POPE CLEMENT XI

'Pope Clement XI' (July 23, 1649 – March 19, 1721), born 'Giovanni Francesco Albani', was Pope from 1700 until his death.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Pontificate

Chinese Rites controversy

Construction activity and patronage

References

External links

Biography

Early life

Albani was born in Urbino, into a noble family that had established itself there from northern Albania in the 15th century and were originally soldiers of Scanderbeg against the Ottoman Empire. During his reign as a Pope the famous "Illyricum Sacrum" was commissioned, and today it is one of the main sources of the field of Albanology with over 5000 pages divided in several volumes written by Dom. Farlati and Dom. Coletti.
He was governor of Rieti and Urbino, and was created cardinal by Pope Alexander VIII, to whom he succeeded on december 8 1700.

Pontificate

Soon after his accession, the War of Spanish Succession broke out. Despite intially holding an ambiguous neutrality, Clement was later forced to name Charles, Archduke of Austria, as King of Spain, since the imperial army had conquered much of northern Italy and was treatening Rome itself (January 1709).
By the Treaty of Utrecht that concluded the War, the Papal States lost their suzerainty over the Farnese Duchy of Parma and Piacenza in favour of Austria, and lost Comacchio as well. It was a blow from which the declining prestige of the Papal States would never recover.
In 1713 Clement XI's administration was the publication in 1713 of the bull ''Unigenitus'', which so greatly disturbed the peace of the church in France, sometimes called the Gallican church. In this famous document one hundred and one propositions from the works of Quesnel were condemned as heretical, and as identical with propositions already condemned in the writings of Jansen.
The resistance of many French ecclesiastics and the refusal of the French ''parlements'' to register the bull led to controversies extending through the greater part of the 18th century. Because the local governments did not officially receive the bull, it was not, technically, in force in those areas – an example of the interference of states in religious affairs common before the 20th century.

Chinese Rites controversy

Another important decision of Clement XI was in regard to the Chinese Rites controversy: the Jesuit missionaries were forbidden to take part in honors paid to Confucius or the ancestors of the Emperors of China, which Clement XI identified as "idolatrous and barbaric", and to accommodate Christian language to pagan ideas under plea of conciliating the heathen.
Clement XI died at Rome in 1721 and was buried in the pavement of St. Peter's Basilica.

Construction activity and patronage

Personally, Clement was one of the few popes to avoid nepotism. His nephew Alessandro was elected cardinal, but only through personal merit.
As a builder, Clement had a famous sundial added in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri and had an obelisk erected in the ''Piazza del Pantheon'' and a river port built on the Tiber River.
He established a committee, overseen by his favorite artists, Carlo Maratta and Carlo Fontana, to commission statuary of the apostles to complete the decoration of San Giovanni in Laterano. He also founded a painting and sculpting academy in the Campidoglio.
He also enriched the Vatican library with numerous Oriental codexes and patronaged the first archaeological excavations in the Roman catacombs. In his native Urbino he resoterd numerous edifices and founded a public library.

References

★

★ I papi. Storia e segreti, , Claudio, Rendina, Netwon & Compton, 1983,

★ Initial text from the 9th edition (1876) of an unnamed encyclopedia

External links

★ Clementine Library at The Catholic University of America