\b0 Maffeo Barberini was born into a noble Tuscan family in 1568. After graduating
in jurisprudence at Pisa, he went on to make a brilliant career for himself in the Church hierarchy, being elected cardinal at only 38 years of age in 1623, and pope at the age of 55. Authoritarian in character and fully aware of his great responsibiliti
es, Urban personally supervised the government of the Church. He was an immodest nepotist and provided his family with support in so many ways that in his old age he was wracked with deep remorse. A munificent protector of the arts, Urban VIII was patron
of the great period of Roman Baroque that was typified by the works of Bernini, Borromini and Pietro da Cortona, artists for whom the Pope was their greatest patron. Conscious of his role as common father of Christianity, Urban sought to maintain a diff
icult foreign policy of neutrality between Spain, France and Austria. However, thanks to fears of the predominance of the Habsburgs in Italy and his own personal antipathy towards Spain, his policy ended up as effectively pro-French. The PopeÆs activitie
s at a religious level are worthy of note. He took part in the revision of the breviary, established the procedures for canonizing saints and encouraged missionary activities.\par
