Pope Innocent X
Alexander VII | |
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Orders | |
Consecration | 25 January 1626 by Laudivio Zacchia |
Created cardinal | 19 November 1629 by Urban VIII |
Personal details | |
Born | Giovanni Battista Pamphilj or Pamphili 6 May 1574 |
Died | 7 January 1655 Rome, Papal States | (aged 80)
Previous post(s) |
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Motto | Allevitæ sunt aquæ super terram ("The Waters are Lifted Above the Earth") |
Coat of arms | |
Other popes named Innocent |
Pope Innocent X (
Born in
Pamphili succeeded Pope Urban VIII (1623–44) on 15 September 1644 as Pope Innocent X, after a contentious papal conclave that featured a rivalry between French and Spanish factions.
Innocent X was one of the most politically shrewd pontiffs of the era, greatly increasing the temporal power of the
In theology, Innocent X issued a papal bull condemning the beliefs of Jansenism.
Biography
Early life
Giovanni Battista Pamphili was born in Rome on 5 May 1574, the son of Camillo Pamphili, of the Roman Pamphili family. The family, originally from Gubbio, was directly descended from Pope Alexander VI.[2]
In 1594 he graduated from the
In 1623
In reward for his labors, in May 1626 Giovanni Battista was made nuncio to the court of
Papacy
Election
The
Relations with France
Papal styles of Pope Innocent X | |
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His Holiness | |
Spoken style | Your Holiness |
Religious style | Holy Father |
Posthumous style | None |
Pamphili chose to be called Innocent X. Soon after his accession he initiated legal action against the
In 1653, Innocent X, with the
Relations with Parma
The death of Pope Urban VIII is said to have been hastened by his chagrin at the result of the
Innocent X objected to the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia, which his nuncio, Fabio Chigi, protested in vain. In 1650 Innocent X issued the papal brief Zelo Domus Dei[11] against the Peace of Westphalia, and backdated it to 1648 in order to preserve potential claims for confiscated land and property.[12] The protests were ignored by the European powers.
British Civil Wars
During the
At Kilkenny, Rinuccini was received with great honours, asserting in his Latin declaration that the object of his mission was to sustain the king but, above all, to rescue from pains and penalties the Catholic people of Ireland in securing the free and public exercise of the Catholic religion, and the restoration of the churches and church property. In the end, Oliver Cromwell restored Ireland to the Parliamentarian side and Rinuccini returned to Rome in 1649, after four fruitless years.
Other activities
During the papacy of Pope Urban VIII, the future Innocent X was the pope's most significant rival among the
When, a few years later, Pamphili was raised to the papacy, other Barberini relatives fled to France on embezzlement accusations. Despite this, the Capuchins held fast to their chapel altarpiece.
Innocent was responsible for raising the Colegio de Santo Tomás de Nuestra Señora del Santísimo Rosario into the rank of a university. It is now the
In 1650, Innocent X celebrated a
Innocent X is also the subject of Portrait of Innocent X, a famous painting by Diego Velázquez housed in the family gallery of Palazzo Doria (Doria Pamphilj Gallery). This portrait inspired the "Screaming Pope" paintings by 20th-century painter Francis Bacon, the most famous of which is Bacon's Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X.
Innocent X has been described as irritable in his later years. In March 1654, Innocent X suddenly expelled his personal physician of eight years, Gabriel da Fonseca, after Fonseca defended a barber who had bled the Pope.[16] Fonseca claims he had been in service to the Pamphili family for over two decades, and that the Pope had regarded him not only as his physician but also as a private advisor.[17][18]
Olimpia Maidalchini
Olimpia Maidalchini was married to Innocent X's late brother, and was believed to be his mistress because of her influence over him in matters of promotion and politics. This state of affairs was alluded to in the Encyclopædia Britannica 9th edition (1880):
"Throughout his reign the influence exercised over him by Maidalchini, his deceased brother's wife, was very great, and such as to give rise to gross scandal, for which, however, there appears to have been no adequate ground.... The avarice of his female counsellor gave to his reign a tone of oppression and sordid greed which probably it would not otherwise have shown, for personally he was not without noble and reforming impulses."
German historian Leopold von Ranke concluded that she was not Innocent X's lover.[19]
Death and legacy
In his later years, Innocent X suffered from gout, causing him intense pain and severely restricting his movements. The eighty-year-old pontiff's health began to decline in August 1654.[20] By the evening of 26 December his condition had deteriorated to the extent that the family was summoned.[21]
On 27 December, he blessed his nephew, niece, and their children, and then had a brief meeting with Cardinals Flavio Chigi and Decio Azzolino. That night he had a little rest, though his condition did not improve.[22]
On 28 December, Innocent X received the Last rites and expressed his desire to take leave of the cardinals. In anticipation of the Pope's expected death many of the cardinals had already gathered in Rome in advance of a subsequent conclave. Thirty-nine gathered at his bedside at the Quirinal Palace.
