RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Conrad of Gelnhausen Consalvi
electing popes. The Roman Catholic propaganda which had resulted in the conversion of his close friend Baron Johann Christian von Boyneburg evoked two polemic works from his pen, the Defensio ecclesice Protestantium adversum duo pontificiorum argumenta (1654), in which he impugned the doctrine that a Church is invalid without apostolic succession, and Fundamentorum fidei pontifidce concussio (1654), denying that either the pope or an ecumenical council was the infallible representative of God on earth in matters of faith and conduct. This called forth a series of refutations, to which Conring repUed in the same year with vigor. He also essayed ironies, and in his posthumous De scriptoribus sedecim post Christum naium sccculorum commentarius (1705) discussed the Church Fathers, and in his De Germanorum imperio Romano (1644) considered the changed legal relations existing between emperor and pope. He likewise touched on dogmatics, exegesis, and criticism in works of minor importance
(E. HENKEf.)
Bibliography: The Opera, ed. J. W Goebel, incomplete, in 7 vols., appeared, Brunswick, 1730. Consult: O. Stobbe, H. Conring, Berlin, 1870; K. F. H. Marx, Zur Erinnerung der arztlichen Wirksamkeit H. Comings, Gottingen, 1873.
CONSALVI, ERCOLE: Italian cardinal and diplomat; b. at Rome June 8, 1757; d. there Jan. 24, 1824. He received his early education at the school of the Piarists at Urbino, which he left to enter the college founded by Cardinal Henry of York at Frascati. The youth's talents won the favor of the cardinal duke. From Frascati he went to the ecclesiastical academy at Rome. On Early leaving the Academy in 1783, he re- Life and ceived a post in the papal household, Training, and aided by the influence of his kinsman. Cardinal Negroni, moved rapidly through several grades of office, receiving in 1792 the post of auditor for Rome at the Roman Rota. He became so prominent a figure in the churchly and noble circles of Rome and Frascati that he gained the sobriquet of " Monsignore Everywhere." He was military assessor at the time of the rise of the French Directory, and when the latter compelled Pius VI. to leave Rome, Consalvi, after suffering a short term of imprisonment in the castle of St. Angelo, made his way to Venice where he was chosen secretary of the conclave that met to elect a successor to Pius VI.
By Pius VII. he was created secretary of state Aug. 11, 1800, and at the same time was made cardinal deacon of St. Agata in Suburra. Thenceforth he appeared as the prime mover of the papal diplomacy. The first task to which he applied himself was the negotiation of a concordat with the French Republic, which was successfully accomplished July 15, 1801 (see Concordats, VI., 1, § 1). Napoleon's innovations, as Consalvi admitted, entirely annulled the results of his now laborious efforts. Napoleon knew him as his opponent and in 1806, when the French emperor submitted to the pope a plan for a defensive alliance coupled with the recognition of the pope as sovereign in Rome and of Napoleon as Holy Roman emperor, he ni.-16
declared that, if Consalvi refused to acquiesce in the proposition, it would be better for him to retire from his post. The proposal was rejected, and in June, 1806, Consalvi was superseded by Cardinal Casoni.
When in 1809 Pius VII. was deported from Rome Napoleon summoned the college of cardinals to assemble at Paris, partly from the desire to add the luster of their presence to the celebration of his marriage to Marie Louise, partly Diplo- that he might hold them under his matic immediate influence in case of the
Achieve- death of Pius VII. Consalvi arrived at ments. Paris in February, 1810. He was one of the thirteen " black " cardinals who refrained from attending the marriage ceremony of the emperor, thereby arousing the anger of Napoleon to the point where he threatened the ex-secretary of state with death. His property was sequestrated, with that of the other twelve, he was forbidden to display the insignia of his rank, and was ordered to take up his residence at Reims, where he composed his Mcmoires (2 vols., Paris, 1864; 2d ed., 1866). After the conclusion of the Concordat of Fontainebleau (Jan. 25, 1813; see Concordats, VI., 1, § 3) he took up his residence with Pius VII. Upon the fall of Napoleon he was sent to Paris as representative of the papal interests in the council of the powers, and in the same capacity he visited London and attended the Congress of Vienna. There he revealed a depth of insight and suppleness of spirit which aroused the admiration of the pope and the Viennese diplomats. Thoroughly a modern, he fought zealously for the interests of the Church without deluding himself with medieval conceptions of the rights and powers of the papacy. Article 103 of the Peace of Vienna restored to the Church possession of the districts of Camerino, Beneventum, and Pontecorvo, and the legations of Ravenna, Bologna, and Ferrara, v/ith the exception of a small strip of territory included within the last, on the left bank of the Po. " His was the boldest and keenest game played on the green table," said Talleyrand to Metternich.
Before leaving Vienna, Consalvi pledged himself to the powers to put an end to the sacerdotal regime in Rome, a promise which he found impossible to keep. For the government of the States of the Church he issued a code of laws which aimed at their reduction to a centralized and uniformly organized principality. The papal territories were divided into seventeen delegations, each under the authority of a prelate exercising functions similar to those of the prefect of a department Failure in France. In the administration of
and Re- affairs he was opposed by the zealots
tirement. under Cardinal Pacca, who detested Consalvi as the representative of modern and worldly ideals. After 1815 he was engaged in the negotiation of a series of concordats by which the relations of the Church with every Catholic state but Austria were regulated anew. In the revolutionary movement of 1820 he showed himself resolutely opposed to all concession, and with the help of the Austrian troops order was maintained in the legations. Soon, however, his rela-
Conscience