9. Pope Urban VII was the shortest serving Bishop of Rome in history, reigning for just 12 days before dying of malaria
Pope Urban VII, born Giovanni Battista Castagna, served as the Bishop of Rome from September 15, 1590, CE until his death on September 27. Born in Rome to a noble Genoese family in 1521, Castagna was a studious individual, obtaining a doctorate in civil and canon law at the historic University of Bologna through which he entered the Roman Curia during the reign of Pope Julius III as the Referendary of the Apostolic Signatura.
After the death of Pope Sixtus V, Castagna was elected by the Papal Conclave on September 15, 1590, and chose the pontifical name “Urban VII”. However, this tenure was short-lived, for on September 27 Castagna died of malaria. Despite the brevity of his papacy, as Urban VII Castagna succeeded in leaving a surprisingly noteworthy legacy. Enacting the first public smoking ban in history, threatening to excommunicate anyone who “took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe, or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose”, Urban VII also instituted a subsidy for Roman bakers to enable the provision of under cost bread to the poor. His estate, valued at 30,000 scudi, was also bequeathed as a dowry for the poor young girls of Rome.