THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
siaates. i. 439 sqq., Gotha, 18S0; E. Michaud, Louis XIV. et Innocent XI., 4 vols., Paris, 1882 sqq.; H. M. Baird, The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, ii. 62-66, New York, 1895; Ranke, Popes, ii. 418-424, iii. 416-417, 422; Bower, Popes, iii. 333-334.
Innocent XII. (Antonio Pignatelli): Pope 1691- 1700. He was born at Naples of an old and distinguished family Mar. 13, 1615. His education was received from the Jesuits in Rome, and Urban VIII. attached him to the Curia when a youth of twenty. Succeeding popes honored and advanced him, Innocent XI. most of all, who made him cardinal in 1681 and elevated him to the archbishopric of Naples. Pignatelli was elected as a compromise between the Spanish-imperial and French parties of the cardinals on July 12, 1691. In all things he took Innocent XL (q.v.) as model, declared against nepotism, and by the bull Romanum decet pontificem sought to make it unlawful for any future pope to invest his relatives with the revenues, property, or offices of the Church. His largess to the poor was proverbial, he established a hospital in the Lateran and founded schools for the people. He suppressed simony and bribery, abolished sinecures, and meted out justice impartially to high and low and with merciless severity: the present spacious house of deputies in Rome was originally the Curia Innocentiana, provided by Innocent XII. for the administration of justice and public affairs. The religious orders received the pope's attention, and the monasteries were admonished to observe discipline.
Not the least of Innocent's achievements was the settlement, in 1693, of the long strife with France concerning the status of the Gallican Church (see Gallicanism; Innocent XI.) in a manner wholly favorable to the Curia. The vacant French bishoprics (see Innocent XI.) were now filled. The strife between Bossuet and Fenelon Innocent decided in 1699 by condemning, at the instigation of the former, twenty-three propositions from Fenelon's Explication des maximes des saints sur la vie interieure (see Fenelon). In 1694 Innocent took the part of the clergy in the Netherlands who had been suspended because of suspicion of Jansenistic leanings; but in 1696 he declared explicitly that he had no intention of retracting or changing the judgment of Alexander VII. concerning the teachings of Jansen. By his counsel to Charles II. of Spain to
make the duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV., his heir, Innocent helped to start the War of the Spanish Succession, which for so many years involved Europe in bloodshed. He reversed the policy of all popes since Urban VIII. of favoring the Hapsburgs and opposing France after the concessions of Louis XlV. The rupture between Austria and the Curia was not fully repaired when Innocent died, Sept. 27, 1700. K. Beneath.
Bibliography: Collectio bullarum . Innocentii XII., Rome, 1697; A. von Reumont, Geschichte der Stadt Rom, iii. 2, pp. 640 sqq., Berlin, 1870; C. Gerin, Recherches historiques sur I'assemblee du clerge de France de 1682, pp. 435-436, Paris, 1869; O. Klopp, Der Fall des Houses Stuart, vols, v.-viii., passim, Vienna, 1877-79; M. Brosch, Geschichte des Kirchenstaates, i. 450 sqq., Gotha, 1880; Ranke, Popes, ii. 425-426. 461, iii. 389-392; Bower, Popes, iii. 335.
Innocent XIII. (Michele Angelo Conti): Pope 1721-24. He was born in Rome May 13, 1655, of a family from which had sprung the great Innocent III. Alexander VIII. received him in the Curia, and Innocent XII. sent him as nuncio to Switzerland in 1695, and in 1697 to Portugal, where he remained till 1710 and conceived a dislike for the Jesuits. Clement XL made him cardinal, and he was chosen to succeed Clement at a stormy conclave May 8, 1721. His distrust of the Jesuits, increased by news of their conduct in China, led him to consider the suppression of the order; but he contented himself with forbidding them to carry on the mission in China and prohibiting temporarily the acceptance of new members. It was hoped that he might modify the constitution Unigenitus (see Jansen, Cornelius, Jansenism) of Clement XL; but he condemned a proposal to that effect from seven French bishops in 1721, and required unconditional acceptance of the constitution. Like his predecessor Innocent espoused the cause of the pretender to the English throne under the title of James III. He died Mar. 7, 1724. His contemporaries represent him as peace-loving and energetic.
K. Benrath.
Bibliography: M. Guarnacci, Vita: el res gestw pontiflcum Romanorum, ii. 381-382, Rome, 1751; J. M. Schrockh, Christliche Kirchengeschichte seit der Reformation, vi. 395 sqq., Leipsic, 1807; A. Schill, Die Konstilution Unigenitus, pp. 200 sqq., Freiburg, 1876; E. Michaud, in Internationale theologische Zeitschrift, v. 42-60, 304-331; Ranke, Popes, iii. 406-407; Bower, Popes, iii. 338.