Pius V

Antonio Ghislieri, born in 1504 into a poor Piedmontese family, herded sheep before entering the Dominicans at fourteen. Inquisitor, then cardinal, he was elected pope in 1566 with a reputation for severity he did nothing to contradict: he drove Renaissance manners from Rome and lived as a monk himself beneath the white cassock, a usage attributed to him. His pontificate was one of applying the Council of Trent: a Roman catechism, a breviary, and in 1570 a missal that would remain in force, with little change, until 1970. In 1571 he formed the Holy League with Spain and Venice, whose fleet defeated the Ottoman Empire at Lepanto. His excommunication of Elizabeth I the same year lastingly worsened the lot of English Catholics — a decision historians judge a political error. He died in 1572. Canonised in 1712, he is commemorated on 30 April.