Pope Clement X
Pope Clement X reigned from 1670 to 1676, having been elected at seventy-nine as a compromise after a conclave lasting more than four months. Born Emilio Bonaventura Altieri in Rome in 1590 to a patrician family, he trained in law, served as a nuncio to Naples and Poland, and was Bishop of Camerino. He was made a cardinal only weeks before the conclave, by the dying Clement IX. The conclave was deadlocked between French and Spanish factions through the winter of 1669-70. Altieri was proposed as a candidate too old to matter, and reportedly protested his age and unfitness before accepting. He was in fact vigorous enough to govern for six years, but he delegated heavily to Cardinal Paluzzo Paluzzi degli Albertoni, whom he adopted into his family and who was known as the cardinal-nephew — a revival of the practice that Innocent XII abolished a generation later. His pontificate was consumed by conflict with Louis XIV over the régale, the French crown's claim to the revenues and appointments of vacant bishoprics. Clement protested repeatedly and was ignored, and the dispute ran on for years after his death. He subsidised John Sobieski's campaigns against the Ottomans in Poland, which contributed to the victory at Khotyn in 1673, and continued to press the Christian powers to combine against the Turks. He celebrated the Jubilee of 1675, which drew very large crowds to Rome. He continued the baroque adornment of the city, commissioning Bernini's angels for the Ponte Sant'Angelo and fountains in St Peter's Square. He canonised several saints and died in July 1676, aged eighty-six.
- Lived: 1590 CE – 1676 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: pope, cleric
