Maffeo Barbarini was born in Florence, but was taken to Rome by his mother at the age of three, following the death of his father. Maffeo rode the coattails of his uncle, a prominent layman in the papal court, and was brought up in the life of the Church. He was educated by the Jesuits, receiving his law degree at 21. Maffeo was sent to the court of Henry IV of France as a papal legate in 1601, and three years later was made Archbishop of Nazareth, both by Pope Clement VIII. He was made a cardinal by Pope Paul V in 1606, then later served as a legate to Bologna.  

The fifth-longest papacy to date (after St. Peter’s) and 10th-longest in Church history began on August 6, 1623 without much fanfare. Urban VIII chose his name as a nod to Blessed Pope Urban II (the guy who launched the Crusades), given the current Urban’s desire to unite Christendom to overcome the Turks. Yes, again.

Urban VIII began the Church’s fight against Jansenism, a heresy that basically said humans have no real free will without God’s grace, and thus that Jesus only died for some. His bull In eminenti was written as Jansenism’s initial sock-in-the-nose, but popes would be dealing with this one for decades. Urban was extremely active both politically and militarily, fighting to keep Italy independent and further balance power in Europe. He also built new fortifications and restored several key Roman churches. Urban died a week shy of 21 years in office, on July 29, 1644.

Pope Urban VIII is the man best known for wrapping up the famed “Galileo Controversy.” Galileo, the illustrious scientist, had initially been reprimanded by Cardinal Bellarmine and Pope Paul V for believing Copernicus’ theory of heliocentrism (sun-at-the-center) to be scientific fact. Now, this of course is scientific fact, at least the sun being at the center of the Solar System, but the technology didn’t yet exist to prove it. What’s more, Galileo wanted to start disproving Scriptural interpretation using this very “fact.”

Enter Urban VIII. The pope, wanting to do his friend a solid, allowed Galileo to write a work on heliocentrism, BUT expressly told him to only offer arguments for and against the view. Galileo technically obeyed, but he also called the pope a simpleton and made fun of one of his Jesuit astronomer friends in the book. Smart, Galileo. Mock the pope and your closest allies. Great.

In any case, even this act -- which surely has been overblown by the Church’s opponents through the centuries -- was treated with surprisingly mild punishment. Though his views were condemned and he was required to recant his beliefs, Galileo was never tortured, his imprisonment was in a plush home with maid service, and the Church’s infallibility remained intact, since none of the criteria of infallible declarations were ever met (nor, as a result, broken).

Fun Fact: On November 18, 1626, Pope Urban VIII consecrated the new St. Peter’s Basilica after Bernini installed its gigantic 66-foot baldacchino. It was 1,300 years to the day since the very first St. Peter’s Basilica was consecrated on the same spot.