PIUS VI, Pope. - Giannangelo Braschi, b. at Cesena on 25 Dec. 1717 to Count Marc'Aurelio Tommaso and Anna Teresa Bandi. Educated by the Jesuits, he received 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 of Card. Tommaso Ruffo, pontifical legate. On the death of Clement XII (1740) he followed the cardinal to Rome as conclavist, and after the election of Benedict XIV, when Ruffo had become bishop of Ostia and Velletri, he administered his two dioceses. At Velletri he was present at the battle of 11 Aug. 1744 between Austrians and Neapolitans; the relief work he carried out on that occasion earned him the gratitude of Charles II, and availing himself of this he succeeded, in 1746, in settling the differences that had arisen between the Holy See and the court of Naples concerning the competence of the episcopal forum. Secret chamberlain participant and study assistant to Benedict XIV, canon of St. Peter's (1755), he received the major Orders three years later. Treasurer of the Apostolic Chamber in 1766, he devoted himself to restoring the financial administration and to increasing the economic life of the Pontifical State. The surveys he promoted in the mines of Tolfa
(phot. Sanssini)
Pius V, pope, saint - Transfer of the body of St. Pius V to S. Maria Maggiore. Fresco of the Sistine Hall (1585-90) - Vatican Library.
improved their production and led to the discovery of silver-bearing veins.
On 26 Apr. 1773 he was created cardinal of the Order of Priests, with the title of S. Onofrio and the commendams of S. Gregorio al Celio and of the abbey of Subiaco (he retained this one also during his pontificate). On the death of Clement XIV (22 Sept. 1774), after a conclave of more than four months, the votes gathered on him, once it was known that he would continue his predecessor's work with regard to the Jesuits. On 15 Febr. 1775 he was elected, on 22 Febr. he was consecrated bishop and crowned. His pontificate, one of the longest, was troubled by the worsening of doctrinal controversies, by the revival of jurisdictionalism, by the revolutionary schism in France and by the efforts of Enlightenment rationalism against the very foundations of the Christian faith. In Holland, the two dioceses of Haarlem and Utrecht, won over to Jansenism, exercised a notable influence on Italian Jansenist currents and found sympathy also in Germany, where Febronian ideas had been received with enthusiasm. The propaganda of the French Jansenists, though reduced in number and opposed by the great majority of the bishops, extended also into Italy, through the University of Pavia, the work of the bishop of Pistoia, Scipione de' Ricci, and other lesser circles. In Rome itself a vigorous action was necessary to repress Jansenist infiltrations. In the Austrian states Joseph II, supported and directed by the ministers Kaunitz and Cobenzl, aimed in every way to make the Pope's supremacy purely honorary as regards the collation of ecclesiastical benefices and to separate the Austrian Church by forbidding any dependence of the religious Orders on foreign Superiors, by preventing recourse to Rome for matrimonial dispensations, by subjecting the bishops to an oath, by obstructing the publication of pontifical acts. It was even claimed to intervene in the liturgical order and in the choice of theology books for the seminaries, whose direction it sought to subject to the State. At the same time it was intended to limit the activity of the religious Orders and to suppress the contemplative ones, secularizing them and dispensing the monks from their vows. The property of the communities not dissolved was to be administered by the State. When every protest proved vain, Pius VI decided to go to Vienna to negotiate directly with the Emperor. The Pontiff's gesture, variously judged, aroused much impression in Europe, but the conversations, held from 23 March to 22 Apr. 1782, led to no agreement, since Cobenzl and Kaunitz had conspired to prevent it. The Pope succeeded only in obtaining a few concessions regarding the royal placet for the publication of dogmatic definitions, the diffusion of the Unigenitus, and the conferment of benefices in Lombardy.
