All Vatican elections

1623 Conclave

elected Urban VIII

19 July – 6 August 1623 · The early modern conclaves · Apostolic Palace, Papal States

The 1623 papal conclave was convened on the death of Pope Gregory XV and ended with the election of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini as Pope Urban VIII. It was the first conclave to take place after the reforms that Gregory XV issued in his 1621 bull Aeterni Patris Filius.

Elected pope

Urban VIII

Maffeo Barberini

Succeeded

Gregory XV

Duration

19 days

Cardinal electors

locked in under conclave rules

Ballot-by-ballot tallies are destroyed by design — the paper is burned in the stove whose smoke announces the result — so this entry records what the Church documents: the dates, the electors, the number of ballots where known, and the man who walked out onto the balcony.