Pope Alexander VII
Pope Alexander VII reigned from 1655 to 1667 and gave St Peter's Square the colonnade that defines it. Born Fabio Chigi in Siena in 1599 into a banking family, he took doctorates in philosophy, law and theology, wrote Latin verse, and built a substantial library. He served as nuncio to Cologne from 1639 and was the papal representative at the negotiations that produced the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, refusing on instructions to take part in sessions with Protestants and protesting the settlement's religious concessions. He was elected in 1655 after a conclave lasting eighty days, and began by refusing to allow his relatives to come to Rome — a public break with the nepotism of his predecessors that he abandoned within a year under pressure from the cardinals. His pontificate is chiefly one of building. He employed Bernini almost continuously: the Scala Regia in the Vatican, the Cathedra Petri inside the basilica, the church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, and above all the elliptical colonnade of St Peter's Square, begun in 1656, which Bernini described as the maternal arms of the church embracing those who arrive. He also drove street improvements and piazza clearances across Rome. He received Christina of Sweden, who had abdicated her throne and converted to Catholicism, into the Church in Rome in 1655 — a considerable propaganda success — and then found her a difficult and expensive guest. He continued the Jansenist controversy, requiring French clergy to sign a formulary condemning the disputed propositions in 1665. His relations with Louis XIV were poor and he was humiliated by the Treaty of Pisa in 1664. He died in 1667.
- Lived: 1599 CE – 1667 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: pope, cleric
