Carlo Borromeo was born at Arona on Lake Maggiore, the son of a count and the nephew of Giovanni Angelo Medici, who became Pius IV in 1559. His uncle made him a cardinal at twenty-one and Archbishop of Milan, and put him in charge of the papal government. In that office he pressed for the reopening of the Council of Trent and worked through the final sessions of 1562–1563 to bring it to completion.

Borromeo supervised the preparation of the Roman Catechism, published in 1566, and in 1565 he went to live in Milan, the first archbishop to reside there in eighty years. He became the model of the reforming Tridentine bishop: he held provincial councils, founded seminaries, visited every parish, imposed strict discipline on clergy and religious orders, and gave his wealth to the poor during the plague of 1576.¹

His zeal was also directed against Protestants. He worked to keep the Swiss valleys bordering his diocese in the Roman obedience, and his visitation of the Mesolcina valley in 1583 was directed against heresy and witchcraft. He died on November 3, 1584, and was canonized in 1610.

Catholic Opponents