Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758)

The Most Learned of Popes

Benedict XIV’s primary significance is intellectual. No pope of the modern era combined to such a degree the erudition of jurist, historian, and theologian: he was awarded his doctorate in theology and both civil and canon law at nineteen, a reader of Thomas Aquinas as well as Dante and Ariosto, and was hailed in his lifetime as a prodigy of learning.^[20] The Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon said of him:

“Though so young, he has two souls: one for science, the other for society.” — Bernard de Montfaucon, as reported by the Catholic Encyclopedia^[21]

To study his reign is to see a scholar govern the universal Church without losing any of his scholarly rigor: his canonical works remain authoritative, and even among his Protestant contemporaries — such as the English memoirist Horace Walpole — he was regarded as an honest man.^[22]

The Pope Who Set the Rules for Canonizations

The second significance is canonical and spiritual. As promoter of the faith, Lambertini spent years testing the causes of saints — demanding proof, rooting out credulity, distinguishing attested miracles from pious legend.^[23][24] From this experience arose the treatise De servorum Dei beatificatione, which codifies the rigorous procedure by which the Church recognizes sanctity and miracles. Far from opposing science to faith, this work puts science at the service of supernatural discernment: it is the instrument by which the Church can prudently affirm that a certain servant of God is in Heaven and that a certain miracle is authentic.^[25]

The Pope of Dialogue with His Age

The third significance is historical. Benedict XIV reigned in the heart of the Age of Enlightenment, at a time when Catholic Europe was under the dual pressure of absolutist monarchies and anticlerical philosophy.^[26] Without yielding on dogma — condemning Freemasonry, maintaining the Index, closing the missionary controversies — he chose wherever possible the path of learned conciliation: negotiated concordats, courteous correspondence with princes and intellectuals, patronage of academies. This approach to modernity, firm on faith and open to culture, makes him a key figure for understanding how the Church navigated the Enlightenment.^[27]

The documentation on Benedict XIV is abundant and of the highest quality, because he himself was an immense ecclesiastical writer: his complete works were published in Rome as early as 1747-1751 in twelve folio volumes, then in the best edition from Prato (1844, seventeen volumes).^[28] They include his treatise on canonizations, that on diocesan synods, his Institutiones ecclesiasticae, and hundreds of letters.

For scholarly synthesis, the reference entry is the extensive article “Benedetto XIV” in the Enciclopedia dei Papi (Treccani), by Mario Rosa, who reconstructs his career and pontificate from Roman archives and correspondence.^[29] The most comprehensive modern-language account remains the work of Ludwig von Pastor, whose History of the Popes makes Benedict XIV the subject of its volume XXXV (1740-1758) and part of its volume XXXVI (1740-1769, with Clement XIII).^[30] In English, the biography by Renée Haynes, Philosopher King: The Humanist Pope Benedict XIV (1970), has renewed the image of the learned pope.^[31] The article in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), precise and reliable, serves as the basis for most entries, and the pontifical texts themselves—encyclicals and constitutions—are now fully accessible.^[32][33][34]

A Bolognese Youth and a Dual Education

Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini was born in Bologna on March 31, 1675, into a family of the robe nobility.^[35][36] Initially educated by tutors, he entered Rome’s Collegium Clementinum, where he studied rhetoric, philosophy, and theology; he favored Saint Thomas Aquinas but excelled especially in historical and legal studies.^[37] In 1694, at nineteen, he was awarded the degrees of Doctor of Theology and Doctor of Both Laws (canon and civil law)—a dual expertise that would shape his entire career.^[38]

Promoter of the Faith and the “Devil’s Advocate”

Lambertini then climbed the ranks of the Roman ecclesiastical administration: consistorial advocate (a jurist admitted to plead before the Consistory, the assembly of cardinals presided over by the pope), promoter of the faith in 1708, theological canon of Saint Peter’s in 1712, secretary of the Congregation of the Council (the Roman dicastery charged with implementing the decrees of the Council of Trent) in 1718.^[39][40] The office of promoter of the faith—known popularly as the “Devil’s Advocate” (advocatus diaboli)—consisted in systematically challenging, before the Congregation of Rites, the virtues and miracles alleged in a cause for beatification.^[41][42] For years, Lambertini was thus the official doubter, demanding proof and dismantling weak arguments. It was in this role that he acquired his unparalleled knowledge of canonization trials—and prepared the canonization of Saint Pius V.^[43]

De servorum Dei beatificatione: The Code of the Saints

From this experience emerged his canonical masterpiece, De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione (On the Beatification of the Servants of God and the Canonization of the Blessed), written in four books between 1734 and 1738.^[44] The work famously sets out the procedure for causes with meticulous detail: investigation of heroic virtues, critical examination of writings, medical and theological verification of miracles, the role of the promoter of the faith.^[45][46] The canonist Johann Friedrich von Schulte considered his other great treatise, De synodo dioecesana, to be “one of the most important, if not the most important, works of modern canon law.”^[47] Even today, despite procedural reforms, De servorum Dei beatificatione remains the doctrinal foundation for how the Church discerns sanctity and miracles—proof that rigorous investigation does not oppose trust in the supernatural but guarantees it.

