Caprara, Giovanni Battista

CAPRARA, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. - Cardinal, b. in Bologna of a noble family on 29 May 1733; d. in Paris on 21 June 1810. He completed his studies in his native city, where he was also ordained a priest. Benedict XIV, his fellow citizen, sent him as vice-legate to Ravenna, Clement XIII as nuncio to Cologne (1767), Pius VI to Lucerne (1775), then to Vienna in 1785, where he remained until 1792 and where he showed himself too yielding to the ecclesiastical policy of Joseph II and of Kaunitz; in any case he managed to prevent an open break with the Holy See. Appointed cardinal of the title of St. Onuphrius on 18 June 1792, he received from Pius VII the bishopric of Iesi on 11 Aug. 1800. Once the Concordat with France had been signed on 15 June 1801, already on 27 July C. was designated, as Talleyrand informed, as cardinal legate for the execution of the Concordat itself; indeed he was appointed in the Consistory of 24 Aug. and on 5 Sept. he departed for Paris. Napoleon had wanted him because his nephew had been part of the revolutionary government of Bologna, and the cardinal himself had had no troubles in the preceding years from the French side, so much so that in Italy he was called the Jacobin cardinal. He certainly did not have the character of a fighter, while the task he was assuming was formidable, since he was invested with special powers for France, Belgium and the Cisalpine Republic to regulate the marriages of ecclesiastics, the resignations of the legitimate bishops, the appointment of new bishops for the dioceses, all by then of new institution, and the reconciliation of the constitutional bishops. His mission had to be carried out amid the brusque impetuosity of Napoleon, the more or less veiled distrust or the sullen hostility of a good part of the public authorities; C. sustained it with dignity, extending the spirit of conciliation to the utmost possible limit, as was, moreover, the will of the Pope. He refused to take to the Republic the oath that was to be imposed on him, making instead a more generic promise; he did not succeed, however, in preventing the approval of the famous 77 organic articles which were published as a regulation added to the Concordat, but which the Holy See never approved. Once the Concordat had also been approved by the governmental bodies on 8 Apr. 1802, the day after the legate was officially received and on Easter day he pontificated solemnly at Notre-Dame, restored to Catholic worship, which was officially re-established throughout France. On 24 May 1802 C., on Napoleon's proposal, was transferred to the archiepiscopal see of Milan, and on 26 May he crowned Napoleon king of Italy, receiving from him the office of senator and the title of count of the new kingdom. He still retained the authority of legate, but in his last years his physical strength prevented any effective activity. He was buried at St. Geneviève.

Pio Paschini