The Conclave: A Sometimes Secret and Occasionally Bloody History of Papal Elections (19 page)

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and his neutrality in the political conflicts of the time. Orsini did not want to become pope; he only agreed after being told to do so by the Dominican Master General, and even after his election he continued to look after the diocese of Benevento. In honor of his Order he took the name Benedict XIV because Benedict XI had been a Dominican. It was, however, pointed out to him that Benedict XIII (Pedro de Luna) had been an antipope and should not count among the authentic bishops of Rome. Orsini consequently changed his title to Benedict XIII.

Benedict tended to stay out of ecclesiastical politics, which meant that in practice he handed this task over to a group of Beneventans of doubtful integrity, led by Niccolò Coscia. One of the consequences was a concordat, or treaty, with Savoy, which in turn meant that there was a Savoy grouping among the cardinals who gathered in the conclave which followed Benedict’s death. It lasted from 5 March to 12 July 1730, and two cardinals died in the course of it. Practically half the cardinals attending were at one time or another proposed as the new pope. The Florentine Lorenzo Corsini was suggested about halfway through by the French, but he had been rejected by the Imperial party. Corsini had been appointed as nuncio to Vienna in 1691, but the emperor had refused to accept him – not for personal reasons, but because Pope Alexander VIII had been ignoring the emperor’s pleas to raise his nominees to the cardinatial purple. That apart, he seemed a suitable candidate – again, not least because he was very old, seventy-nine at the time of his eventual election. The emperor was approached to see if he would change his mind, which he did, but by that time the French were promoting someone else and in any case suspected the emperor’s motives. So there was further delay, but Corsini was finally chosen, taking the name Clement XII.

It has just been mentioned that Clement was old. Although a scholar and a patron of scholars, he was also nearly blind, and went entirely blind by 1732. He suffered from gout and was frequently bedridden, his memory went in 1736, and he took to his bed

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entirely toward the end of 1738. He died on 6 February 1740, and the subsequent conclave brought to the papacy one of the greatest, and certainly most attractive, figures in its history: Prospero Lambertini, who took the title of Benedict XIV abandoned by Pietro Francesco Orsini.

But his election came only after the longest conclave since the end of the Western Schism in 1417, which had divided the Roman from the Avignon obediences. The conclave lasted from 18 Feb- ruary to 17 August 1740, during which time no less than four of the sixty-eight cardinals died – thirteen cardinals played no part at all. Lambertini was a man of acknowledged ability in canon law and theology (he wrote what is still the standard work on the process involved in the making of saints), had good political skills, had been a loving archbishop in Ancona and, from 1731, in Bologna, was witty, friendly with the literati (including Horace Walpole, and even the anticlerical Voltaire dedicated a play to him), and gener- ally widely liked. Despite these qualities, it was not until the 255th vote in the six-month conclave that he was elected. Part of the problem was that the Bourbon alliance of Spain and France had broken down; France now sided with the Austrians, the Imperial party. But Austria had been playing an increasingly important role in Italy, which gave rise to concerns among the Italian cardinals, groups representing Naples and Tuscany, which led them to side with the Spaniards. Again it was the heat, and weariness with the process, that finally led the electors to a settlement.

Benedict was open to the new modes of thought of the eighteenth century, but he was one of very few churchmen who were at ease in this new, secular world. In this world the papacy, despite the swathe of papal states across Italy, was of less importance to the European monarchs who had fought over papal conclaves in the past. But they now wanted greater control of the Church in their own dominions. One major obstacle to that was the powerful, and highly centralized, Society of Jesus. Its survival was to become an

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issue in the papal elections of both Clement XIII and, very much more so, his successor Clement XIV. The conclave which elected Clement XIII, the Venetian Cardinal Carlo della Torre Rezzonico, took place from 15 March to 6 July 1758. It was remarkable for the last exercise of a right of veto in the eighteenth century, and the only one from France, which eliminated Cardinal Carlo Cavalchini, the Prefect (or head) of the Congregation for Bishops and Reli- gious. Cavalchini was opposed because he was seen as too sympa- thetic to the Jesuits. But then so was Rezzonico, who had been a student at a Jesuit high school. He was, however, regarded as politically neutral like his predecessor and was backed by Austria as well as by the cardinals, the
zelanti
(or zealous ones), who also believed that the pope’s task was the welfare of the Church and that he ought to stay on the sidelines of European politics. In the end, of the forty-four cardinals who voted, thirty-nine cast their ballots for Rezzonico.

