INNOCENT XII, POPE

Pontificate: July 12, 1691, to Sept. 27, 1700; b. Antonio Pignatelli, near Spinazzola (Puglia), Italy, March 13, 1615. This Neapolitan noble studied at the Collegio Romano, entered the Roman Curia under Urban VIII, and

was appointed vice-legate of Urbino. Innocent X nominated him Inquisitor to Malta (1646–49). He served as governor of Viterbo, nuncio to Tuscany (1652), to Poland (1660), and to Vienna (1668). He fell into disfavor with Clement X, who removed him from Rome by giving him the bishopric of Lecce. He was recalled to Rome (1673) and named secretary of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, and then maestro di camera. Pope Innocent XI created him a cardinal (September 1, 1681), bishop of Faenza, legate of Bologna, and archbishop of Naples (1687). He was elected to the papacy as a compromise candidate on July 12, 1691. This exceptionally holy and charitable priest developed the Hospital of St. Michele for poor youths, opened the Lateran Palace to the unemployed, curtailed the sale of offices, and reduced court expenses. He reorganized the administration in the Curia Innocenziana. By the Romanum decet pontificem (June 22, 1692) he forbade nepotism, decreeing that only one of the pope's relatives should be eligible for the cardinalate. He founded the Congregation for the Discipline and Reform of Regulars (1694). He also prohibited the electoral chapters in Germany from nominating to bishoprics and monasteries (1695). Innocent likewise promoted the development of the Propaganda in America, Persia, and China.

Innocent avoided a schism with the Gallican Church by inducing Louis XIV to revoke "the declaration of the french clergy," which obliged the bishops to sign the Four Gallican Articles. The bishops sent letters of retraction. Concerning jansenism, he prohibited the bishops' adding to the formulary of alexander VII, which he reconfirmed, and forbade the discussion of the Five Propositions. The question of French quietism was decided by Innocent's Cum alias (1699), which condemned the 23 propositions contained in Fénelon's Maximes.

Through Innocent, Louis XIV placed in the Peace of Ryswick (1697) the clause that in all the restored countries the Catholic religion was to remain in the state in which it was found at the moment of the signing. Innocent approved the first constitution of the King of Spain, and his preference for Philip of Anjou as heir to the Spanish throne helped bring about the war of the Spanish succession.

Bibliography: innocent xii, Collectio Bullarum … (Rome 1697). l. pastor, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, (London–St. Louis 1938–61) 32:414, 526, 563, 567–573. j. paquier, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant et al., 15 v. (Paris 1903–50; Tables générales 1951–) 7.2: 2013–15. g. schwaiger, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 5:695. b. pellegrino, Reforme, religione, e politica durante il pontificato di Innocenzo XII, (Galatina 1994). m. fatica, "La reclusione dei poveri a Roma durante il pontificato di Innocenzo XII (1692–1700)," Ricerche per la stroria religiosa di Roma 3 (1979) 133–80. a. d. wright, The Early Modern Papacy: From the Council of Trent to the French Revolution, 1564–1789 (London 2000).

[i. j. calicchio]