Carlo Borromeo: the making of a reforming archbishop

Family, Rome and the end of the Council

Carlo Borromeo was born on 2 October 1538 in the castle of Arona on Lake Maggiore, the son of Count Gilberto Borromeo and of Margherita de' Medici. His family was one of the great lineages of the Duchy of Milan. Its founder in Milan, Vitaliano Borromeo, was born in 1391 as the son of a Paduan father, Giacomo Vitaliani, and was adopted by his maternal uncle Giovanni Borromeo, a member of a Tuscan banking family. Vitaliano obtained Milanese citizenship in 1416, became treasurer general of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti and, with the profits of banking, acquired lordships around Lake Maggiore, among them Arona in 1439, Cannobio in 1441 and Angera in 1449.¹ Chapter A.I mentions the Borromeo bank of the fifteenth century, which had a house in Venice and opened branches in Bruges in 1431 and in London in 1435. The family thus united in one house the two economies treated in this chapter: commercial credit and ecclesiastical property. Destined for the Church as a younger son, Carlo received the income of an abbey at the age of twelve. He studied law at Pavia and took his doctorate in civil and canon law in 1559.²

In the same year his maternal uncle, Giovanni Angelo de' Medici, was elected pope as Pius IV. The new pope called his nephew to Rome, created him cardinal-deacon and made him in effect his Secretary of State in 1560. In the same year Carlo was given the perpetual administration of the archdiocese of Milan, although he remained in Rome until September 1565 and governed the diocese through vicars and auxiliary bishops.³ In Rome he directed the papal correspondence during the last period of the Council of Trent, which reopened in 1562 and closed in December 1563. He was ordained priest and consecrated bishop in 1563 and became cardinal of Santa Prassede in 1564. These years formed him. Having experienced the Council as an administrator who had to turn its decrees into instructions, he left Rome convinced that the reform of the Church depended on bishops who resided in their dioceses, visited their parishes, trained their clergy and enforced discipline.⁴

Protector of the Swiss

The connection with Switzerland began in Rome. In 1560 Pius IV named his nephew Protector Helvetiae, the cardinal who represented the interests of the Catholic Confederates at the papal court. The office had a practical content. The Catholic cantons relied on the Papacy for diplomatic support against the Reformed cantons, for dispensations, for the appointment of bishops in Constance, Chur, Sion and Lausanne and for the payment of papal pensions in return for the recruitment of soldiers. The Borromeo family was also linked to the Confederation by marriage. On 6 January 1565 Carlo's sister Ortensia married Jakob Hannibal von Hohenems (Annibale Altemps), the brother of Mark Sittich von Hohenems, who was himself a cousin of Carlo and had become a cardinal on 26 February 1561 and bishop of Constance in the same year. The marriage was followed by Jakob Hannibal's appointment as commander of the papal troops.⁵ The house of Hohenems, which held lordships on the Upper Rhine in the neighbourhood of the eastern Confederation, rose as mercenary leaders and officials of the Habsburgs and through ecclesiastical and Spanish service. Borromeo's Swiss network was therefore familial, military and ecclesiastical at once.

When he entered Milan in September 1565 and took up permanent residence there in 1566, Borromeo became the ordinary of the Ambrosian valleys of Ticino. The parishes of the Italian bailiwicks belonged to Como, which lay outside his ecclesiastical province, so that his influence there depended on his standing as cardinal protector, on papal commissions and on the cooperation of the bishops of Como. From 1566 he applied the decrees of Trent with particular energy in the Catholic cantons and in the Italian bailiwicks, combining pastoral and diplomatic visits.⁶ In 1570 he travelled in Switzerland himself, and his pastoral and diplomatic visits to the Catholic cantons showed him at first hand the grave moral and material condition of clergy and people, which became the starting point of a broad programme of reform.⁷ In Lucerne he worked with the Schultheiss Ludwig Pfyffer, whose initiative together with his own brought the Jesuits to the city in 1574. Their cooperation shows how closely he linked religious reform with Catholic politics in the Confederation.⁸

Notes

1. Giorgio Chittolini, "Borromeo, Vitaliano", in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 13 (Rome 1971), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/vitaliano-borromeo_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ (birth in 1391 to Giacomo Vitaliani of Padua and Margherita Borromeo; adoption by Giovanni Borromeo; citizenship 1416; treasurer general; Arona 1439, Cannobio 1441, Angera 1449; branches in Bruges 1431 and London 1435 beside Venice). See also Chapter A.I. ↩
2. Pablo Crivelli, "Borromeo, Carlo", in Dizionario storico della Svizzera (DSS), version of 27 August 2021, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/it/articles/010211/2021-08-27/ (date and place of birth, parents, abbacy at twelve, doctorate in utroque iure at Pavia in 1559). ↩
3. Crivelli (as above). ↩
4. Crivelli (as above), for the dates of ordination (1563) and of the title of Santa Prassede (1564). On the reopening in 1562 and the close of the Council on 4 December 1563 see "Concilio di Trento", in DSS, version of 25 February 2014, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/it/articles/027053/2014-02-25/. ↩
5. Crivelli (as above) names Mark Sittich von Hohenems as Borromeo's cousin. Boris Ulianich, "Altemps, Marco Sittico", in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 2 (Rome 1960), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/marco-sittico-altemps_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ (cardinal-deacon 26 February 1561, bishop of Constance 1561; marriage of his brother Annibale to Ortensia Borromeo on 6 January 1565 and Annibale's command of the papal troops); Herbert Frey, "Hohenems, Mark Sittich von", in DSS, version of 21 November 2006, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/it/articles/026330/2006-11-21/; Karl Heinz Burmeister, "Hohenems, von", in HLS, version of 8 January 2008, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/articles/019974/2008-01-08/ (rise "als Söldnerführer und Beamte der Habsburger" and through ecclesiastical and Spanish service). ↩
6. Crivelli (as above): from 1566 he implemented the Tridentine directives "in particolare nei cantoni cattolici e nei baliaggi italiani", with "visite pastorali e diplomatiche nei cant. catt.". Crivelli dates his stable residence in the diocese to 1566. Michel de Certeau, "Carlo Borromeo, santo", in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 20 (Rome 1977), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/santo-carlo-borromeo_(Dizionario-Biografico)/, records his entry into Milan in September 1565. ↩
7. De Certeau, "Carlo Borromeo, santo" (as above), on the visits to Switzerland in 1570; Crivelli (as above), on the pastoral and diplomatic visits to the Catholic cantons and the "grave situazione morale e materiale" of clergy and people. ↩
8. "Jesuiten", in HLS, version of 13 January 2011, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/011718/2011-01-13/ (first settlement in Lucerne in 1574 "auf Initiative des Kardinals Karl Borromäus und des Schultheissen Ludwig Pfyffer"). ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.