Archbishop of Ancona then Bologna

Lambertini’s career shifted from the curial office to pastoral governance. Appointed titular archbishop of Theodosius on 12 June 1724 — consecrated on 16 July 1724 by Benedict XIII —, he became archbishop of Ancona in 1727, was created cardinal in pectore on December 9, 1726—publicly announced on April 30, 1728, with the title of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme—and then archbishop of Bologna in 1731.^[48][49][50] In Bologna, his native city, he proved an active pastor: preaching, holding synods, supporting the Institute of Sciences and the Clementine Academy of Painting, and closely observing the intellectual flourishing of Europe’s oldest university.^[51] These nine years of episcopate in a great scholarly city directly prepared the learned pope he would become.

Six Months of Deadlock

After the death of Clement XII on 6 February 1740, the conclave opened on 18 February 1740 — the Catholic Encyclopedia giving 17 February for its part —, the longest of the modern era: it lasted six months.^[52][53] The cardinals, divided among the crowns (France, Spain, Empire) and Roman factions, fail to reach a majority. The death of the favorite, Pietro Ottoboni, on 29 February 1740 further disrupts calculations; the candidacies of Neri Corsini, Annibale Albani, Pompeo Aldrovandi, and Giacomo Lanfredini each fail in turn.^[54][55] During these Roman summer months, several cardinals fall ill; public impatience grows.

"If You Want a Saint...": The Election of the Compromise Candidate

Amid this deadlock, the figure of Cardinal Lambertini emerges as a compromise candidate, acceptable to all parties. Tradition attributes to him a now-famous quip addressed to the exhausted Sacred College:

"If you want a saint, choose Gotti; a statesman, elect Aldrovandi; an honest man, elect me." — Cardinal Lambertini, remark reported at the 1740 conclave^[56]

The election takes place on 17 August 1740, at the 255th ballot, around nine o’clock in the evening.^[57][58] Whether historical or embellished, this witticism aptly reflects the style of the new pope: simplicity, humor, and a refusal to pretend to be what he was not.

The Choice of the Name Benedict XIV

The newly elected pope takes the name Benedict XIV, in homage to his patron Benedict XIII (1724–1730), the Dominican pope who had created him cardinal (in pectore on 9 December 1726, published on 30 April 1728) and appointed him archbishop of Ancona — his transfer to the archbishopric of Bologna, on 30 April 1731, being the work of Clement XII.^[59][60] He was crowned on 21 August 1740 by the cardinal protodeacon.^[61] The choice of name emphasizes continuity: Lambertini sees himself as the heir of a pastoral and reforming pope, but adds the dimension of the scholar that his predecessor lacked.

Reforming the Curia and Procedures

Barely elected, Benedict XIV puts his canonical expertise at the service of governance. He reorganizes the work of the Curia, simplifies the system of congregations, and clarifies through a series of constitutions the functioning of tribunals and Roman dicasteries.^[62] Aware of the disastrous state of papal finances—a debt that had mounted to 56 million écus and a deficit of 200,000 écus for the year 1743^[63]—he refrains for three years from creating cardinals (first creation on 9 September 1743), reduces military expenses, encourages agriculture and commerce, and attempts to stabilize the budget of the Papal States.^[64][65] He himself summarized, not without irony, the difficulty of governing Rome:

"The pope commands, the cardinals do not obey, and the people do as they please." — Benedict XIV, a saying reported by his biographers^[66]

De synodo dioecesana and Pastoral Reform

The canonist pope never separates administration from pastoral reform. His treatise De synodo dioecesana, published in 1748, becomes the manual for diocesan governance: it recalls the obligation of residence for bishops (constitution Ad universae christianae reipublicae, 3 September 1746), regulates synods, preaching, and the administration of the sacraments.^[67][68] He reforms the Roman Martyrology (new edition in 1748) and the Cæremoniale Episcoporum (1752), while showing prudence in liturgical matters: he entrusts the Jesuit Fabio Danzetto with a project to revise the breviary but finds it too radical and abandons it, retaining little more than the attribution of the title of Doctor of the Church to Saint Leo the Great.^[69]

The Reduction of Holy Days of Obligation

A typical measure of his pastoral and social realism, Benedict XIV undertakes to reduce the number of holy days of obligation—those religious holidays which had become so numerous that they burdened the poor by depriving them of wages. The reform, first applied to the Papal States and Italy (1742), is gradually extended to several European countries between 1748 and 1754.^[70][71] The concern is both spiritual—to restore dignity to the remaining feasts—and economic: not to overburden workers.

