PIO VI, POPE. - Giannangelo Braschi, born in Cesena on 25 December 1717 to Count Marc'Aurcio Tommaso and Anna Teresa Bandi. Educated by the Jesuits, he earned his doctorate in utroque iure in 1735. He then completed his studies at the University of Ferrara under the guidance and protection of his uncle Giovanni Carlo Bandi, auditor to Cardinal Tommaso Ruffo, the papal legate. Upon the death of Clement XII (1740), he followed the cardinal to Rome as a conclavist, and after the election of Benedict XIV, when Ruffo became Bishop of Ostia and Velletri, he administered both dioceses. The battle between Austrians and Neapolitans on 11 August 1744 caught him in Velletri; his relief efforts in that circumstance earned him the gratitude of Charles III of Naples, through whose favor he succeeded in 1746 in resolving the disputes between the Holy See and the court of Naples regarding the jurisdiction of the episcopal court.
Secret chamberlain and study assistant to Benedict XIV, canon of St. Peter’s (1755), he received major orders three years later. Treasurer of the Apostolic Chamber in 1766, he worked to reform the financial administration and promote the economic life of the Papal States. The mining surveys he promoted in the Tolfa district improved production and led to the discovery of silver veins.
On 26 April 1773 he was created cardinal of the order of priests, with the title of Sant’Onofrio and the commendatory abbeys of San Gregorio al Celio and Subiaco (he retained the latter even during his pontificate). Upon the death of Clement XIV (22 September 1774), after a conclave lasting more than four months, his name emerged when it became known that he would continue his predecessor’s policy toward the Jesuits. He was elected on 15 February 1775, consecrated bishop on 22 February, and crowned pope. His pontificate, one of the longest, was beset by the rise of doctrinal controversies, jurisdictional reforms, the revolutionary schism in France, and the efforts of Enlightenment rationalism against the very foundations of the Christian faith.
In the Netherlands, the two dioceses of Haarlem and Utrecht, influenced by Jansenism, exerted considerable influence on Italian Jansenist currents and found sympathy even in Germany, where Febronian ideas had been enthusiastically received. The propaganda of French Jansenists, though reduced in number and opposed by the vast majority of bishops, spread into Italy through the University of Pavia, the work of Bishop Scipione de’ Ricci of Pistoia, and other minor circles. Even in Rome vigorous action was required to suppress Jansenist infiltrations.
In the Austrian states, Joseph II, guided by ministers Kaunitz and Cobenzl, sought in every way to render the Pope’s supremacy merely honorary with regard to the conferral of ecclesiastical benefices and to sever the Austrian Church by forbidding any dependence of religious orders on foreign superiors, by preventing recourse to Rome for marriage dispensations, by subjecting bishops to an oath, and by obstructing the publication of papal acts. They even intended to intervene in liturgical arrangements and the selection of theology textbooks for seminaries, whose direction they sought to subject to the state. At the same time, they aimed to restrict the activity of religious orders and suppress contemplative ones by secularizing them and dispensing monks from their vows. The property of undissolved communities was to be administered by the state. When all protests proved futile, Pius VI decided to travel to Vienna to negotiate directly with the Emperor. The Pope’s gesture, variously judged, made a strong impression in Europe, but the talks, held from 23 March to 22 April 1782, yielded no agreement, as Kaunitz and Cobenzl had conspired to prevent II. The Pope managed to secure only minor concessions regarding royal placet for the publication of dogmatic definitions, the dissemination of the bull Unigenitus, and the conferral of benefices in Lombardy.
Following the example of Joseph II, the King of Naples, who had already clashed with the Holy See in 1776 over the appointment of the Archbishop of Naples, repudiated the traditional obligations of a feudal vassal of the Church, including the homage of the Church. The Concordat of 1741 had fallen into desuetude, and the king arrogated to himself the right to legislate on ecclesiastical matters. In 1775, after Pius VI, immediately after his coronation, had proclaimed the Jubilee, Ferdinand IV ordered his subjects, instead of making the pilgrimage to Rome, to visit the four major churches of Naples. Numerous convents were suppressed, the freedom of action of bishops was hindered, and any recourse to Rome was forbidden, even in purely religious matters. Many episcopal sees remained vacant.
In Tuscany, the ecclesiastical reforms of Grand Duke Leopold were promoted and encouraged by Bishop Scipione de’ Ricci. In Spain and Portugal, the struggle against the Church, which had lasted since the beginning of the century, had greatly abated, though its consequences were still felt. In Germany, the establishment of a nunciature in Munich provoked another serious conflict between the Holy See and the prince-archbishops of Trier, Mainz, and Cologne, joined by the Archbishop of Salzburg (v. Ems, PUNCTUATION). The Church also faced jurisdictional pretensions from Catherine II of Russia.
Nepotism also resurfaced. For his nephew Luigi Onesti, to whom he had given ten thousand gold doppie on the occasion of his marriage to Costanza Falconieri, Pius VI elevated the Palazzo Braschi and facilitated the purchase of the Duchy of Nemi; another nephew, Romualdo Onesti, was created cardinal; both added the surname Braschi to their own (v.).
The public debt, which at the beginning of the pontificate amounted to forty-two million scudi, grew enormously, also due to heavy military expenditures arising from threats from France. Neither the increase in taxes, the reorganization of customs, nor the boost given to agriculture and the textile industry—protected by high tariffs against foreign competition—sufficed to improve the situation. He was therefore forced to issue paper money (cedole) in ever greater quantities and to debase the coinage. In 1797, following the French invasion, he had to resort to the sale of one-fifth of the rural properties of the clergy and of charitable institutions.
After the condemnation of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, relations between the Holy See and France became even more strained. Cardinal de Bernis, ambassador of Louis XVI, was recalled, while the nuncio Monsignor Dugnani left Paris. Pius VI, in turn, refused all ambassadors subsequently proposed to him by France. The hospitality granted to the aunts of Louis XVI, Adelaide and Victoire, and to more than four refractory priests, the killing of Bassville (q.v.), the French chargé d'affaires in Rome, and the Jacobin propaganda infiltrating even the Papal States further aggravated the tension. With Bonaparte’s descent into Italy, the Papal States were on the verge of disappearing, but against the orders of the Directory, the general preferred to temporize. The Armistice of Bologna (21 Aug. 1796) and the Treaty of Tolentino (19 Feb. 1797) imposed the cession of the Legations and Ancona, with the renunciation of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin; Pius VI was also forced to deliver to the French thirty-one million livres and numerous works of art. The killing of General Duphot (q.v.) in a riot provoked by revolutionaries (28 Dec. 1798) provided the pretext for the occupation of the entire territory. Once the Republic was proclaimed in Rome, the French, after attempting to wrest from the Pope his renunciation of the State, compelled Pius VI to move first to Siena and, after three months, to the Charterhouse of San Casciano near Florence. The Directory’s intention was to relegate him to Sardinia, but the Pope’s poor state of health prevented this. With the outbreak at the end of 1798 of war between France and the Kingdom of Naples, the French invaded Tuscany, while Russian and Austrian armies prepared to descend into Italy. The Pope, forced to leave Florence on 28 March 1799, was taken via Parma and Turin to Briançon and from there to Valence. The hardships of the long journey aggravated his illnesses and hastened his death (29 Aug. 1799). His remains, initially interred in the chapel of the citadel and later in the cemetery of Santa Caterina in Valence, were solemnly transferred to Rome in