Pope Clement XII

Clement XII, 1730

Under Benedict XIII, the finances of the Papal States had been delivered into the hands of Cardinal Niccolò Coscia and other members of the curia, who had drained the financial resources of the see. Benedict died in 1730, and in the conclave that followed his death, after deliberating for four months, the College of Cardinals selected Corsini, 78 years old and with failing eyesight, who had held all the important offices of the Roman Curia.[3] Since Clement XII, no pope has been elected at an older age than Clement XII when he was elected.

As a Corsini, with his mother a Strozzi, the new pope represented a family in the highest level of Florentine society, with a cardinal in every generation for the previous hundred years.

On 1 May 1730, several of the cardinals initially settled upon electing Cardinal Gianantonio Davia but had been unable to secure the necessary support. To that end, they refocused their efforts on getting Corsini elected, securing him 31 votes. Corsini, however, was not seriously considered as a candidate until about early July when the candidacy of Pietro Marcellino Corradini started to waver. Meanwhile, the French, Spanish, and Germans were perfectly amenable to Corsini's election.[5]

Corsini took his papal name in memorial to Pope Clement XI, who created him cardinal.

His first moves as Pope Clement XII were to restore the papal finances. He demanded restitution from the ministers who had abused the confidence of his predecessor. The chief culprit, Cardinal Niccolò Coscia, was heavily fined and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. Papal finances were also improved through reviving the public lottery, which had been suppressed by the severe morality of Benedict XIII. Soon it poured into Clement XII's treasury an annual sum amounting to nearly a half million scudi, enabling him to undertake the extensive building programs for which he is chiefly remembered,[3] but which he was never able to see.

Bust of Clement XII by Edme Bouchardon

A competition for the majestic façade of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran was won by architect Alessandro Galilei. The façade he designed is perhaps more palatial than ecclesiastic, and was finished by 1735. Clement XII erected in that ancient basilica a magnificent chapel dedicated to his 14th century kinsman, St. Andrew Corsini. He restored the Arch of Constantine and built the governmental palace of the Consulta on the Quirinal. He purchased from Cardinal Alessandro Albani for 60,000 scudi a famous collection of statues, inscriptions, etc., and added it to the gallery of the Capitol. He paved the streets of Rome and the roads leading from the city, and widened the Corso. He began the triumphant Baroque Trevi Fountain, one of the noted ornaments of Rome. Under his reign a port was built at Ancona, with a highway that gave easy access to the interior. He drained the malarial marshes of the Chiana near Lake Trasimeno.The pope founded in 1732 the Italo-Albanian College Library of San Demetrio Corone in Calabria.[6][3]

Politically, however, this was not a successful papacy among the secular powers of Europe. When the attempt of papal forces to take over the ancient independent Republic of San Marino failed, Clement XII disavowed the arbitrary action of his legate, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni, in seizing San Marino, and restored its independence. He was also rebuffed in Papal claims over the Duchies of Parma and Piacenza.[3]

In August 1730 he gave permission for Victor Amadeus II of Savoy to carry out a morganatic marriage to Anna Canalis di Cumiana. Victor Amadeus II subsequently abdicated his throne causing great unrest in Savoy.

Papa Clemente XII, unknown Spanish artist (oil on canvas, 1739, University of Salamanca)

In ecclesiastic affairs he issued In eminenti apostolatus, the first papal decree against the Freemasons on 28 April 1738. He canonized Saint Vincent de Paul and proceeded with vigour against the French Jansenists. He campaigned for the reunion of the Roman and Orthodox churches, received the Patriarch of the Coptic Church and persuaded the Armenian Patriarch to remove the anathema against the Council of Chalcedon and Pope Leo I (440–461). He dispatched Joseph Simeon Assemani to the East for the twofold purpose of continuing his search for manuscripts and presiding as legate over a national council of Maronites.[3] He created the youngest Cardinal ever when on 19 December 1735, he named Luis Antonio Jaime de Borbón y Farnesio, Royal Infant of Spain, age 8, to the Sacred College.

Though he was blind and compelled to keep to his bed, from which he gave audiences and transacted affairs of state, he surrounded himself with capable officials, many of them his Corsini relatives, but he did little for his family except to purchase and enlarge the palace built in Trastevere for the Riarii, and now known as the Palazzo Corsini (the seat of the Regia Accademia dei Lincei). In 1754, his nephew, Cardinal Neri Corsini, founded there the famous Corsini Library.[3]

Clement XII created 35 cardinals in fifteen consistories held throughout his pontificate. The first individual he raised into the cardinalate was his nephew Neri Maria Corsini while he also raised his future successor Carlo della Torre di Rezzonico (Pope Clement XIII) to the cardinalate. He also raised his nephew Giovanni Antonio Guadagni to the cardinalate in 1731.

The pope named five new saints during his reign with the most notable being Vincent de Paul. He also beatified eight others including his predecessor Pope Benedict XI.