CLEMENT XIII, Pope. - Carlo Rezzonico, b. in Venice on 7 March 1693 to a family originally from Como and only recently inscribed in the Libro d'oro (1687). He studied at the Jesuit college in Bologna. He took his degree in theology and canon law at the University of Padua. Two years later (1714) he entered the Academy of the Nobles in Rome. Ordained a priest, he was sent by Clement XI as governor to Rieti and then to Fano. Recalled to Rome in 1725, he became auditor of the S. Rota for Venice (Decisiones S. Rotae Romanae coram R. P. D. Carolo Rezzonico, 3 vols., Rome 1759). Clement XII created him cardinal deacon of S. Nicolò in Carcere on 20 Dec. 1737, and Benedict XIV called him to succeed Cardinal Ottoboni in the episcopal see of Padua (11 March 1743), which Rezzonico honored with distinguished works, such as the Synod (1746) and the rebuilding of the Seminary (Il Seminario di Padova, Padua 1911, pp. 227-31), and still more with his apostolic zeal, his inexhaustible charity and the holiness of his life. Indeed the Paduans called him "the saint." The cardinals gathered in conclave twelve days after the death of Benedict XIV (3 May 1758), once the candidacies of Archinto, Cavalchini and Passionei had fallen through, on the proposal of the Austrian Cardinal De Roth, agreed upon Rezzonico, who took the name C. XIII. He was of a gentle and generous nature, of a lively and persevering spirit, and of tireless activity in work, as Cordara, his contemporary, judged him. However, he lacked breadth of ideas and clear-sightedness regarding his times. He admitted no transactions or bargaining of any sort, and his policy therefore could only turn out to be in perfect antithesis to that of his predecessor. The arbiter of this policy was Cardinal Luigi Torrigiani, successor of Cardinal Archinto (Oct. 1758) in the secretariat of State; he was a resolute and inflexible man and a great friend of the Jesuits. At that time the Seven Years' War was being fought in Europe. C., notifying the princes of his elevation to the pontificate, earnestly exhorted them to peace. In 1763-64, from southern Italy and Latium, on the occasion of a very grave famine, people flocked to Rome; C. welcomed and fed daily for long months 6 thousand foreigners and 8 thousand subjects.
This did not prevent him from undertaking and continuing great public works. If he could not carry out the idea, so greatly cherished, of draining the Pontine marshes, he favored art in Rome (under his pontificate the Trevi Fountain was completed). On various occasions he acquired precious manuscripts for the Vatican Library, to which he gave a very rigorous regulation (Aug. 1761). He favored the arts and artists, especially Raphael Mengs and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. He entrusted the office of commissioner of antiquities to Winckelmann. He also protected scholarship. He praised the Illyricum sacrum of Daniele Farlati, and made possible the publication of the Inscriptiones Romanae infimi aevi (3 vols., Rome 1760) of the Benedictine Pier Luigi Galletti. Firm and vigilant was his position in the face of the Enlightenment movement: he condemned the De l'esprit of Helvetius, the Emile of Rousseau and the Encyclopédie of D'Alembert and Diderot (3 Sept. 1759). With an encyclical he pointed out to the bishops the danger of anti-Christian literature and urged them to combat it (25 Nov. 1766). When, under the pseudonym of Giustino Febronio, Giovanni Niccolò von Hontheim (1701-90), coadjutor bishop of Trier, published the De statu Ecclesiae et legitima potestate Romani pontificis (1763), which was supremely injurious to the primacy of jurisdiction of the pope, that work was placed on the Index (27 Feb. 1764). C. saw an anchor of salvation in devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, whose feast he instituted in 1765. He canonized: Joseph Calasanz, Joseph of Copertino, Jerome Miani, Jane Frances de Chantal and John Cantius; many others he proclaimed blessed, among them his relative and predecessor in the see of Padua, Gregory Barbarigo (20 Sept. 1761).
The struggle of the Bourbon courts against the Jesuits made the pontificate more difficult for the ailing C.
It began in Portugal, where the Marquis of Pombal, accusing them of the attempt against King Joseph Emanuel (3 Sept. 1758), shut some of them in prison and deported others to Civitavecchia. C. protested against this arbitrary measure. Pombal expelled the papal nuncio (4 June 1760) and broke off relations with the Holy See (7 July 1760). France followed, where the refusal of the Society to make good the damages of the bankruptcy of Father Lavalette gave the Parliament, stirred up by the minister Choiseul and by Pompadour, occasion to decree its expulsion (1 April 1762). In vain C. implored the king to prevent the outrage, and published the constitution Apostolicum poscendi munus in praise of the Society (7 Jan. 1765). Spain too did not wish to be outdone. A sudden and secret order expelled the Jesuits in April 1767. Shortly afterward the minister Tanucci, who governed the kingdom of Naples in the name of the young Ferdinand IV, declared the Society suppressed in the South (31 Oct.). New and harsher protests from the Pope. When later also Du Tillot, minister of Ferdinand of Parma, drove the Jesuits from the duchy, a papal fief, C. reacted vigorously with the monitorium of 30 Jan. 1768, which annulled the measures taken in the duchy against the Holy See, and excommunicated their authors. The Bourbon courts, united in the "family compact," made a great uproar about it. France occupied Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, Naples occupied Pontecorvo and Benevento, Spain presented harsh impositions. In Jan. 1769 the ambassadors of France, Spain and Naples formally demanded the suppression of the Society. C. declared to those close to him that he would have his hands cut off rather than sign the abolition. He convoked for 3 Feb. the special cardinalitial Congregation for the affairs of the Jesuits; but he could not hold the meeting, for an apoplectic stroke put an end to his slow martyrdom (2 Feb. 1769). He was buried in St. Peter's, where his family had the sepulchral monument erected for him, a masterpiece of Canova.
Bibliography3 works
Ireneo Daniele