Pope Innocent X, Capitoline Museums.

With the death of the Barberini Pope Urban VIII in 1644 and the accession of the Pamphilj Pope Innocent X, the Barberini family and their favorite artist, Bernini, fell into disrepute.

A large hieratic bronze of Innocent X by Algardi is now to be found in the Capitoline Museums.

Da alessandro algardi, papa innocenzo X, metà del 17mo secolo. JPG |< center > Pope Innocent X < center >

Although various Ambrosians were given the title of Blessed in recognition of their holiness: Antonio Gonzaga of Mantua, Filippo of Fermo, and Gerardo of Monza, the order was eventually dissolved by Pope Innocent X in 1650.

The Catholic Encyclopaedia make the point that the oath and the penalties were so severe that it stopped the efforts of the Gallicanizing party among the English Catholics, who had been ready to offer forms of submission similar to the old oath of Allegiance, which was condemned anew about this time by Pope Innocent X.

" Although he did not fare so well during the reign of Innocent X, under Alexander VII, he once again regained pre-eminent artistic domination and continued to be held in high regard by Clement IX.

* 1574 – Pope Innocent X ( d. 1655 )

Pope Innocent X ( 1644 – 1655 ) recalled Chigi to Rome and subsequently made him Cardinal Secretary of State and Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria del Popolo.

When Innocent X died, Chigi, the candidate favoured by Spain, was elected pope after eighty days in the conclave, on 7 April 1655, taking the name of Alexander VII.

He also continued to take the Jesuit part in their conflict with the Jansenists, whose condemnation he had vigorously supported as advisor to Pope Innocent X.

At the request of the Venetian Republic, Ottoboni was made Cardinal-Priest of San Salvatore in Lauro by Pope Innocent X ( 1644 – 55 ) in 1652, and was later given the bishopric of Brescia, in Venetian territory, where he quietly spent the best years of middle life.

During the reign of Pope Innocent X ( 1644 – 55 ), who was hostile to the Barberini and their adherents, Rospigliosi continued his appointment as papal nuncio to the court of Spain.

Pope Innocent X ( 1644 – 55 ) sent him as nuncio to Naples, where he remained for eight years.

Instead, it elected Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphili as his successor at the papal conclave of 1644, who took the name of Innocent X.

Pope Innocent X ( 6 May 1574 – 7 January 1655 ), born Giovanni Battista Pamphilj ( or Pamphili ), was Pope from 1644 to 1655.

Soon after his accession, Innocent X ( as he chose to be called ) initiated legal action against the Barberini for misappropriation of public funds, an easily demonstrated crime in 17th-century courts anywhere.

Innocent X confiscated their property, and on 19 February 1646, issued a bull ordaining that all cardinals who might leave the Papal States for six months without express papal permission would be deprived of their benefices and eventually of their cardinalate itself.

The French parliament declared the papal ordinance void in France, but Innocent X did not yield until Mazarin prepared to send troops to Italy.

Henceforth the papal policy towards France became more friendly, and somewhat later the Barberini were rehabilitated when the son of Taddeo Barberini, Maffeo Barberini, married Olimpia Giustiniani, a niece of Innocent X.

In 1653, Innocent X with the Cum Occasione papal bull condemned 5 propositions of Jansenius's Augustinus, inspired by St. Augustine, as heretical and close to Lutheranism.

Hostilities between the papacy and the Duchy of Parma resumed in 1649, and forces loyal to Pope Innocent X destroyed the city of Castro on 2 September 1649.

Innocent X objected to the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia, against which his nuncio, Fabio Chigi, in his name vainly protested, and against which in 1650 he issued the bull Zelo Domus Dei backdated to November 1648, which was ignored by the European Powers.

During the Civil War ( 1642 – 49 ) in England and Ireland, Innocent X strongly supported the independent ( and Catholic ) Confederate Ireland, over the objections of Mazarin and the former British Queen and at that time Queen Mother, Henrietta Maria, exiled in Paris.

