Pope Clement IX (1600-1669)

A thirty-month pontificate

Clement IX's reign is among the shortest of the seventeenth century: barely two and a half years — thirty months, about 900 days, from 20 June 1667 to 9 December 1669.^[12] Its brevity did not erase his memory. Where many longer pontificates left only a dull administration, these thirty months concentrated a series of decisive acts — religious peace, political peace, Mediterranean crusade, major canonizations — carried by a man whose personal goodness struck contemporaries even more than his skill.

The contrast with prince-popes

In the age of lavish patron-popes and great Roman families — Barberini, Pamphili, Chigi — Clement IX stands out for his sobriety. The Catholic Encyclopedia summarizes the feeling of the Romans:

"He was the idol of the Romans, not so much for his erudition and application to business, as for his extreme charity and his affability towards great and small." — The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope Clement IX"^[21]

Far from using the tiara to enrich his relatives, he moderated nepotism and even refused to have his name carved on the monuments built under his reign.^[22][23] This disinterest, the opposite of the splendor of an Alexander VI or the political hesitations of a Clement VII, explains the lasting affection the Romans kept for him.

What this article covers — and what it sends elsewhere

In keeping with the "pontifical biography" angle of Ignispedia's series on the popes, this article treats the person and government of Clement IX. Jansenist doctrine itself, its dogmatic condemnations and its long legacy into the eighteenth century belong to a distinct doctrinal dossier. Likewise, the detailed history of the War of Candia or of missionary controversies is mentioned here only where it directly touches the pontificate.

A Tuscan family from Pistoia

Giulio Rospigliosi was born on 27 January 1600 in Pistoia, Tuscany — he was baptized there the next day, 28 January, in the church of San Ilario.^[24] His family, the Rospigliosi, was a line of merchants originally from Lombardy, established in Tuscany since the Middle Ages and enriched through the wool trade, cloth business and banking.^[25] His father, Girolamo Rospigliosi, was gonfaloniere of Pistoia; his mother was Maria Caterina.^[26] He was not born into the great Roman aristocracy or a cardinalatial dynasty: Giulio belonged to the patrician bourgeoisie of a Tuscan city, and would owe everything to his talent and work.

Formation: Roman College and University of Pisa

A pupil of the Jesuits at the Roman College, Rospigliosi continued his studies at the University of Pisa, where he studied philosophy, theology and law: appointed in 1623 to an extraordinary lectureship in philosophy, he was received there as doctor of sacred philosophy and theology the following year (1624).^[27] This double imprint — Jesuit rigor and Pisan humanist culture — made him an accomplished man of letters, as comfortable in poetry and theater as in law and theology. Through this reputation as scholar and literary man, he entered papal service in 1624.

The poet of the Barberini court

Arriving in Rome under Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini, himself a poet), Rospigliosi entered the circle of Cardinal Antonio Barberini and rose through the Curia: appointed to the Secretariat of Rites (1631), canon of the chapter of Saint Mary Major then referendary of the Two Signatures (1632), secretary of Briefs to Princes (summer 1635).^[28] Yet he distinguished himself by another path: he became the official librettist of Barberini Rome.

In the theaters of the Barberini palace, his drammi per musica were landmarks. Sant'Alessio, on Saint Alexis, set to music by Stefano Landi with scenery by the young Gian Lorenzo Bernini, was one of the first operas devoted to the life of a saint: created in March 1631 at the Palazzo dei Giubbonari, it was revived for the inauguration of the Barberini theater on 21 February 1632.^[29] With Chi soffre speri ("He who suffers may hope"), created in 1637 on music by Mazzocchi then printed in Rome in 1639, Rospigliosi introduced comic characters into serious drama: this comic vein, continued up to Dal male il bene (1653), makes him, for opera historiography, one of the craftsmen of the roots of comic opera.^[30][31] In a way unique in papal history, the future Clement IX was literally a playwright.

According to the English-language Wikipedia entry alone — with no verifiable primary source — Cardinal Francesco Albizzi is said to have mocked Rospigliosi's musical inclination; this anecdote is reported here with every reservation, without repeating any unverifiable quotation.^[32]

Nuncio in Spain (1644-1653)

Consecrated bishop on 29 March 1644 and made titular archbishop of Tarsus, Rospigliosi was sent as apostolic nuncio to Madrid, where he arrived in the summer of 1644.^[33][34] His mission, lasting nearly nine years under Innocent X and then Alexander VII, was dominated by the peace negotiations at the end of the Thirty Years' War and by diplomatic incidents between Rome and the Spanish crown.^[35] He acquired there a direct knowledge of courts, ambassadors and European diplomacy that would later serve him. He left Madrid at the beginning of January 1653 and, after a stay in Tuscany, returned to Rome at the beginning of the summer.^[36]

Secretary of State to Alexander VII (1655-1667)

The election of Fabio Chigi as Alexander VII in 1655 brought Rospigliosi to the summit of the Curia. Appointed cardinal secretary of state as early as April 1655, he was created cardinal on 9 April 1657, with the title of San Sisto.^[37][38] For twelve years he directed papal diplomacy, meeting the pope every day to examine affairs, maintaining the balance between the Spanish and French factions, and prudently keeping above intrigue.^[39] At Alexander VII's death in May 1667, he was one of the men best prepared in the Sacred College to succeed him.

The conclave after Alexander VII

At the death of Alexander VII on 22 May 1667, the conclave opened under the pressure of the great crowns. Rospigliosi's candidacy nonetheless gathered an exceptionally broad coalition: France and Spain at the same time, the party of independent cardinals nicknamed the Flying Squadron (squadrone volante), and Queen Christina of Sweden, then living in Rome after her conversion.^[40] On the evening of 20 June 1667, after a short interregnum, Cardinal Rospigliosi was elected — according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, by an almost unanimous vote of the Sacred College.^[41] He took the name Clement IX and was crowned on 26 June.

"Sidus olorum": the legend of the swans

Tradition reports that during the conclave Rospigliosi occupied a cell called the "room of the swans", which would have matched the motto Sidus olorum ("the star of the swans") attributed to him by the famous Prophecy of Saint Malachy.^[42] Like the whole of that prophecy — whose medieval authenticity is seriously contested and which is generally regarded as a late sixteenth-century compilation^[43] — the anecdote belongs more to curial folklore than to history. It is mentioned here for memory, without granting it established supernatural value.

Confessions, hospitals and the table of the poor

The dominant trait in all testimonies is the pope's concrete charity. Far from remaining secluded in the palace, Clement IX went down to hear confessions like an ordinary priest:

"Two days each week he occupied a confessional in St. Peter's church and heard any one who wished to confess to him. He frequently visited the hospitals, and was lavish in his alms to the poor." — The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope Clement IX"^[44]

According to a tradition reported by modern encyclopedic entries — absent from the verified passages of the Catholic Encyclopedia cited above —, he is said to have had thirteen poor men invited to his table each day and to have served them himself before taking his own meal after them.^[45] This image — a pope kneeling in the confessional, a pope serving the needy — fixed during his lifetime a reputation of familiar sanctity that outlived the shortness of his reign.

Financial reform and refusal of pomp

Clement IX inherited a treasury weighed down by wars and by the expenses of his predecessors. Through strict economy, he restored order to papal finances, which is precisely what allowed him to release considerable sums to Venice for the defense of Crete.^[46] His aversion to publicity went so far that he forbade his name to be inscribed on buildings erected under his pontificate — an almost unheard-of gesture in an age when every pope signed Rome with his arms.^[47]

A moderated nepotism

Compared with the massive nepotism of the Barberini, Pamphili or Chigi, Clement IX's appears measured.^[48] His relatives were not forgotten — his brother Camillo was appointed general of the pontifical army, his nephew Vincenzo captain-general of the galleys (he commanded the relief expeditions to Candia), and his nephew Giacomo Rospigliosi was created cardinal — but the pope did not build for them the scandalous fortune amassed by other families. Historiography stresses the restraint of this nepotism, in keeping with the character of the pontiff.^[49]

Curial reorganizations

A methodical administrator, Clement IX adjusted several parts of the Curia: reorganization of the Congregation charged with the state of religious (constitution Iniuncti, 11 April 1668), regulation of missionary activity (17 June 1669), and above all the creation of the Congregation of Indulgences and Relics (6 July 1669, by the brief In ipsis pontificatus nostra primordiis), intended to control the spread of relics and the granting of indulgences.^[50] These quiet measures reveal the same concern for order as his financial management.

The context: the Formulary and the four bishops

When Clement IX ascended the throne, Catholic France was torn by the Jansenist controversy. To require clerics to condemn the five propositions drawn from Jansenius's Augustinus, the Holy See had imposed the signing of a Formulary, made obligatory by the bull Regiminis apostolici of Alexander VII (1665).^[51][52] Four French bishops refused to subscribe without reserve, distinguishing what the Church could impose from what it could not:

The conflict threatened to become a Gallican schism: Rome was preparing procedures against these bishops, while Louis XIV, concerned for the peace of his kingdom, sought a way out.^[53]

The distinction between right and fact

The theological knot lay in a classic distinction, right and fact (quaestio iuris / quaestio facti). The Jansenists admitted that the Church, infallible on the question of right, had condemned the five propositions as heretical; but they contested the question of fact — namely, whether those propositions were really found, in the sense condemned by the Church, in Jansenius's book. On the fact, they argued, only respectful silence was owed, not an assent of faith.^[54] The four bishops signed the Formulary while slipping this distinction into the mandate by which they published it in their dioceses.

The brief of 1669 and the "Peace of the Church"

Rather than break these bishops, Clement IX chose appeasement. At the beginning of 1669, through a brief addressed to the bishops of Alet, Pamiers, Angers and Beauvais (brief of 2 February — dating by Philippe Dieudonné, confirmed by Treccani —, after a reconciliation proclaimed on 19 January according to Dieudonné; the Paris negotiations had been conducted by Nuncio Bargellini and Hugues de Lionne, whom Treccani designates as the true architect of the agreement), he manifested the "benevolence of the Holy See" and accepted the submission of the prelates without requiring them explicitly to renounce their distinction.^[55][56] This compromise, immediately called the Clementine Peace (Pax Clementina) or Peace of the Church, temporarily reopened the monastery of Port-Royal and let the storm subside.^[57]

"By a mild compromise in the affair of French Jansenism, known as the Clementine Peace (Pax Clementina), he procured a lull in the storm." — The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope Clement IX"^[58]

A real but fragile peace

This peace has been judged in different ways. In Paris, it was seen as a concession by the pope; in Rome, some read it as a sign of weakness before the pressure of Louis XIV.^[59] The historian Philippe Dieudonne, in the reference study on the question, placed the paradox in the very subtitle of his work — "defeat and victory of early French Jansenism" — stressing that the calm settled nothing at the root: the controversy would break out again under later pontificates.^[60] Yet for Clement IX's short reign, the Clementine Peace was a real pastoral success, sparing the Church in France from an imminent schism. The doctrinal detail of the controversy — the five propositions, the Augustinus, the later Case of Conscience and the bull Unigenitus — is treated in the dossier on Jansenism.

The War of Devolution

Hardly elected, Clement IX had to face a European crisis. In 1667, Louis XIV invaded the Spanish Netherlands in the name of supposed "devolution" rights of his wife Maria Theresa over the inheritance of her father Philip IV of Spain. The War of Devolution threatened to reignite a general conflict between Catholic crowns, just as the Turks were pressing Christendom in the Mediterranean.^[61]

Papal mediation

Faithful to the Holy See's vocation as arbiter, Clement IX promptly offered his mediation to the two crowns.^[62][63] According to the historian François Guizot, the congress that opened at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) was presided over by the new pope's nuncio — whom the cited passage of Guizot does not name.^[64]

The treaty of 2 May 1668

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed on 2 May 1668. France kept about a dozen conquered towns in the Spanish Netherlands — including Lille, Tournai, Douai and Charleroi — but returned Franche-Comte.^[65] On the French side, the act was signed by Hugues de Lionne, Louis XIV's minister.^[66] Whatever its fragility, this arbitration confirmed the papacy's role as an instance of conciliation among Christian princes, and remains one of the notable diplomatic acts of the reign.^[67]

Twenty years of siege

Since 1648, the Ottoman Empire had been besieging Candia (modern Heraklion), capital of Venetian Crete and the last great Christian bastion of the eastern Mediterranean. The Siege of Candia is one of the longest in history: more than twenty years of blockade and assaults against a place that Venice defended with exhausted strength.^[68] For Clement IX, saving Crete was a matter of Christendom, and he made it one of the great objects of his pontificate.

Clement IX's effort for Venice

For Candia the pope committed means out of proportion to his modest resources: sales of ecclesiastical property, extraordinary jubilees, monetary subsidies, and the dispatch of two naval expeditions — in spring-summer 1668 then in 1669 — under the command of his nephew Vincenzo Rospigliosi.^[69][70] It was precisely to finance this aid that he had restored papal finances through strict economy.^[71] Yet the Christian coalition remained divided, French reinforcements proved insufficient, and the Venetian effort, despite heroic resistance, was nearing its end.

The capitulation of September 1669

After more than two decades of resistance, Venice had to capitulate. The provveditore Francesco Morosini negotiated the surrender at the beginning of September 1669; the Venetian evacuation spread over the month and the formal surrender to the Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü took place on 27 September 1669.^[72][73] The loss of Crete, the last great Venetian territory in the East, was felt throughout Christendom as a disaster.

Dying of grief

The news struck Clement IX to the heart. The Catholic Encyclopedia is explicit:

"The news of its fall, after a gallant resistance of twenty years, hastened the pope's death." — The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope Clement IX"^[74]

Struck by a first attack of apoplexy in the night of 25 to 26 October 1669, from which he recovered, then by a second, more serious one in the night of 28 to 29 November, the pope died in Rome on 9 December 1669, after two years, five months and nineteen days of pontificate.^[75] Tradition has retained that he died, in the phrase often repeated, "broken-hearted" by the fall of Candia and the blood of Christians shed in Crete — a causal link that the contemporary sources cited here do not document beyond the observation of the Catholic Encyclopedia.^[76]

Despite the brevity of his reign, Clement IX inscribed several major figures of Counter-Reformation holiness into the Church's calendar.

Rose of Lima, first flower of the Americas

Clement IX beatified Rose of Lima, the first blessed woman — and soon the first saint — of the New World.^[77] The "Pope Clement IX" entry of the Catholic Encyclopedia and the New Catholic Dictionary date the act to 15 April 1668, but the "St. Rose of Lima" entry of the same Catholic Encyclopedia places it in 1667: in the absence of a verified pontifical act, no date is retained here and the uncertainty is maintained (see the note). A Dominican tertiary, mystic and Peruvian penitent, Rose would become patroness of Latin America and the Philippines.^[78] Her beatification by Clement IX, followed by her canonization by Clement X in 1671, marks Rome's solemn recognition of American holiness barely more than a century after the continent's evangelization.

Peter of Alcantara and Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi

On 28 April 1669, Clement IX canonized two great figures of sixteenth-century spirituality: Peter of Alcantara, Franciscan reformer, friend and adviser of Teresa of Avila,^[79] and Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, Florentine Carmelite mystic.^[80] In honoring these masters of prayer and penance, the learned and charitable pope joined, beyond his gifts as diplomat, the contemplative heart of the Church he governed.

The angels of Ponte Sant'Angelo

Still a friend of artists, Clement IX entrusted Gian Lorenzo Bernini with the embellishment of Ponte Sant'Angelo, the solemn approach to the castle and to Saint Peter's Basilica. Bernini and his workshop erected there the famous series of angels bearing the instruments of the Passion, transforming the bridge into a sculpted Via Dolorosa leading the pilgrim toward the Apostle's tomb.^[81][82] The same pope supported the completion of the colonnade of Saint Peter's Square, Bernini's masterpiece.

Rome's first public opera theater

Consistent with his youth as a librettist, the project of Rome's first public theater, the Teatro Tordinona, was carried by Christina of Sweden, retired in the city: opened in January 1671, a year after Clement IX's death — hence under Clement X, who worried about it —, it was inaugurated with Francesco Cavalli's Scipione affricano.^[83][84][85] The pope who had written Sant'Alessio and Chi soffre speri thus left his city a lasting institution: the meeting, in his person, of priest, diplomat and artist is almost without equivalent in the history of the papacy.

The tomb in Saint Mary Major

Clement IX was buried in the basilica of Saint Mary Major, where he had been canon of the chapter since 1632. His successor Clement X had a richly decorated funerary monument erected for him, the work of the architect Carlo Rainaldi (1671).^[86][87] This tomb, in one of Rome's four major basilicas, perpetuates the memory of a pope whom the city had loved.

A "small" pontificate of great repute

Thirty months, four dossiers, a reputation for holiness: Clement IX's pontificate shows that a short reign can count for more than many long ones. A pope of peace — religious peace with the Jansenists, political peace between France and Spain, reconciliation with Portugal —, a pope of charity in the confessional — and, according to tradition, at the table of the poor —, a pope of the last crusade for Crete, he left the rare image, in his century, of a pastor more concerned for souls than for his own glory. That his name was carved on none of his monuments may be his truest epitaph.

Related Ignispedia Articles

• Pope Alexander VII — his predecessor, whose secretary of state he had been.
• Pope Clement X — his successor, who completed his tomb and canonized Rose of Lima.
• Jansenism — the doctrine, condemnations and long legacy of the controversy calmed by the Clementine Peace.
• Pope Clement VII — another learned pope confronted by the political tears of his time.
• Pope Alexander VI — the Renaissance inverse of Clementine disinterest.

Main Sources

• James Loughlin, "Pope Clement IX", in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. IV, Robert Appleton Company, New York, 1908 (online text: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04028a.htm): reference entry in English, source for judgments on the pope's charity, the Clementine Peace and death after Candia.
• Enciclopedia dei Papi, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana (Treccani), entry "Clemente IX": detailed critical biography (family, formation, nunciature, secretariat of state, pontificate, moderated nepotism, congregations).
• Philippe Dieudonné, La Paix clémentine. Défaite et victoire du premier jansénisme français sous le pontificat de Clément IX (1667-1669), Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 167, Leuven University Press / Peeters, 2003: reference academic study on the Clementine Peace.
• Ludwig von Pastor, Histoire des papes depuis la fin du Moyen Âge, vol. XXXI (Alexander VII, Clement IX, Clement X): standard critical account for the period, based on the Vatican archives.
• Margaret Murata, Operas for the Papal Court, 1631-1668, UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor, 1981: reference musicological study on Giulio Rospigliosi's opera librettos.
• New Advent / Catholic Encyclopedia: entries "St. Rose of Lima", "St. Peter of Alcantara" and "St. Malachy" for the Clementine canonizations and the Prophecy of the Popes.