Reform of the Index: Sollicita ac provida (1753)

On 9 July 1753, by the constitution Sollicita ac provida, Benedict XIV reforms the procedure for the censorship of books and the Index of Forbidden Books.^[72] This is the first official regulation governing the work of censors: it imposes a more careful procedure, requires that works be seriously examined, and grants greater guarantees to authors accused—possibility of being heard, choice of competent and impartial censors.^[73] Where one might expect an Enlightenment pope to show mere rigor, one finds a jurist concerned with fairness: the defense of the faith must be exercised with method and justice, not by arbitrariness.

Ubi primum (1740), often regarded as the first modern encyclical

On 3 December 1740, a few months after his election, Benedict XIV addressed the bishops with the letter Ubi primum, on the duties of bishops and the observance of the norms of the Council of Trent.^[74][75] It is the first pontifical document to call itself an “encyclical” — hence its status, among historians of the magisterium, as the first encyclical in the modern sense: a circular letter, doctrinal and pastoral, addressed to the entire episcopate to teach and govern.^[76] With Benedict XIV, a genre was established that would become, up to the present day, the privileged instrument of the ordinary pontifical magisterium.

Vix pervenit (1745): Usury

On 1 November 1745, the encyclical Vix pervenit reaffirmed the Catholic doctrine on usury, at a time when the rise of capitalism was challenging scholastic tradition.^[77][78] The text distinguishes the loan (mutuum) from other contracts and states the classical definition:

“The sin lies in the fact that sometimes the lender demands more than he has given. He claims that a gain is owed to him beyond what he has lent; but any gain exceeding what he has handed over is illicit and usurious.” — Benedict XIV, encyclical Vix pervenit, 1 November 1745^[79]

The encyclical immediately clarifies that other titles (real risk, suffered damage, lost profit) can legitimately justify interest: the condemnation targets gain claimed solely by virtue of the loan, not all remuneration of capital.^[80] Addressed to the bishops of Italy, Vix pervenit is a doctrinal act of governance of great subtlety, where the canonist balances principle and application.

Annus qui (1749): Sacred Music

On 19 February 1749, in preparation for the Jubilee, the encyclical Annus qui became the first pontifical document entirely devoted to sacred music.^[81] Benedict XIV denounced the invasion of the profane into churches— theatricality, worldly instruments, irreverence— called for the dignity of liturgical chant, and reminded of the maintenance and cleanliness of sacred places.^[82][83] Far from forbidding music, the pope wanted it to serve prayer rather than distract from it: the same concern for order and moderation that animated his entire pontificate.

The End of the Chinese and Malabar Rites Controversy

Benedict XIV closed, by two severe constitutions, the long-standing rites controversy that had torn the Asian missions for over a century. Ex quo singulari (11 July 1742) definitively forbade missionaries in China from tolerating the Confucian rites and the cult of ancestors; Omnium sollicitudinum (12 September 1744) did the same for the Malabar rites of India.^[84][85] From the perspective of Church governance, these acts put an end to a missionary and disciplinary controversy that could no longer remain open: here the Church exercises her doctrinal authority, judging that the proclamation of the Gospel cannot accommodate rites expressing a worship incompatible with faith in Christ. The detailed examination of the substance— the adaptation of the Gospel to cultures, the arguments of the Jesuits and their opponents— is covered in dedicated articles.^[86]

📖 See the detailed article: The Chinese Rites Controversy and The Jesuit Missions in China

Immensa Pastorum (1741): Against the Enslavement of Indigenous Peoples

On 20 December 1741, the constitution Immensa Pastorum Principis condemned, under penalty of excommunication, the enslavement of indigenous populations of America, particularly in Brazil and Paraguay, and the trafficking of these enslaved men.^[87][88] The act continued an ancient pontifical tradition of defending the Indians and supported the work of the Jesuit reductions in Paraguay, then threatened. It should be honestly noted that the text targets Amerindians and does not address the slavery of Africans, a distinct issue that would prompt other condemnations.^[89]

📖 See the detailed article: The Evangelization of the Indians and The Slavery of Blacks and the Church

Providas Romanorum (1751): The Condemnation of Freemasonry

On 18 March 1751, by the constitution Providas Romanorum, Benedict XIV renewed and strengthened the condemnation of Freemasonry issued by Clement XII in In eminenti (1738).^[90] The pope reproached the lodges for their naturalism, their secret oaths, their religious indifferentism, and the danger they posed to both Church and State; he forbade Catholics from joining under penalty of reserved excommunication.^[91][92] The act shows that the moderation of the learned pope never confused itself with doctrinal complacency.