On 1 January 1655, Mass was celebrated at the pope's bedside, and the same was done on 6 January, when Innocent X also received the Viaticum for the last time. Secretary of State Chigi, who had been in attendance during the last twelve days,[23] Prefect of the Sacred Palace Bishop Scotti, and Sacristan Monsignor Altini, as well as, various attendants were present when the Pope died on the night of 6 January 1655.[24][22]
The Swiss Guard escorted Papal Camerlengo Cardinal Antonio Barberini to the Quirinal to perform the requisite rituals and Cardinal de' Medici visited with the Pope's three nephews, who were in another room. After an autopsy, the body was embalmed and the next day taken to the Vatican where it was placed on a catafalque in the Sistine Chapel. On 8 January it was transferred to St. Peter's Basilica, where the sealing of the coffin was witnessed by Cardinals Niccolò Albergati-Ludovisi, Fabio Chigi, Luigi Omodei, Pietro Vito Ottoboni, Marcello Santacroce, Baccio Aldobrandini, Cristoforo Vidman, Lorenzo Raggi, Carlo Pio di Savoia and Gualtieri, Princes Pamphili, Ludovisi and Giustiniani, and the Master of Ceremonies Fulvio Servantio. A funeral held on 17 January.[25] Innocent's tomb is located in the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone which he had built in 1652 adjacent to the family palace, the Palazzo Pamphili, in Rome.
Innocent X was succeeded by Pope Alexander VII who had promised Innocent X that he would build more schools in Europe.
See also
- Cardinals created by Innocent X
- Pamphili, with Innocent X's family tree
- Portrait of Innocent X
- Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X
Notes
- ISBN 978-2-03-320300-9.
- ^ ISBN 978-0786420711. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
- ^ "Miranda, Salvador. "Pamphilj, Giambattista (1574–1655)", The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church". Archived from the original on 2015-04-30. Retrieved 2016-06-12.
- ^ Vergil and the Pamphili Family in Piazza Navona, Rome, Igrid Rowland, A Companion to Vergil's Aeneid and its Tradition, Ed. Joseph Farrell and Michael C.J. Putnam, (Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2010), 253.
- ^ Boutry, Philippe. "Innocent X", The Papacy:An Encyclopedia, Vol.2, Ed. Philippe Levillain, (Routledge, 2002), 801.
- ^ a b Ott 1910, p. 20: "Urban VIII ... appointed him titular Latin Patriarch of Antioch, and nuncio at Madrid."
- ^ History of the popes; their church and state (Volume III) by Leopold von Ranke (2009, Wellesley College Library)
- ^ "Miranda, Salvador. "Conclave of August 9 to September 15, 1644", The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church".
- ^ George L. Williams, Popal Genealogy: The Families And Descendants Of The Popes, (McFarland & Company, 1998), 109.
- ^ "Jansenism", Raymond A. Blacketer, The New Westminster Dictionary of Church History: The Early, Medieval, and Reformation Era, Ed. Robert Benedetto, (Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 348.
- ^ Psalms 69:9, "For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me."
- ^ "Ryan, E.A., "Catholics and the Peace of Westphalia"" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-05-16.
- ^ "con somme cospicue di pecunia ed altre munizioni", G. Alazzi, Nunciatura in Irlanda di Monsignor Gio. Batista Rinuccini (Florence) 1844, preface (p. vi) to the publication of Rinucci's official letters: see Giovanni Battista Rinuccini.
- ^ "Guido Reni and Innocent X in the painting of San Michele Arcangelo".
- ^ "Pope Innocent X", The Met
- ^ Novoa, James William Nelson (2015). "Gabriel da Fonseca. A New Christian doctor in Bernini's Rome". Humanismo e Ciência: Antiguidade e Renascimento.
- ^ Novoa, James William Nelson. "Medicine, learning and Self Representation in seventeenth century Italy" (PDF). Humanismo, Diáspora e Ciência. Universidade de Lisboa: 213–232.
- ^ Correia, Arlindo N. M. (2006). "Gabriel da Fonseca". Retrieved 18 February 2024.
- ^ Williams, George L. (2004). Papal Genealogy: The Families and Descendants of the Popes. McFarland & Company. p. 110
- ^ "Pope Innocent X: Proceedings of the Conclave that led to his election". Pickle Publishing. 2005. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
- ^ Priorato, Historia del Ministerio del Cardinale Giulio Mazarino, 406-409
- ^ a b John Paul Adams (14 March 2016). "Sede Vacante". Retrieved 7 March 2022.
- ^ Francesco Sforza Pallavicini, Della vita di Alessandro VII, Lib. II capo xiii (Prato Giachetti 1839), pp. 209-212.
- ^ V. Forcella, Inscrizioni delle chiese di Roma IX (Roma: Ludovico Cecchini 1877), p. 275, no. 559
- ^ Adams, John Paul. "Sede Vacante January 7, 1655—April 7, 1655", California State University Northridge
References
- Collier, Theodore Freylinghuysen (1911). Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 582. . In
- Ott, Michael (1910). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 08. New York: Robert Appleton Company. . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).
Further reading
- Guido Braun: Innozenz X. Der Papst als ‚padre comune‘. In: ISBN 978-3-534-20936-1.
- Michael Tilly (1990). "Innozenz X". In Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). Vol. 2. Hamm: Bautz. cols. 1295–1298. ISBN 3-88309-032-8.
- Chev. Artaud De Montor, 1911. The Lives and Times of the Popes
External links
- Media related to Innocentius X at Wikimedia Commons
- Works by or about Innocent X at Wikisource
- Publications by or about Pope Innocent X at VD 17
- Works by and about Pope Innocent X in the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (German Digital Library)