The question of whether the Jesuits were to be allowed to survive or not dominated the conclave of 15 February to 19 May 1769. It was remarkable because all the fifty-seven cardinals were present in the conclave and none died during it, though some were very ill and the rigors of the conclave regime had to be modified. One of the reasons why all the cardinals were there was because the French, who were again in alliance with the Spaniards and united in wanting the destruction of the Jesuits, said they would veto any- one who seemed to be about to be elected before the Spaniards arrived. As they arrived a month after the conclave opened that gave everyone plenty of time to gather.

The great powers made their wishes known through their ambassadors to the papal court, though the Emperor Joseph II turned up in person, together with his brother Archduke Leopold of Tuscany. Despite the supposedly strict rules of secrecy they conducted conversations with the electors. The princes wanted the cardinals to enter what amounted to a “capitulation,” to agree that

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whoever was elected would abolish the Jesuits. The “crown” cardi- nals – those, that is, who had been promoted to the cardinalate at the wishes of their various princes – felt that such a course of action was bordering on simony and anyway capitulations had been banned. At the opening of the conclave the Archbishop of Naples, Antonio Sersale, looked as though he would be prepared to do what was asked of him, but he was too closely linked to the Bourbons of France and Spain and lacked credibility. The name eventually emerged of Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli (or as he was known in the Conventual Franciscans to which he belonged, Lorenzo Ganganelli). Ganganelli had twice turned down the o
ffi
ce of General of his Order because, it was said unkindly, he had his eye on a higher post. As far as the Jesuits were concerned, he let it be known that there was no religious Order that could not be suppressed, and that suppressing the Jesuits might have certain advantages. He was elected on the 185th ballot, by all votes except his own, which went to Cardinal Rezzonico, the nephew of Clement XIII. He took the name Clement XIV in memory of his predecessor.

Ganganelli died on 22 September 1774, but just over a year before his demise he had done what was required. The bull sup- pressing the Society of Jesus,
Dominus ac Redemptor
, was pub- lished on 16 August 1773 – though it was actually dated 21 July. “When we have destroyed the Jesuits,” Voltaire wrote in 1761, “we shall have easy work with the
Infâme
” – by which he meant Catholicism. How true a prophecy that would be was demonstrat- ed in the pontificates of Clement XIV’s two immediate successors.

8

Forty-four cardinals gathered in conclave on 5 October 1774 to elect a successor to Clement XIV. They did not come to a conclu- sion until 15 February the following year. Two cardinals died in the course of the conclave and nine did not come at all, but it was not too long or arduous an enclosure. Emperor Joseph II and his brother turned up again; the French Cardinal François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis, Bishop of Albano, entertained; and the various parties made deals. The issue was still that of the Society of Jesus. Clement XIV had suppressed it, but how rigorously was his decree to be implemented? The French and the Austrians were for a more moderate approach, the Spanish and Portuguese wanted
Dominus ac Redemptor
to be implemented to the letter. On the issue itself the
zelanti
cardinals might not have had strong feelings one way or the other, but they were unhappy about the collapse of Pope Clement before the demands of the great powers. It was one of the
zelanti
, Cardinal Zelada, who had been secretary of state, who promoted Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Braschi. He got the backing of de Bernis, who in turn persuaded the Austrians and the Spaniards. Braschi had not been involved in the controversy over the Jesuits, but the general opinion was that he was sympathetic toward their plight. He had, on the other hand, given secret undertakings to the anti-Jesuit group not to mitigate Clement XIV’s decree. He was therefore elected after 134 days, taking the name Pius VI. It was supposedly a tribute to the stern Pius V, who had implemented the reforms of the Council of Trent, but Pius VI was not in the same

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mold. Though his first encyclical letter condemned the ideas and values of the Enlightenment, he was a rather worldly man who revived papal nepotism on a grand scale.