At first Pope Innocent III tried pacific conversion, and sent a number of legates into the Cathar regions.

In 1353 Innocent VI sent him as a legate into Italy, with a view to the restoration of the papal authority in the states of the Church, at the head of a small mercenary army.

In 405, Pope Innocent I sent a list of the sacred books to Exuperius, a Gallic bishop.

Innocent sent a delegation to intercede on behalf of John in 405.

In c. 405, Pope Innocent I sent a list of the sacred books to a Gallic bishop, Exsuperius of Toulouse.

At the First Council of Lyon ( 1245 ) he attracted the attention of Pope Innocent IV, who sent him on two missions in Germany.

In September 1362, Abbot William arrived in Avignon, returning from Naples, where he had been sent by Pope Innocent IV as papal legate, only to learn that the pope had died.

In 1143, Innocent refused to recognise the Treaty of Mignano with Roger of Sicily, who sent Robert of Selby to march on papal Benevento.

In 1245, Innocent IV issued bulls and sent an envoy in the person of Giovanni da Pian del Carpine ( accompanied by Benedict the Pole ) to the " Emperor of the Tartars ".

In 1245 Innocent had sent another mission, through another route, led by Ascelin of Lombardia, also bearing letters.

Other letters that Innocent III sent during this attempt to mandate and secure the papal proprietor as the universal authority by demeaning and attempting to minimize the authority of the emperors were written under the title “ Papal Policies ”:

Innocent III sent Peter of Capua to the kings France and England with specific instructions to convince them to settle their differences.

His protector Ladislaus sent a squad of troops to quell the riots, and by January 1406 the Romans again acknowledged Papal temporal authority, and Innocent VII felt able to return.

In the capacity of papal legate he was sent to France in 1480, where he remained four years, and acquitted himself with such ability that he soon acquired a paramount influence in the College of Cardinals, an influence which increased rather than diminished during the pontificate of Pope Innocent VIII.

In 1485, Dalberg was sent as an ambassador to Pope Innocent VIII in Rome.

Albert had been responsible for giving a rule to the Humiliati during his long tenure as Bishop of Vercelli, and was well-versed in diplomacy, being sent by Pope Innocent III as Papal Legate to what was known as the Eastern Province.

Haakon finally achieved royal recognition by Pope Innocent in 1246, and Cardinal William of Sabina was sent to Bergen and coronated Haakon in 1247.

The son of Nigel Theobald, Sudbury ( as he later became known ) was born at Sudbury in Suffolk, studied at the University of Paris, and became one of the chaplains of Pope Innocent VI, one of the Avignon popes, who in 1356 sent him on a mission to Edward III of England.

Whatever the Constantinople relic was, it did fall into the hands of the Turks, and in 1492, under circumstances minutely described in Pastor's History of the Popes, the Sultan Bayezid II sent it to Pope Innocent VIII to encourage the pope to continue to keep his brother and rival Zizim ( Cem Sultan ) prisoner.

The victorious Christians seized several prizes of war: the tapestry covering the entrance to Al Nasir's tent was sent to the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas near Burgos where it remains on display to date, and Miramamolín's tent and standard were delivered to Pope Innocent III.

Pelagius wrote a letter and statement of belief showing himself to be orthodox and sent them to Innocent I.

It was sent to Archbishop Anders of Lund by Pope Innocent III as a reply to the Archbishop's earlier letter which has not survived.

To regulate ecclesiastical affairs, which had suffered during the struggles with Sverre, Innocent IV in 1247 sent Cardinal William of Sabina as legate to Norway.

The accomplished abbate was sent on this delicate mission in 1696, with the title of envoy extraordinary, and he fulfilled his difficult task so well that Pope Innocent XI, in recognition of certain privileges he had secured for the Hanoverian Catholics, consecrated him bishop of Spiga in the Spanish West Indies.