Pacca, Bartolomeo

PACCA, BARTOLOMEO. - Cardinal, b. at Benevento on 25 Dec. 1756, d. at Rome on 19 Apr. 1844.

From an ancient patrician family (his father, Orazio, was marquis of Matrice and his mother, Cristina Malaspina, was descended from the marquises of Lunigiana), he was educated at the Jesuit College in Naples and at the Clementine College in Rome. His passion for letters and for history earned him, while still very young, admission to the Arcadia. In 1788 he entered the Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics, recently established, devoting himself to the study of law. Having embarked on the career of the prelature, he knew how to win the confidence of Pius VI, who in 1785 wanted him as nuncio at Cologne. Ordained a priest and consecrated bishop of Damiata in portibus, he reached his residence while the struggle of the ecclesiastical electors against the Holy See was still going on, occasioned by the erection of the nunciature of Munich (v. EMS, PUNTUAZIONE di). His mission therefore unfolded amid considerable difficulties and oppositions, which P. faced with firmness and ability and which eased only after the outbreak of the French Revolution. The unhappy outcome of the flight to Varennes prevented P. from carrying out the office of extraordinary nuncio to Louis XVI, which Pius VI had entrusted to him in the hope that the attempt would succeed. Nuncio at Lisbon from 1795, he received there in 1801 the cardinal's hat, with the title of St. Sylvester in Capite.

When the French entered Rome in 1808, and with Consalvi's forced resignation still continuing, he was called to replace, in the office of pro-secretary of State, Cardinal Gabrielli, who had been expelled by the occupiers. As the conflict grew more bitter, despite P.'s efforts at pacification, the French, who accused him of being the inspirer of Pius VII's resistance, tried in vain to remove him from Rome. Arrested together with the Pontiff, after the assault on the Quirinal of 6 July 1809, he suffered harsh imprisonment in the fortress of Fenestrelle (Pinerolo). In Feb. 1813 he was able to rejoin the Pope and, together with Consalvi and other cardinals, to induce Pius VII to retract the so-called "Concordat of Fontainebleau." Deported again to Uzès, in southern France, he was able to return to Italy after the entry of the allies into Paris: Pius VII wanted him at his side on the day of his triumphal return to Rome (24 May 1814). P., having temporarily resumed his office of pro-secretary, devoted himself to the work of restoring the State, with much passion and energy, but with a political vision that brought him into conflict with Consalvi's more open ideas; the latter wrote to him from Vienna that, if it had been difficult to recover the territories of the Holy See, it would be a still more difficult undertaking to keep them, if one wished to restore the old order of things in its entirety and to neglect "those views, which wisdom, prudence, experience, and the nature of the times and circumstances counseled."

Napoleon's return to France and the invasion of the Papal State by Murat (March 1815) determined Pius VII to leave Rome; P. was his companion in the new exile at Genoa. Once the storm had passed, Pius VII, who had already named him camerlengo (26 Sept. 1814), subsequently placed him over the bishoprics of Frascati (1818) and of Porto and S. Rufina (1821). Under the pontiffs Leo XII, Pius VIII and Gregory XVI he held the office of pro-datary; he was a member of the principal cardinalitial congregations; he was secretary of that of the Holy Office and prefect of that of the Ceremonial. He was also president of the Supreme Council of the Apostolic Chamber. From 1829, having become dean of the Sacred College, he governed the dio-

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(phot. Giordani)
PACCA, BARTOLOMEO - Application for admission to the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy - Rome, Archives of the Pontifical Academy.

dioceses of Ostia and Velletri. On every occasion, he gave proof of a solid piety and of an unfailing attachment to the Holy See.

Endowed with refined culture, a pleasant and erudite writer, expert in the principal European languages, he generously protected artists and men of letters and had a great part in the reform of university studies. His name is linked to the famous Edict of 7 April 1850 on excavations and the preservation of monuments. To P. is also due the beginning of the archaeological investigations of ancient Ostia.

He left the following important memoirs: Mem. stor. di mons. B. P. sul di lui soggiorno in Germania dall'anno MDCCLXXXVI al MDCCXCIV, Rome 1832; Notizie sul Portogallo con una breve relazione della nunziatura di Lisbona dall'anno 1795 fino al 1802, ibid. 1833; Memorie storiche del Ministero, dei due viaggi in Francia e della prigionia nel forte di S. Carlo in Fenestrelle, ibid. 1830; Relazione del viaggio di papa Pio VII a Genova, nella primavera dell'anno 1815, e del suo ritorno a Roma, Orvieto 1833; Il mio secondo ministero, in A. Quacquarelli, La ricostituzione dello Stato Pontificio, Città di Castello-Bari 1945, pp. 153-203.

Vittorio E. Giuntella