When the French Revolution broke out Pius, though hostile, was at first careful, but relations with France gradually crumbled. Diplomatic relations with France were broken off in May 1791, and soon afterward France annexed the papal territories of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin. When Louis XVI was behead- ed Pius described him as a martyr. French troops moved to occupy Italy, and parts of the papal states had to be ceded to France. Finally, after a French general was killed in a Roman riot, the French ordered seizure of the remains of the papal states, including Rome itself. A republic was proclaimed on 15 February 1798, and Pius went into exile, first to Siena, then to Florence. In March of the following year Pius was bundled into a carriage and taken – eventually – to France. He died at Valence on 29 August 1799. Though his reign ended so tragically, it was up to that point the longest in papal history.

Though to some it looked as if the papacy itself might disappear with Pius, he had taken careful thought for holding the next conclave under emergency conditions. In his brief of 11 February 1797,
Attentis peculiaribus praesentibus Ecclesiae circumstantis
, which was amended by the constitution
Quum nos superiore anno
of 13 November 1798, he laid down the rules for the conclave. It was to be convoked by the senior cardinal and should be held in the territory of a Catholic sovereign. He was afraid that there might be a schismatic conclave, organized by the French, so the true con- clave, he said, would be the one attended by the largest group of cardinals. It therefore fell to Gianfrancesco Albani to determine where it should take place. The most obvious city was Venice. It was within “Catholic” territory because it now belonged to the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II – the last Holy Roman Emperor as it turned out – but was still within the geographical limits of Italy. It was the location which Cardinal Antonelli had urged Pius

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VI to specify (though he did not do so), and what is more, Francis II had offered to cover the cost. There was still the problem of the security of the conclave. Francis put the Benedictine abbey on the island of San Giorgio at the disposal of the cardinals, and it was there that thirty-four of the forty-five cardinals gathered on 30 November 1799.

The battle lines were quickly drawn. There was the “political” group of cardinals who wanted to come to some modified under- standing with the modern world and the new European order to which the French Revolution seemed destined to give rise. And then there were the
zelanti
, whose cause was very much the
status quo ante
. The latter turned to Austria, because Austria’s hostility to France seemed the most likely route to regaining the papal states. Austria was also hoping for an intransigent pope who would make common cause with the emperor against the revolution. Which is why the emperor’s representative in the conclave, Franziskus Herzan von Harras, urged the candidature of Alessandro de’Duchi Mattei, who was thought to be a good politician and an enemy of France. Herzan von Harras’s hectoring style, however, alienated many of the other electors, especially when it was revealed that the Emperor Francis was proposing to veto any French, Spanish, Neapolitan, Genovese, Piedmontese, or Sardinian-born cardinal. It would not leave much choice. The
zelanti
themselves were divided between those who wanted to restore the papal states in their entirety through the power of Austria and a more moderate group who thought that the changes which had been brought about by the revolution were permanent and the Church would just have to make the best of it through reopening relationships with France. Mattei, as well as being Austria’s choice, was also the candi- date of the former group; their campaign was led by Giacomo Antonelli. The latter group, under the tutelage of Romualdo Braschi, promoted the Bishop of Cesena, Cardinal Carlo Bellisomi. Bellisomi quickly garnered the necessary majority, but was then vetoed by Herzan von Harras; Spain, on the other hand, would not

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recognize Mattei. It seems to have been a non-cardinal, Ercole Consalvi, who, together with the Spaniard Antonio Despuig, came up with the proposal of Luigi Barnabà Chiaramonti, a Benedictine called Gregorio in his Order, who was Bishop of Cesena. He was a likeable man and more in tune with the age than most of his fellow cardinals – he had once written “Be good Christians and you will be excellent democrats,” not a sentiment often heard from clergy- men of his day. In the conclave he had identified himself with the group led by Braschi. Antonelli thought the choice a good one and an initially hesitant Herzan von Harras had a long conversation with Chiaramonti and was won over. When he was elected he chose the name Pius VII, in honor of his predecessor.