THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
sqq., Paris, 1894; Kehrmann, Frankreicha innere Kirchenpolitik, Jena, 1890; Bower, Popes, iii, 145-149, 152, 162- 163, 205; Neander, Christian Church, v, 56, 62-77, 84, 105-107; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vi, 827-1031; Pastor, Popes, i, 165-201; N. Valois, La France et le grand tchisme d' Occident, 2 vols., Paris, 1896; Creighton, Papacy, i, 146-315, 374. 2. Pietro Francesco: His works were issued in 3 vols., Ravenna, 172S. and the bulls are in the Bullarium Romanum, vol. xxii, Turin, 1871. For his life consult A. Borgia, Benedicti XIII vita, Rome, 1752; A. von Reumont, Geschichte der Stadt Rom, iii, 652—653, Berlin, 1868; Bower, Popes, iii, 339; J. Chantrel, Le Pape Benoit XIII, 1724-30, Paris, 1874; M. Brosch, Geschichte des Kirchenstaats, ii, 61 sqq., Gotha, 1882; Ranke, Popes, vol. iii, No. 158.
Benedict XIV (Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini) : Pope 1740-58. He was born [Mar. 31] 1675 at Bologna; at thirteen he entered the Collegium Clementinurn at Rome, and after studies in theology and philosophy, took up the law, practising as advocate of the consistory, and as promotor fidei, in which office he laid the foundations of his famous work on beatification and canonization. Clement XI and Innocent XIII gave him several Roman dignities; Benedict XIII made him archbishop of Ancona (1727) and cardinal (1728); in 1731 Clement XII transferred him to the more important see of Bologna, where he found time to write his works on the mass, on the festivals, and Qucestiones canoniccE. After the death of Clement XII the conclave was at a deadlock for six months between the French, Austrian, and Spanish factions, and finally agreed on Lambertini as a compromise candidate (Aug. 17, 1740).
Benedict was a man of great learning and piety, and did much for the welfare of the Pontifical States, by the promotion of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures and by a decrease in taxation. His expressed principle that in him " the pope must take precedence of the temporal ruler " was carried out both in the strenuous efforts which he made to raise the tone of the clergy and in his efforts to remove all the misunderstandings which had existed between the curia and the European powers, even at the cost of considerable concessions. He was not able entirely to remove the antagonism between the eighteenth-century spirit
Friendly and religion, but he composed more
Relations than one difference temporarily. Thus with Other he appeased John V of Portugal by the
Rulers. privilege of enjoying the revenues of vacant bishoprics and abbeys in his kingdom, as well as by the title of Rex ftdelissimus . In a concordat with Naples (1741) he went even beyond the concessions which Benedict XIII had made, and concluded another with the king of Sardinia which was still less favorable to the extreme claims of the Church. Still another was made with Spain in 1753, which went so far as to allow King Ferdinand VI the right of nomination to all the ecclesiastical benefices in his kingdom except fifty-two. Friendly relations were also maintained with the empire, and strict neutrality observed in the war of the Austrian Succession, although the contending armies not seldom crossed the boundaries of the Papal States. When Albert of Bavaria was elected emperor as Charles VII and applied to Benedict for confirmation, he gave
him his hearty good wishes, but refused at first to recognize his successor, Francis I, who hr.d neglected to observe this formality. He abandoned his opposition, however, and became an active ally of Austria in the contest with Venice over Aquileia. As a compromise measure, he finally divided the patriarchate into two dioceses, that of Gorz, which was to be Austrian, and that of Udine, Venetian. Though he refused to confirm the guaranties which the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, on becoming a Roman Catholic, was obliged to give for the preservation of the rights of his evangelical subjects, Benedict showed none of the temper of a persecutor, and had friendly personal relations with many Protestants. He was the first pope to concede the title of king of Prussia to the ruler whom the curia had previously styled margrave of Brandenburg; and he yielded to Frederick the Great's wishes so far as to allow the bishop of Breslau to decide all Catholic causes in Prussia, appeals to the pope being forbidden. In the Gallican controversy he took a wise and tolerant part, reversing a decision of De Beaumont, the archbishop of Paris, which made formal assent to the constitution Unigenitus a condition for receiving the sacraments; in an encyclical of Oct. 16, 1756, he laid down the rule that the ministrations of the Church should be refused only to those who had publicly contemned the bull.
Benedict's conciliatory temper made him little likely to sympathize with the Jesuits, with whom he dealt at the very beginning of his reign in a way that did not please them, deciding against them, in the controversy over the " Chinese rites," the question how far the principles of The Jesuits. Christianity might be accommodated for the purpose of making more speedy conversions among the heathen, in two bulls — the Ex quo singulari of 1742, and the Omnium sollicitudinum of 1744 (see Accommodation, § 9). Though he was no partizan of the Jesuits, it was not until shortly before his death that he undertook (1758) the long-planned reform of the order, at least in Portugal, entrusting its execution to Saldanha, the patriarch of Lisbon.
In 1750 Benedict celebrated a jubilee with great pomp, and invited the Protestants also to attend — naturally with no other result than to call out a number of polemical replies. To the end of his life he found his chief diversion in the company of learned men, of whom a circle assembled round him once a week. During his pontificate he composed his most important work, De synodo dicecesana. He had a catalogue of the Vatican library drawn up by the learned Assemani, founded societies for the study of Roman and Christian antiquities and of church history, and cooperated in the foundation of the archeological academy with Winckelmann, who came to Rome in 1755. He died as he had lived, with cheerful, goodhumored words upon his lips, May 3, 1758.
(A. Hauck.)
Bibliography: His works were collected by Azevedo in 12 vols., Rome, 1747-51, more completely, 15 vols., Venice, 1767, and in 17 vols., Prato, 1839-46; vols. 15-17 of the Prato ed. contain the bulls; Brief e Benedicts XIV an Pier