LEO XI, pope. — Born in Florence on 2 June 1535, died in Rome on 27 April 1605. Alessandro, born to Ottaviano de’ Medici, of a collateral branch of the Florentine family, and Francesca Salviati, niece of Leo X, was sent by Cosimo I in 1569 as ambassador to the Curia, where he remained to the satisfaction of the Grand Dukes and the popes for nearly fifteen years. During this time, he was appointed Bishop of Pistoia (9 March 1573), Archbishop of Florence (15 January 1574), and Cardinal (12 December 1583).
Pious and zealous, with close ties since his youth to the Dominicans of San Marco and a friend and admirer of St Philip Neri, he worked to introduce the Tridentine reforms in his dioceses and distinguished himself by his generosity in restoring Roman churches and later in acquiring the Villa Medici on the Pincio. He endeavored to persuade Clement VIII to absolve Henry IV, and after the latter’s reconciliation with the Church, he was appointed legate a latere to France (3 April 1596), where he remained for more than two years. He did not succeed, nor could he have succeeded, in the principal aim of his legation: to restore religious unity in France.
V. HENRY IV; CLEMENT VIII; PHILIP NERI.
LEO XII, pope. — Born in Genga (Ancona) on 22 August 1760, died in Rome on 10 February 1829. Annibale, son of the marchese Filippo Sforza-Cesarini and of Maria Luisa Periberti di Fabriano, was educated at the Accademia dei Nobili Ecclesiastici in Rome and became a canon of the Vatican Basilica. He was created cardinal on 13 March 1816 and appointed vicar of Rome in 1820. He openly opposed the policy of Consalvi, which had drawn upon him the hostility of many cardinals kept away from power by him. They reproached him for adopting various administrative reforms introduced by the Revolution and the Empire with regard to ecclesiastics, nobles, and cities, for concluding concordats deemed prejudicial to the rights of the Church, and for the alleged weakness shown toward the powers, especially Austria.
At the death of Pius VII, Cardinal Albani, leader of the Consalvian party supported by Metternich, communicated the Austrian vote for the election of Cardinal Severoli. The party of the “zealots,” a majority of Italians, succeeded, however, on 28 September 1823, in electing another of their candidates, Cardinal della Genga, over the Consalvian Castiglioni. He replaced Consalvi with the aged conservative Cardinal della Somaglia but showed no attachment to any particular faction: he sought the counsel of Consalvi himself and managed to give his own direction to the life of the Church.
The program of his pontificate is announced in the encyclical Ubi Primum of May 1824: restoration of religion, struggle against errors threatening the faith, condemnation of indifferentism in religious matters, and of Bible societies. Despite opposition from states and part of the Curia, he proclaimed the Jubilee for 1825, which was to provoke a general movement of return to the faith capable of overwhelming every opposition and resistance from both himself and political powers, and which in fact proved unexpectedly impressive. With the bull Quod Divina Sapientia, he reformed studies under ecclesiastical control, establishing the appropriate Congregation of Studies; he then restored the Collegio Romano to the Jesuits and entrusted them with the Collegio dei Nobili; with the bull Quo graviora mala, he again condemned secret societies.
Yet it was not only these that caused the Pope concern, for he had to contend with Gallicanism in France, Josephinism and Febronian tendencies in Austria and Germany, and the Orthodox autocracy of the Tsar. He also clashed with Spain when the king, whose restoration the Pope had celebrated and blessed, sought to prevent him from providing for the spiritual needs of Spain’s former colonies through an implicit recognition of their new political status. In 1828, he believed he had brought to an end, through an agreement, the anti-clerical policy of William I of the Netherlands, but the latter sought to avoid implementing the convention with the support of Belgian liberals. Leo XII did not take sides in the conflict between the Gallicans and Lamennais, whom he considered more guided by sentiment than by reason.
His efforts to restore order in the Papal States did not always achieve the desired end. The brigands of the Roman countryside were not subdued by Cardinal Pallotta or Monsignor Benvenuti, who succeeded him; nor did the condemnation of Targhini and Montanari and the dispatch of Cardinal Rivarola and later Monsignor Invernizzi to Romagna put an end to conspiracies and insurrections. Leo XII sought to restore the old regime by removing laymen from public office and introducing judicial measures favoring ecclesiastical tribunals and social measures favoring the nobility. On the other hand, he introduced many prudent economies, reduced or abolished taxes and levies, yet failed to prevent the worsening of the economic-financial situation caused by the poverty of the country and, in part, by the exodus of wealthy Jews sometimes compromised for political reasons.
Leo XII remained somewhat aloof from his subjects and was not very popular because of the strict economies he introduced, the suppression of some institutions unable to sustain themselves, and the imposition of turnstiles at city gates, though the reduction of taxes and other beneficial measures deserved greater appreciation.
Many of the final measures of his pontificate were due to Cardinal Tommaso Bernetti, who succeeded della Somaglia and intensified the anti-Austrian tone of papal policy.