INNOCENT
21
INNOCENT
well known. On 15 September he was elected, and
ascended the papal throne as Innocent X.
Soon after his aeression, Innocent found it necessary totalie le{;al action against the Barberini for misappro- priation of iiulihc moneys. To escape pnnishment, .\ntonio ami Francesco Barberini fled to Paris, where they found a powerful protector in Mazarin. Iimocent confiscated their property, and on 19 February, 164G, issued a Bull ordaining that all cardinals who had left or should leave the Ecclesiastical States without papal permission and should not return within six months, should be deprived of their ecclesiastical ben- efices and eventually of the cardinalate itself. The French Parliament declared the papal ordinances null and void, but the po])e did not yield until Mazarin pre- pared to send troops to Italy to invade the Ecclesias- tical States. Henceforth the papal policy towards France became more friendly, and somewhat later the Barberini were rehabilitated. But when in 1652 Car- dinal Retz was arrested by Maza- rin, Innocent sol- emnly protested asainst this act of violence commit- ted against a car- dinal, and pro- tected Retz after his escape in 1654. In Italy Innocent had occasion to assert his author- ity as suzerain over Duke Ranuc- lio II of Parma who refused to re- deem the bonds (niuiiti) of the Farnesi from the Roman creditors, as had lieen stipu- lated intheTreaty of Venice on 31 March, 1644. The duke, moreover, refused to rec- ognize Cristoforo Guarda, whom the pope had ap- pointed Bishop of Castro. When, therefore, the new bishop was murdered while on his way to take possession of his see. Innocent held Ranuccio re- sponsible for the crime. The pope took possession of Castro, razed it to the ground and transferred the episcopal see to Acquapendente. The duke was forced to resign the administration of his district to the pope, who undertook to satisfy the creditors. The papal relationswith Venice, which had been highly strained during the pontificate of Urban VIII, became very friendly diu'ing Innocent's reign. Innocent aided the Venetians financially against the Turks in the struggle for Candia, while the Venetians on their part allowed Innocent free scope in filling the vacant epis- copal sees in their territory, a right which they had previously claimed for themselves. In Portugal the popular insurrection of 1640 had led to the secession of that country from Spain, and to the election of Juan IV of Braganza as King of Portugal. Both Urban VIII and Innocent X. in deference to Spain, refused to acknowledge the new king and withheld their appro- bation from tile liishops nominated by him. Thus it happened that towards the end of Innocent's pontifi- cate there was only one bishop in the whole of Portugal. On 26 November, 164S, Innocent issued the famous Bull "Zelo domus Dei", in which he declares as null and void those articles of the Peace of Westphalia which were detrimental to the Catholic religion. In his Bull "Cum occasione", i.ssued on .31 May, 165.3, he condemned five propositions taken from the " Augus- tinus" of Jansenius, thus giving the impulse to the great Jansenist controversy in France.
DCENT X
Bernini, Palazzo Doria, Rome
Innocent X was a lover of justice and his life was
l)lameless; he was, however, often irresohile and sus-
jiieious. Tlie great blemish in his pciuliHi'Mtc was his
dependence on Donna Olimpia Maid:dchiiii, the wife
of hisdecea.-^ed brother. For a short liiur licj- inlluence
had to yield to that of the youlliful Caimllo Astalh, a
distant relative of the pope, whom Inmieenl raised to
the cardinalate. But the pope seemed to be unable to
get along without her, and at her instance Astalli was
deprived of the purple and removed from the Vatican.
The accusation, made by Gualdus (Leti) in his " Vita
di Donna Olimpia Maidalchini" (1666), that Inno-
cent's relation to her was immoral, has been rejected as
slanderous by all reputable historians.
ClAMPl, Innocenzo X Pamfili e la sua corte (Imola, 1878); Friedensburg, Reffesten zut deutschen Geschichte aus der Zeit des Pontifikats Innocenz X in Quelten und Forschungen, edited by tile Prussian Historical Institute in Rome, V (1902), VI (1903); Ranke, Die rumischen Papste, tr. Foster, II (London, 1906), 321-9; Barozzi e Berchet, Relazioni degli stati Euro- pei lette al senato dagli Ambasciatori Veneli nel secolo decimoset- limo, Serie IIT: Italia, Relazioni di Roma, II (Venice, 1878), 43-161 ; Palatius, Gesta Pontificum Romanorum, IV (Venice, 1688), 571-94.
Michael Ott.
Innocent XI, Pope (Benedetto Odescalchi) ; b. at Como, IG May, 1611; d. at Rome, 11 August, 1689. He was educated by the Jesuits at Como, and studied jurisprudence at Rome and Naples. Urban VIII ap- pointed him successively prothonotary, president of the Apostolic Camera, commissary at Ancona, administrator of Macerata, and Governor of Picena. Innocent X made him Cardinal-Deacon of Santi Cosma e Damiano on 6 March. 1645, and, somewhat later, Cardinal- Priest of Sant' Onofrio. As cardinal he was beloved by all on account of his deep piety, charity, and unselfish devotion to duty. When he was sent as legate to Ferrara in order Arms of Innocent to assist the people stricken with a XI
severe famine, the pope introduced him to the people of Ferrara as the "father of the poor", "Mittimus patrem pauperum". In 1650 he became Bishop of Novara, in which capacity he spent all the revenues of his .see to relieve the poor and sick in his diocese. With the permission of the pope he resigned as Bishop of Novara in favour of his brother Giulio in 1656 and went to Rome, where he took a prominent part in the consultations of the various congregations of which he was a member.
He was a strong candidate for the papacy after the death of Clement IX on 9 December, 1669, but the French Government rejected him. After the death of Clement X, King Louis XIV of France again intended to use his royal influence against the election of Odes- calchi, but, seeing that the cardinals as well as the Roman people were of one mind in their desire to have Odescalchi as their pope, he reluctantly instructed the cardinals of the French party to acquiesce in his can- didacy. After an interregnum of two months, Odes- calchi was unanimously elected pope on 21 September, 1676, and took the name of Innocent XI. Imme- diately upon his accession he turned all his efforts towards retlucing the expenses of the Curia. He passed strict ordinances against nepotism among the cardi- nals. He lived very parsimoniously and exhorted the cardinals to do the same. In this manner he not only squared the annual deficit which at his accession had reached the sum of 170.000 scudi, but within a few years the papal income w'as even in excess of the expenditures.
The whole pontificate of Innocent XI is marked by a continuous struggle with the absolutism of King Louis XIV of France. As early as 1673 the king had by his own power extended the right of the rfgale over the provinces of Languedoc, Guyenne, Provence, and DauphinC', where it had previously not been exercised,
