Fra' Antoine de Paule (c. 1551 – 9 June 1636) was elected the 56th

Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller This is a list of grand masters of the Knights Hospitaller, including its continuation as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta after 1798. It also includes unrecognized "anti-grand masters" and lieutenants or stewards during vacancies. In lists ...

(the

Order of Malta The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, and commonly known as the Order of Malta or the Knights of Malta, is a Catholic Church, Cathol ...

) on 10 March 1623. He died on Malta thirteen years later, on 9 June 1636, after a long illness and at the age of 85. His epitaph eulogizes him as a leader who both loved his subjects and was loved by them in return. He is said to have made more resources available to the Order, thus strengthening it. He also sought to fortify ramparts which the Order had erected for defense against the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

. However, de Paule was not without his enemies, some of whom presented a memorial to Pope

Urban VIII Pope Urban VIII (; ; baptised 5 April 1568 – 29 July 1644), born Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 August 1623 to his death, in July 1644. As pope, he expanded the papal terri ...

describing him as "a man of loose life and conversation", "guilty of

simony Simony () is the act of selling church offices and roles or sacred things. It is named after Simon Magus, who is described in the Acts of the Apostles as having offered two disciples of Jesus payment in exchange for their empowering him to imp ...

", who had "bought his dignity with money". In response, de Paule sent a delegate to the Vatican to deal with the accusations. As Grandmaster, de Paule acted as a judge when a once-captured ship was re-captured and the original owner claimed the ship, decided whether to release a galley rower of a captured privateering vessel who was himself earlier captured by the privateers and forced to row, and appointed abbots and priors to various positions, amongst other responsibilities. The town of

Paola, Malta Paola (, , both meaning "New Town") is a town in the Port Region, Malta, Port Region of Malta, with 8,706 inhabitants as of 2019. The town is a commercial centre in the Southern Harbour area of Malta, about from the capital Valletta, contiguous ...

, was named after the Grandmaster, who laid its foundation stone in 1626.

References

External links

Coins of Grandmaster Antoine de Paule
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paule, Antoine de 1636 deaths Burials at Saint John's Co-Cathedral French people of Italian descent Grand masters of the Knights Hospitaller Knights of Malta Year of birth unknown