Paul VArticle Free Pass Paul V, original name Camillo Borghese
(born Sept. 17, 1552, Rome—died Jan. 28, 1621, Rome), Italian
pope from 1605 to 1621. A distinguished canon lawyer, he was
papal envoy to Spain for Pope Clement VIII, who made him
cardinal in 1596. He became vicar of Rome in 1603 and on May 16,
1605, was elected as Pope Leo XI’s successor at a time when the
Kingdom of Naples and the Venetian Republic were violating
ecclesiastical rights. One of his first acts was to
excommunicate the recalcitrant minister of Naples for violating
the privilegium fori—i.e., the right of ecclesiastics to be
judged in criminal cases not by civil courts but by church
courts. In 1606 a conflict erupted between Paul and Venice over
papal jurisdiction and ecclesiastical immunity within the
republic, where the celebrated theologian Paolo Sarpi encouraged
resistance to papal censures. The situation became critical when
Paul’s interdict against Venice (May 1606) caused firmer
defiance, led chiefly by Sarpi. Fear of Venice’s