of Greek-speaking settlements in Southern Italy and Sicily. Of the more than 200 Greek language manuscripts in the collection, forty of them consist of music notation , most of which are written in the Byzantine Rite that pre-dated the reforms made to Byzantine music by John Koukouzeles in the 14th century. The library has many rare manuscripts of Byzantine music, some of which contain types of music and notation that eventually fell out of favor in

3312-413: The monastery was made a territorial abbacy of the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church under the title Territorial Abbacy of Saint Mary of Grottaferrata . The Abbey of Saint Mary of Grottaferrata  [ it ] has several courts, which lead to the famous portico designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger , with an arcade of nine bays supported by slender columns with Renaissance capitals. Of

3381-439: The monastic life, not merely as an occupation, but for its own sake and in order to do good to others; and therefore that monasteries should be near towns. Gregory of Nazianzus, who shared the retreat, aided Basil by his advice and experience. All this was a new departure in monachism. In his Rule, Basil follows a catechetical method; the disciple asks a question to which the master replies. As he visited early ascetic communities,

3450-423: The monks should practice and the vices they should avoid. The greater number of the replies contain a verse or several verses of the Bible accompanied by a comment which defines the meaning. The most striking qualities of the Basilian Rule are its prudence and its wisdom. It leaves to the superiors the care of settling the many details of local, individual, and daily life; it does not determine the material exercise of

3519-482: The observance or the administrative regulations of the monastery. Poverty, obedience, renunciation, and self-abnegation are the virtues which St. Basil makes the foundation of the monastic life. The Rule of Basil is divided into two parts: the "Greater Monastic Rules" and the "Lesser Rules". In 397, Rufinus who translated them into Latin united the two into a single Rule under the name of Regulae sancti Basilii episcopi Cappadociae ad monachos . Basil's influence ensured

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3588-403: The propagation of Basilian monachism ; and Sozomen says that in Cappadocia and the neighboring provinces there were no hermits but only cenobites. This Rule was followed by some Western monasteries, and was a major source for the Rule of St. Benedict . The monasteries of Cappadocia were the first to accept the Rule of St. Basil; it afterwards spread gradually to most of the monasteries of

3657-420: The queen outwardly in all civil matters until such time as a suitable opportunity presented itself for her overthrow. After the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacres of Huguenots in France in 1572, Pope Gregory signaled his approval and celebrated a Te Deum mass. Three frescoes in the Sala Regia hall of the Vatican depicting the events were commissioned and painted by Giorgio Vasari . A commemorative medal

3726-446: The reformed calendar in 1752, where Wednesday 2 September 1752 was immediately followed by Thursday 14 September 1752; they were joined by the last Protestant holdout, Sweden , on 1 March 1753. The Gregorian calendar was not accepted in eastern Christendom for several hundred years, and then only as the civil calendar. Though he feared the invasion of Europe by the Turks , Gregory XIII's attentions were more consistently directed to

3795-409: The ruined villa were incorporated into the new structure, marble columns, sections of carved cornice, and blocks of the volcanic stone called peperino . The sanctuary was complete enough in 1024 to be consecrated by the Tusculan Pope John XIX. It was dedicated to the Madonna on 17 December 1024. The high repute of the monks attracted many gifts; eleventh- and thirteenth-century mosaics remain, but of

3864-468: The rule of Basil the Great , bishop of Caesarea (330–379). The term 'Basilian' is typically used only in the Catholic Church to distinguish Greek Catholic monks from other forms of monastic life in the Catholic Church. In the Eastern Orthodox Church , as all monks follow the Rule of Saint Basil, they do not distinguish themselves as 'Basilian'. The monastic rules and institutes of Basil are important because their reconstruction of monastic life remains

3933-424: The rule of Saint Basil in Italy. The Oratory of Saint Mark in Rossano , was founded by Nilus, as a place of retirement for nearby eremite monks. It retained the Greek Rite over the Latin Rite long after the town came under Norman rule. The Rossano Gospels is a 6th-century illuminated manuscript Gospel Book written following the reconquest of the Italian peninsula by the Byzantine Empire. In 1004, Nilus founded

4002-405: The site, which had been a Roman villa , where among the ruins there remained a low edifice of opus quadratum that had been a tomb but had been converted to a Christian oratory in the fourth century. Its iron window grates gave the site the name, first of Cryptaferrata ("ironbound crypt") then of Grottaferrata , commemorated in the coat-of-arms of the commune. From the site, a Roman bronze of

