Pope Innocent XIII
Pope Innocent XIII reigned from 1721 to 1724 and spent much of it in poor health. Born Michelangelo dei Conti at Poli near Rome in 1655, he came from one of the oldest Roman families, which had already produced several popes including Innocent III, and he took his name in reference to them. He was educated by the Jesuits and at the Collegio Romano, entered the curia, and served as nuncio to Switzerland and then to Portugal, where he was effective. He was made a cardinal in 1706 and Bishop of Osimo and then Viterbo, resigning the latter because of ill health. He was elected in May 1721 after a conclave of some six weeks in which the imperial party exercised an exclusion against the leading candidate. He tried to lower the temperature of the Jansenist controversy, refusing to press the bull Unigenitus with the severity his predecessor had used, and declining to make an issue of every French bishop's reservations. His relations with the Jesuits were poor. He held them responsible for continuing to permit the Chinese Rites despite Clement XI's prohibition, and in 1723 forbade the Society to accept new novices in some territories and demanded compliance under threat of suppression. He invested Emperor Charles VI with Naples and Sicily, and granted a subsidy to Venice against the Ottomans. He also created his own brother a cardinal, and made Guillaume Dubois, the French regent's minister, a cardinal under heavy French pressure — an appointment widely regarded as scandalous given Dubois's private life and open cynicism about religion. He suffered from a hernia and from a strangulated bowel, and died in March 1724.
- Lived: 1655 CE – 1724 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: pope, cleric
