Pius V

1504-1572. Pope from 1566. Born Michele Ghislieri, he entered at the age of fourteen the Dominican Order wherein he later held the offices of master and prior, served the Inquisition in Milan, was appointed commissary general of the Inquisition in 1551, bishop of Nepi and Sutri in 1557, became a cardinal, and with the backing of Cardinal Borromeo* and the Ultramontane party, was elected pope. Fanatical and austere, Pius had as his ideal no less than the refashioning of the whole church on the model of his own household. To this end he vigorously enforced the recommendations of the Council of Trent, revised the Breviary and the Missal, and saw to the republication of the works of Aquinas.* He stamped out the Reformed faith in Italy while encouraging Spain to do likewise in the Netherlands, personally blessing the military campaigns of the duke of Alva. In France he acquired an ascendancy over Catherine de' Medici* and Charles IX, while in England his excommunication of Queen Elizabeth* led to divisions among and persecutions of the Catholic community. He helped promote the alliance of the Papal States,* Spain, and Venice which triumphed in the great naval battle at Lepanto in 1571. He was canonized in 1712.