Pope Paul V

233rd pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1605 to 1621

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Lived 1552–1621, aged 69Italy

Italy Religious Figures

Wikipedia
80 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1552–1621
Aged 69

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

He told Galileo the Earth didn't move — at least not in public — while privately assuring the astronomer he'd be safe from persecution. The pope who finished St. Peter's Basilica also drew the line where science met doctrine, setting a collision course that outlasted both men.

Biography

About

Born Camillo Borghese in 1550 and trained in law, he rose through the Church to become Cardinal Vicar of Rome before his election as pope in May 1605. Stern and unyielding, he defended ecclesiastical privilege so fiercely that he placed Venice under interdict in 1606, a standoff resolved only by French and Spanish mediation the following year. In 1611 he honored Galileo as a member of the papal academy and supported his work, but by 1616 instructed Cardinal Bellarmine to tell the astronomer that Copernican heliocentrism could not be taught as fact — though the certificate Bellarmine issued let…

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