TANUCCI, BERNARDO. - Statesman, b. at Stia (Arezzo) on 20 Feb. 1698, d. near Naples on 29 Apr. 1783. Professor of law at Pisa, he followed Charles of Bourbon into the Kingdom of Naples and there was
Secretary of State for Grace and Justice and, subsequently, for Foreign Affairs and the Royal Household.
He devoted much attention to the administration of justice through the Junta of the Tribunals and attempted to improve also the functioning of the baronial courts (1738). He proposed to endow the Kingdom with an organic code of laws, but the initiative failed through court intrigues. He promoted the reform of the university, by abolishing chairs of disciplines now deemed useless and establishing seven new ones.
Although T., contrary to the prevailing principles and tendencies, showed himself rather skeptical regarding the effects of reforms, nevertheless his attempts, aimed at avoiding abuses and strengthening royal power, represented for the Kingdom an undeniable and notable progress. He concerned himself especially with limiting ecclesiastical power, but his action was not guided by irreligion, but rather by his political conceptions, which sometimes made relations between Church and State extremely difficult. Although in 1741 a Concordat had been stipulated with Rome, to which T. himself had greatly contributed, in 1746 the first dissensions arose, provoked by the attempt to introduce the Inquisition into the country.
But the thorough struggle began after the departure of Charles of Bourbon, called to the throne of Spain: in the Kingdom of Naples his younger son Ferdinand remained. T. then extended (1759) his power and was placed at the head of the secretariat of the ecclesiastic Carlo De Marco, his creature, who shared his ideas. Charles III, however, who even during the regency continued to take an interest in the affairs of the Kingdom, was always reluctant to an excessive hostility against the Curia, as he had been during his stay in Naples, and limited himself to assuming a platonically favorable attitude. In 1759 the question concerning the churches of royal patronage was raised, one of the most important controversies with the pontifical government. The two powers, lay and ecclesiastical, disputed the right to judge the belonging of the benefices of such churches. With two laws, of 1759 and 1762, T. decided that in these cases the judgment belonged to the lay tribunals. With another law (1762) the obligation was established for ecclesiastics holding benefices to distribute to the indigent a third part of their revenues, and for the treasury to supervise the execution of the law itself by means of laymen.
In 1763 T. had the direction of the entire policy of the Kingdom. He was in solidarity with the other Bourbon States in the struggle against the Jesuits, which culminated in their expulsion from the country. He maintained his authority even after the Sovereign had reached his majority; he was forced to leave the government in 1776, because of the different political orientation of Ferdinand's wife, the Austrian archduchess Maria Carolina. To T. is due the beginning of the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum; he was head of the Accademia Ercolanense, instituted in 1758.
Bibliography12 works
GIUSEPPE CONIGLIO