Pope Paul III (29 February 1468 – 10 November 1549), born Alessandro Farnese, is Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1534 to his death in 1549.

He comes to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Protestant Reformation.

During his reign, and in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation, new Catholic religious orders and societies, such as the Jesuits, the Theatines, the Barnabites and the Congregation of the Oratory, attract a popular following and he convenes the Council of Trent in 1545.

He is a significant patron of the arts and employs nepotism to advance the power and fortunes of his family.

It is to Pope Paul III that Nicolaus Copernicus dedicates De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres).