 Born
at Rome, 6 May, 1574; died there, 7 January, 1655. His
parents were Camillo Pamfili and Flaminia de Bubalis.
The Pamfili resided originally at Gubbio, in Umbria, but
came to Rome during the pontificate of Innocent VIII.
The young man studied jurisprudence at the Collegio
Romano and graduated as bachelor of laws at the age of
twenty. Soon afterwards Clement VIII appointed him
consistorial advocate and auditor of the Rota. Gregory
XV made him nuncio at Naples. Urban VIII sent him as
datary with the cardinal legate, Francesco Barberini, to
France and Spain, then appointed him titular Latin
Patriarch of Antioch, and nuncio at Madrid. He was
created Cardinal-Priest of Sant' Eusebio on 30 August,
1626, though he did not assume the purple until 19
November, 1629. He was a member of the congregations of
the Council of Trent, the Inquisition, and Jurisdiction
and Immunity. On 9 August, 1644, a conclave was held at
Rome for the election of a successor to Urban VIII. The
conclave was a stormy one. The French faction had agreed
to give their vote to no candidate who was friendly
towards Spain. Cardinal Firenzola, the Spanish candidate
was, therefore, rejected, being a known enemy of
Cardinal Mazarin, prime minister of France. Fearing the
election of an avowed enemy of France, the French party
finally agreed with the Spanish party upon Pamfili,
although his sympathy for Spain was well known. On 15
September he was elected, and ascended the papal throne
as Innocent X.
Soon after his accession, Innocent found it necessary
to take legal action against the Barberini for
misappropriation of public moneys. To escape punishment
Antonio and Francesco Barberini fled to Paris, where
they found a powerful protector in Mazarin. Innocent
confiscated their property, and on 19 February, 1646,
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 benefices and
eventually of the cardinalate itself. The French
Parliament declared the papal ordinances null and void,
but the pope did not yield until Mazarin prepared to
send troops to Italy to invade the Ecclesiastical
States. Henceforth the papal policy towards France
became more friendly, and somewhat later the Barberini
were rehabilitated. But when in 1652 Cardinal Retz was
arrested by Mazarin, Innocent solemnly protested against
this act of violence committed against a cardinal, and
protected Retz after his escape in 1654. In Italy
Innocent had occasion to assert his authority as
suzerain over Duke Ranuccio II of Parma who refused to
redeem the bonds (monti) of the Farnesi from the
Roman creditors, as had been stipulated in the Treaty of
Venice on 31 March, 1644. The duke, moreover, refused to
recognize Cristoforo Guarda, whom the pope had appointed
Bishop of Castro. When, therefore, the new bishop was
murdered while on his way to take possession of his see,
Innocent held Ranuccio responsible 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 relations with Venice, which had
been highly strained during the pontificate of Urban
VIII, became very friendly during 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 episcopal 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
approbation from the bishops nominated by him. Thus it
happened that towards the end of Innocent's pontificate
there was only one bishop in the whole of Portugal. On
26 November, 1648, 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", issued on 31 May, 1653. he condemned five
propositions taken from the "Augustinus" of Jansenius,
thus giving the impulse to the great Jansenist
controversy in France.
Innocent X was a lover of justice and his life was
blameless; he was, however, often irresolute and
suspicious. The great blemish in his pontificate was his
dependence on Donna Olimpia Maidalchini, the wife of his
deceased brother. For a short time her influence had to
yield to that of the youthful Camillo Astalli, a distant
relative of the pope, whom Innocent 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 Innocent's relation to
her was immoral, has been rejected as slanderous by all
reputable historians. |
