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

Medal depicting Clement XI.
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

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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