Pope Innocent XII
Pope Innocent XII reigned from 1691 to 1700 and abolished the nepotism that had shaped the papacy for centuries. Born Antonio Pignatelli at Spinazzola in the Kingdom of Naples in 1615 into a noble family, he entered the curia young, served as nuncio in Tuscany, Poland and Vienna, and became Archbishop of Naples. He was elected at seventy-six after a conclave lasting five months, deadlocked between French and imperial factions. In June 1692 he issued the bull Romanum decet Pontificem. It forbade popes to grant estates, offices or revenues to relatives, limited the family members who could hold office to one cardinal, and capped what he could receive. Every pope since has sworn to observe it. Innocent applied it to himself absolutely, telling petitioners that the poor were his nephews, and he spent the money that would have gone to a family on charitable institutions — a hospice for the poor at the Lateran, a court building at Montecitorio, and grain provision for Rome. He settled the long quarrel with Louis XIV over the Gallican Articles of 1682, which had asserted the French church's independence; the king withdrew them in 1693 and Innocent confirmed the bishops involved, ending a standoff that had left dozens of sees vacant. He condemned Quietism in 1699 in the person of Fénelon, whose Maxims of the Saints he censured in mild terms after prolonged pressure from Bossuet and the French court. At the end of his life he advised the dying Charles II of Spain to leave his throne to a Bourbon rather than a Habsburg, a judgement that helped precipitate the War of the Spanish Succession. He died in 1700.
- Lived: 1615 CE – 1700 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: pope, cleric