4071-408: The traditional date of 21 March. Clavius verified this phenomenon. Gregory subsequently decreed, by the papal bull Inter gravissimas of 24 February 1582, that the day after Thursday, 4 October 1582 would be the fifteenth, not the fifth, of October. The new calendar replaced the Julian calendar, which had been used since 45 BC. Because of Gregory's involvement, the new calendar came to be known as

4140-446: Was an active center of intellectual and artistic life and a model which exercised considerable influence on monastic observances in the East. Theodore attributed the observances followed by his monks to his uncle, the saintly Abbot Plato, who first introduced them in his monastery of Sakkoudion. The other monasteries, one after another adopted them, and they are still followed by the monks of Mount Athos . Monks from Athos participated at

4209-439: Was appointed. The triennial system survived the suppression of the commendam and lasted till the end of the nineteenth century, with one break from 1834 to 1870, when priors were appointed by the Holy See . In 1901, new constitutions came into force and Arsenio Pellegrini was installed as the first perpetual regular abbot since 1462. The Greek Rite which was brought to Grottaferrata by St. Nilus had lost its native character by

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4278-431: Was commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Barberini to provide the high altar, completed in 1665. Till 1608 the community was ruled by priors dependent on abbots in commendam , but in that year Grottaferrata became a member of the Basilian congregation founded by Gregory XIII . The revenues of the community were separated from those of the commendatory abbots, and the first of a series of triennially appointed regular abbots

4347-450: Was entrusted with the conservation of Leonardo 's Codex Atlanticus from the Biblioteca Ambrosiana ; the library houses writings of St. Nilus and his pupils and a rare copy of Alvise Cadamosto 's collected travel accounts, printed in the early sixteenth century. The monastery's library also includes the largest collection of Greek-language manuscripts pre-dating the year 1600 found in a monastery anywhere in Western Europe. The founders of

4416-754: Was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 May 1572 to his death in April 1585. He is best known for commissioning and being the namesake for the Gregorian calendar , which remains the internationally accepted civil calendar to this day. Ugo Boncompagni was born the son of Cristoforo Boncompagni (10 July 1470 – 1546) and of his wife, Angela Marescalchi, in Bologna , where he studied law and graduated in 1530. He later taught jurisprudence for some years, and his students included notable figures such as Cardinals Alexander Farnese , Reginald Pole and Charles Borromeo . He had an illegitimate son after an affair with Maddalena Fulchini, Giacomo Boncompagni , but before he took holy orders, making him

4485-413: Was issued with Gregory's portrait and on the obverse a chastising angel, sword in hand and the legend UGONOTTORUM STRAGES ("Overthrow of the Huguenots"). Gregory XIII was visited by the Tenshō embassy of Japan, becoming the first Pope to have received such an embassy. On behalf of the Japanese ruler Oda Nobunaga , they gifted him with the so-called Azuchi Screens , which were put on display within

4554-413: Was made a Roman basilica . The mosaics portray the Twelve Apostles sitting beside an empty throne, evoking Christ's ascent to Heaven. Domenichino 's frescoes, commissioned by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese in 1608, can be seen in the chapel of St. Nilus. Annibale Carracci executed the altarpiece of the Madonna with Child with St. Nilus and St. Bartholomew . The modern portico protects the ancient façade;

4623-408: Was ordained by Tarasios of Constantinople and became abbot. Around 797 Empress Irene made Theodore leader of the ancient Stoudios Monastery in Constantinople. He set himself to reform his monastery and restore St. Basil's spirit in its primitive vigour. But to effect this, and to give permanence to the reformation, he saw that there was need of a more practical code of laws to regulate the details of

4692-417: Was recruited largely from among married men, this custom became almost universal, for, as the episcopal office could not be conferred upon men who were married, it developed, in a way, into a privilege of the religious who had taken the vow of celibacy . Owing to this the monks formed a class apart, corresponding to the upper clergy of the Western Churches; this gave and still gives a preponderating influence to

4761-449: Was renowned for fierce independence; some confidants noted that he neither welcomed interventions nor sought advice. The power of the papacy increased under him, whereas the influence and power of the cardinals substantially decreased. Gregory XIII also established the Discalced Carmelites , an offshoot of the Carmelite Order , as a distinct unit or "province" within the former by the decree "Pia consideratione" dated 22 June 1580, ending

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