Following the example of Joseph II, the king of Naples, who had already in 1776 come into conflict with the Holy See over the appointment of the archbishop of Naples, disavowed the traditional obligations of feudatory of the Church, among which was the homage of the Church. The Concordat of 1741 had fallen into disuse and the king arrogated to himself the right to legislate on ecclesiastical matters. In 1775, when Pius VI, on the day after his coronation, had published the jubilee, Ferdinand IV prescribed for his subjects, in place of the pilgrimage to Rome, the visiting of the four major churches of Naples. Numerous convents were suppressed, the freedom of action of the bishops was hampered, any recourse to Rome was forbidden, even in purely religious matters. Many episcopal sees remained vacant. In Tuscany there were the ecclesiastical reforms of Grand Duke Leopold, promoted and encouraged by the 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, but its consequences were still in effect. In Germany the establishment of a nunciature at Munich provoked another grave conflict between the Holy See and the archbishop electors of Trier, Mainz and Cologne, to whom the archbishop of Salzburg had joined himself (v. EMS, PUNTUAZIONE di). Jurisdictionalist claims were advanced also by Catherine II of Russia.
Under the pressure of the French Revolution, an attempt was made on the part of the dynasties, which prided themselves on divine right, to tighten what the legitimists would call the alliance of the throne with the altar, while in France the National Assembly, having abolished feudal rights, the privileges of the clergy and the tithes, decreed the secularization of the Church's property and the suppression of the convents and imposed the so-called civil constitution of the clergy, which had as its consequence the persecution of the refractory and the formation of a schismatic hierarchy. Pius VI, after having tried not to aggravate the situation in the hope of an agreement, with the briefs of 10 March and 13 Apr. 1791 condemned the decrees of the National Assembly.
As temporal sovereign Pius VI gave notable impulse to public works; under his personal guidance the draining of the Agro Pontino was undertaken, along with the reclamation of vast marshy territories at Città della Pieve, Perugia, Spoleto and Terni. The ports of Anzio and Terracina were restored, while provision was made for the repair of the Via Appia and a canal was planned that was to connect Rome with Terracina. Pius VI restored S. Giovanni in Laterano and built the monumental sacristy of the basilica of St. Peter (1784). He also had the obelisks of Piazza Montecitorio and of the Trinità dei Monti erected and completed the construction, begun by his predecessor, of the Museum that took precisely the name of Pio-Clementino. The archaeological finds encouraged by the Pope, the splendor of the ceremonies, the protection granted to the arts drew to Rome artists and illustrious guests.
The financing of this vast complex of works contributed to aggravating the economic disorder of the State, and the resurgence of nepotism also played a part. 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 enlarged the Palazzo Braschi and facilitated the purchase of the Duchy of Nemi; another nephew, Romualdo Onesti, was created cardinal; the two added the surname Braschi (v.) to their own. The public debt, which at the beginning of the pontificate amounted to forty-two million scudi, increased enormously, also because of the heavy military expenditures arising from the threats of France, nor did the increase in taxes, the reorganization of the customs, and the impetus given to agriculture and to the textile industry, protected by heavy tariffs from foreign competition, suffice to improve the situation. Pius was therefore forced to issue paper money (cedole) in ever greater quantity and to mint coins of debased alloy. In 1797, following the French invasion, he had to resort to the sale of a 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 departed from Paris. Pius VI, in turn, refused all the ambassadors subsequently proposed to him by France. The hospitality granted to the aunts of Louis XVI, Adelaide and Victoire, and to more than four thousand refractory priests, the killing of Bassville (v.), the French envoy in Rome, and Jacobin propaganda, which was infiltrating even the Papal State, aggravated the tension. With Bonaparte's descent into Italy, the Papal State was 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 of Ancona with the renunciation of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin; Pius VI moreover had to hand over to the French thirty-one million lire and numerous works of art. The killing of General Duphot (v.), in a riot provoked by the 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 extract from him the renunciation of the State, obliged Pius VI to move 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 Pontiff's painful state of health prevented it. When war broke out at the end of 1798 between France and the Kingdom of Naples, the French invaded Tuscany, while the Russian and Austrian armies prepared to descend into Italy. Pius, forced to leave Florence on 28 March 1799, was conducted by way of 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). The body, first interred in the chapel of the citadel and later in the cemetery of St. Catherine in Valence, was able in 1803 to be solemnly transferred to Rome. The serene firmness with which Pius VI endured deportation and imprisonment aroused the admiration even of his adversaries. - See plate CIII.