Vol. LVI
 p153  Jurgis Radvila

Radvila, Jurgis [Polish: Radziwiłł, Jerzy]), born in the grand-duchy of Lithuania of the noble lineage of the dukes of Olyka and Nesvỹžius, had the misfortune of losing his parents when he was 12, as well as the great good fortune of abjuring the Lutheran heresy. Having entered the ecclesiastical state and having made more than ordinary progress in piety and letters, he was asked by Waleryan [Protasowicz] bishop of Vilnius, in his dotage, to be coadjutor. With the consent of King Stephen, the bishop obtained it from Gregory XIII, but on condition that Jurgis should immediately move to Rome to continue his studies, as in fact he did, with his younger brother who had become a Catholic after his example. Both were entrusted to the direction of Father Achille Gagliardi, a religious of proven goodness and doctrine, and they were assigned the villa of Pope Julius III as their summer residence. A few years later, out of piety, Jurgis walked from Rome to Compostela in the habit of a pilgrim, to general edification. Consecrated bishop, he worked with all his might to ensure that the city of Vilna and the diocese would be immune from the contagion of heresy, from which by the efficacy of his exhortations he rescued many of the heterodox, courageously purging a library of books containing heretical doctrines, burning it in the presence of the chief sectarians. He also exercised jurisdiction over Livonia, recovered from the Muscovites, of which he was made viceroy by King Stephen to the great benefit of Catholicism, which was embraced by many heretics. He provided for the chastity of indigent virgins and widows under attack from the innovators, by founding monasteries and pious places and generously endowing them. He assigned to the Jesuit college a perpetual income of 10,000 florins. To the schismatic Ruthenians under his jurisdiction he gave the option of returning to the communion of the church, or of leaving and losing their property; as for the Jews, he destroyed their synagogues. He obtained from his brother the expulsion from the castle of Olyka of those who showed themselves alien to the Catholic belief. As a reward for so many merits, on December 12, 1583 Gregory XIII created him cardinal priest of S. Sisto. Sixtus V later transferred him to the see of Kraków with the  p154 consent of King Sigismund III, appointing him legate a latere to bring peace between the king and Emperor Rudolf II, in which he succeeded with the effective and principal cooperation of the other legate, Cardinal Aldobrandini — later to become Pope Clement VIII — uniting in marriage in 1592 Sigismund with Rudolf's daughter.⁠a The only two conclaves he attended were those that elected Innocent IX and Clement VIII. He returned to Rome in the Holy Year 1600, where in the course of the jubilee he made the magnificence and majesty of his rank shine forth as well as the gravity of his manners and his knowledge of letters. Struck down, however, by an illness which was attributed to a power­ful poison given to him by heretics, he was visited by Clement VIII and died at the age of 44, mourned by all, and was buried in the church of the Gesù, in front of the chapel of St. Francis of Assisi, with a tombstone adorned only with his coat of arms and his name.

(my translation)