ALESSANDRO VIII, POPE. - Pietro Vito Ottoboni, of a noble Venetian family, was born on 22 October 1610. He earned doctorates in both civil and canon law at Padua and then went to Rome, where he successively became referendary of the two Signatures, governor of Terni, Rieti, and Città di Castello, auditor of the Rota, and cardinal on 19 February 1652. He was bishop of Brescia in 1654. Returning to Rome, he played a significant role in the conclave that elected Clement IX, who, appreciating his expertise in curial affairs, appointed him as his datary. Under Innocent XI, he served as Grand Inquisitor of Rome and secretary of the Holy Office. In 1681, he was transferred to the suburbicarian sees of Frascati, then Albano, and finally Porto.
As dean of the Sacred College, he was elected pope on 6 October 1689 by fifty-two electors, who were particularly concerned with not offending either France or Spain amid the European coalition against Louis XIV. With the latter, weary and desirous of rapprochement with the Holy See, A. was soon able to resolve a long-standing and serious dispute by recognizing his right of appointment to the dioceses of Metz, Toul, Verdun, Arras, and Perpignan, and securing the return of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, as well as the renunciation of the so-called "regalian rights."
He proved uncompromising regarding any further expansion of the royal right of regalia over bishoprics, condemning—through the bull *Inter multiplices* of 4 August 1690, later published on his deathbed—the four articles of the so-called "Gallican Liberties," which the French clergy had promulgated in 1682 under royal pressure.
Yet the most notable work of his pontificate was directed toward safeguarding matters of faith. The last partisans of Molinos, led by the papal chamberlain Gabrielli, were condemned by the Holy Office to life imprisonment in Perugia. On 24 August 1690, a solemn condemnation was issued against a proposition denying the necessity of the act of divine love, and another advanced by François Musnier of Dijon, which claimed the liceity of "philosophical sin" as not constituting an offense against God. On 7 December of the same year, the Jansenists were also condemned, with many propositions from professors of theology at Louvain being struck down, concerning justification and penance, the Virgin, baptism, and the authority of the Church.
The flourishing state of the missions in China led A. to establish the bishoprics of Nanjing and Beijing, with the right of appointment reserved to the King of Portugal. On 16 October 1690, he promulgated decrees of beatification for the Spaniards John of Saint Facundus (an Augustinian), Paschal Baylon (a Franciscan), John of God (founder of the Hospitaller Order), as well as John Capistran and Lawrence Giustiniani.
More than the favors and honors granted to Venice—partly justified by the need to support it, along with the Habsburgs, in the harsh struggle against the Turks—do not reflect well on A. the excessive nepotistic tendencies, all the more glaring after the exemplary austerity and virtue of his predecessor, Innocent XI. He did, however, demonstrate true paternal care in his efforts to spare the Romans from plague and famine. Thanks to new import and transport facilities, the poor and orphans received eighty thousand *rubbia* of grain, hence the motto *Re frumentaria restituita* inscribed on two coins. He further reduced meat taxes, restored the Pauline aqueducts and their related *mostra gialnicolense*, and did not neglect efforts to strengthen ecclesiastical discipline and develop state administration. A patron of humanistic studies and a member of the learned circle gathered around Christina of Sweden, he enriched the Vatican Library with many manuscripts and works collected by her.
He died on 1 February 1691 and was buried in St. Peter’s Basilica, where a monument by Arrigo di San Martino commemorates him. - See Pl. LXII.