The Settlement of the Unigenitus Controversy (1756)

An old French dispute, the controversy over the bull Unigenitus (1713, against Jansenism) still poisoned the Church in France, where sacraments were refused to opponents of the bull.^[93][94] By the encyclical Ex omnibus christiani orbis (16 October 1756), Benedict XIV sought reconciliation: he upheld the authority of the bull but requested that sacraments not be publicly refused for this sole reason, except in cases of notorious and obstinate resistance.^[95] Here again, the approach was one of governance: restoring peace without yielding on doctrine.

The Saints of 1746

The pope who had authored the code of canonizations could only be diligent in advancing the causes of the saints. On June 29, 1746, Benedict XIV solemnly canonized five blesseds: Camillus de Lellis, founder of the Camillians and patron of nurses; Catherine of Ricci, Dominican mystic of Prato; Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Capuchin martyr; Joseph of Leonessa, Capuchin preacher; and Peter Regalado, Franciscan reformer.^[96] These canonizations, conducted according to his own rules, illustrate the Church’s confidence in the tested supernatural: heroic lives and verified miracles, not pious legends.

The Jubilee of 1750 and the Colosseum Way of the Cross

By the bull Peregrinantes (1749), Benedict XIV convoked the Holy Year of 1750.^[97] He called to Rome the great Franciscan preacher Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, who filled the city with sermons and ways of the cross.^[98] On this occasion, Leonard installed, at the heart of the ruins of the Colosseum, a Way of the Cross with fourteen stations and planted a large cross in its center—consecrating the amphitheater to the memory of the Passion and the martyrs. The Jubilee of 1750 remains one of the most popular and spiritual moments of the pontificate.

The Papal States in the War of the Austrian Succession

The reign of Benedict XIV coincided with the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), which ravaged Italy. The Spanish, Neapolitan, and Austrian armies crossed and occupied in turn portions of the Papal States, which the pope, neutral and disarmed, could not protect.^[99][100] The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) largely ignored pontifical protests and assigned the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla to a Bourbon. Benedict XIV drew the lesson of his temporal weakness: his authority was henceforth primarily spiritual.

Concordats with Catholic Monarchies

Faced with monarchies increasingly jealous of their sovereignty, Benedict XIV practiced a diplomacy of measured concession. He signed a series of concordats: with Savoy (January 5, 1741), the kingdom of Naples (June 2, 1741), and especially Spain (January 11, 1753), while in Portugal he had granted as early as 1740 the right of patronage over the sees and abbeys of the kingdom.^[101][102] These agreements recognized to the sovereigns broad rights of presentation to benefices in exchange for maintaining the spiritual and jurisdictional authority of the Holy See. Criticized by some for conceding too much, the pope saw in them the realistic means to avoid ruptures and preserve the essentials in an age of triumphant regalism.^[103]

A Pope Esteemed by Protestant Courts

Remarkably, Benedict XIV was esteemed beyond the Catholic world. He recognized the title of King of Prussia for Frederick II despite the vigorous opposition of many members of the Curia^[104]; according to the reference entries, he allowed Maria Theresa of Austria to tolerate Protestants in her States, while recommending that she seek their conversion with Christian gentleness^[105]. Maria Theresa herself regarded him as “the wise par excellence.”^[106] This universal esteem, rare for a pope, owed much to his recognized moderation and learning.

The Roman Academies and Museums

Benedict XIV’s patronage matched his erudition. He founded in Rome four academies dedicated to Roman antiquities, Christian antiquities, Church history and councils, and canon law and liturgy.^[107][108] He created the Sacred and Profane Museums of the Vatican—the nucleus of the future Vatican Museums—had the manuscripts of the Vatican Library catalogued by Joseph Assemani, established chairs of chemistry and mathematics at the Sapienza, and restored churches and monuments.^[109][110] He also donated his personal library of several thousand volumes to the Institute of Sciences of Bologna.^[111]

Laura Bassi, Maria Gaetana Agnesi: Scientific Patronage

Benedict XIV’s support for the learned women of his time is a notable trait. In Bologna, he promoted the career of Laura Bassi, one of the first women in the world to teach physics at a university, and supported the Milanese mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi, to whom he offered a chair of mathematics in Bologna in 1748.^[112][113] For an 18th-century pope, encouraging female science in this way demonstrated exceptional intellectual openness, perfectly consistent with his conviction that faith has nothing to fear from knowledge.

