One of the chief agents of the reform of the Church in the sixteenth century, the successful conclusion of the Council of Trent owed much to St. Charles Borromeo. He was made a cardinal at the age of twenty-one and Archbishop of Milan not long afterwards. He held synods and councils, established schools and religious communities, renewed the spirit of the clergy and religious, and founded homes for orphans and the poor. His greatest work was the foundation of diocesan seminaries. He died in 1584 at the age of forty-six.