Voltaire and the “Chief of the True Religion”

The most famous episode of Benedict XIV’s dialogue with the Enlightenment remains his correspondence with Voltaire. In 1745, the philosopher asked the pope to accept the dedication of his tragedy Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet—a play directed against religious imposture. Benedict XIV accepted and sent him gold medals, according to custom.^[114][115] Voltaire’s dedication read:

“To the chief of the true religion, a writing against the founder of a false and barbarous religion.” — Voltaire, dedication of Mahomet to Benedict XIV, 1745^[116]

Voltaire even composed a Latin distich for a portrait of the pope, celebrating “Lambertini, the honor of Rome and father of the world, who has instructed the universe by his writings and adorned it with his virtues.”^[117] Criticized for this familiarity with Europe’s most prominent anticlerical, Benedict XIV replied that it was important to maintain some connection with a man of such influence in the Republic of Letters.^[118] The episode became a symbol of a pope capable of speaking to his age without renouncing his faith.

The First Shadows: The Jesuit Affair

The twilight of the pontificate was darkened by the rise of hostility against the Society of Jesus, attacked on all sides by monarchies and the Enlightenment. In Portugal, the minister Pombal led an unrelenting campaign. On April 1, 1758, shortly before his death, Benedict XIV signed—under pressure from the court of Lisbon—a brief entrusting Cardinal Saldanha with a reform visitation of Jesuit colleges and houses in Portugal.^[119][120] This act, the last important of his reign, opened the way to persecutions that would culminate, under Clement XIV, in the suppression of the Society in 1773; his immediate successor Clement XIII promptly revoked the powers granted to Saldanha.^[121]

Death on May 3, 1758

Weakened by kidney stones and gout, Benedict XIV died in Rome on May 3, 1758, in his eighty-fourth year, after seventeen years, eight months, and sixteen days of pontificate.^[122][123] Tradition attributes to him, on his deathbed, the old saying about the fleeting nature of human glory, “Sic transit gloria mundi” (Thus passes the glory of the world), followed by this humble confession:

“I now fall into silence and oblivion, the only place that belongs to me.” — Benedict XIV, words attributed to his last days^[124]

He was buried in St. Peter’s Basilica, where Pietro Bracci erected a funerary monument for him.^[125]

The judgment of history

Few popes have been so unanimously praised. The English Protestant memoirist Horace Walpole wrote, a year before the pope’s death, an inscription for a bas-relief portrait of Benedict XIV, which has remained famous:

“Loved by Catholics, esteemed by Protestants; a priest without arrogance or self-interest, a prince without favorites, a pope without nepotism, an author without vanity, a man whom neither intelligence nor power could corrupt.” — Horace Walpole, on Benedict XIV^[126]

Modern historiography recognizes in him a clear-sighted administrator, a brilliant canonist, and a mind of rare openness, while debating his policy on concordats, sometimes judged too favorable to the crowns.^[127][128] But no one disputes his honesty or his learning.

The learned pope in the memory of the Church

Beyond political history, Benedict XIV remains in the Church’s memory as the learned and moderate pope: the one who set the rules of sanctity, to whom the modern form of the encyclical is often attributed, defended the Indians and condemned Freemasonry, engaged in dialogue with philosophers without yielding on faith. His pontificate shows that at the very heart of the Age of Enlightenment, the Church was able to oppose the spirit of the age not with fear, but with a believing intelligence — firm on dogma, open to culture, confident in the harmony of faith and reason.

• Pope Clement XII (1730-1740) — his predecessor, whose death opened the 1740 conclave, and author of the first condemnation of Freemasonry (In eminenti, 1738).
• Pope Clement XIII (1758-1769) — his successor, who withdrew the powers granted to Cardinal Saldanha and defended the Society of Jesus.
• Pope Benedict XIII (1724-1730) — the Dominican pope who made Lambertini a cardinal and archbishop, and whose name he took.
• Pope Clement XIV (1769-1774) — who suppressed the Society of Jesus in 1773, concluding the process begun at the end of Benedict XIV’s reign.
• The Chinese Rites Controversy — the missionary dispute closed by Ex quo singulari (1742).
• The Jesuit Missions in China — the background to the Chinese rites and their condemnation.
• The Evangelization of the Indians and Slavery of Blacks and the Church — to contextualize Immensa Pastorum (1741).
• The Papal States — the temporal framework of pontifical power, tested during the War of the Austrian Succession.