Sede Vacante 1823

Born in 1756 at Benevento, Bartolommeo Pacca was the son of Orazio Pacca, Marchese of Matrice, and Crispina Malaspina. He was educated in Naples and at Rome, and attended the Academy for Noble Ecclesiastics. From an early age he was a member of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, as was his uncle, Pietro Paolo Pacca. He entered the papal diplomatic service and was appointed Nuncio to Cologne in 1785; to carry out that function he was named titular Archbishop of Damiata. At the time of his appointment Germany was in the throes of the Enlightenment, and Catholics in particular were in revolt against the autocratic, authoritarian and centralist policies of the Papacy. The three spiritual electors of the Holy Roman Empire (the Archbishops of Cologne, Trier and Mainz) were all touched by Febronianism and deeply hostile to the appearance in their territories of an outside authority. Pacca's difficult mission became an impossible one when the new French Republic invaded the Rheinland; he was transferred to Lisbon, but there too the government was not favorable to papal interests. He was created Cardinal priest of San Silvestro on February 23, 1801. In 1808 French troops occupied Rome, and the Pope's secretary of state, Ercole Card. Consalvi, and his assistants were dismissed; Pacca was appointed pro-Secretary in their places. When Pius VII was arrested in July, 1809 and deported to France, Pacca attempted to accompany him, but he was sent to Fenestrelle where he was confined and closely guarded. When the Pope was forced into signing the Concordat of Fontainbleau (January 25, 1813), Pacca and other cardinals were allowed to join the Pope, but when they proved unaccommodating Napoleon rearrested the Pope and reimprisoned the cardinals. The Emperor himself declared, "Pacca is my enemy." With the fall of Napoleon, the Pope and his court returned to Rome, where Pacca was immediately named Camerlengo (1814-1824), and, in the absence of Cardinal Consalvi at the Congress of Vienna, he again served as pro-Secretary of State. He became Cardinal Bishop of Frascati in 1818, then Bishop of Porto and Santa Rufina in 1821, and finally Bishop of Ostia in 1830. He died in Rome on April 19, 1844. [His medal: Spink, 2093.]

Cortege of Cardinal Pacca in streets of Rome
Cortege of the Camerlengo, Cardinal Pacca, in the streets of Rome. 1823.

Prince Agostino Chigi (d. 1855) was the Marshal of the Holy Roman Church during the Interregnum as he was during those of 1830 and 1831. The Prince's diary for the years 1830-1855, Il tempo di Papa-Re, survives. [His medal: Spink, 2094.]

The Governor of the Conclave was Msgr. Tommaso Bernetti (1779-1852). He was born in Fermo, son of Count Salvatore Bernetti, and nephew of Cardinal Cesare Bracandoro. He prepared for the law, but the imprisonment of Pius VII in 1809 led to his deportation along with his uncle the Cardinal to France. He returned to Rome in 1814 along with his uncle, having been the principal manager of the process of the restoration of Pius VII to his domains. He was named a Domestic Prelate. From 1820 to 1826 he was Governor of Rome and Vice-Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church. He was sent to represent the Pope at the coronation of the Russian Czar Nicholas I in 1826, but, though he was received twice by the Czar, he was not present for the grand event. On his way home from St. Petersburg, he visited Paris, where he was received by King Charles X and attempted to negotiate compensation for the seizure of Avignon. His efforts were unsuccessful. He was named a Cardinal Deacon in 1826 while still in Paris. He was named Papal Legate in Ferrara, though he remained in Rome to become (for a few months) Secretary of State. In the conclave of 1831, Bernetti was the leading supporter of Cardinal Cappellari, who, as Gregory XVI, made him first pro-Secretary, and then, in a few months, Secretary of State a second time (1831 to 1836). He was forced to resign (pressure being applied by Prince Metternich and the Austrian autocratic interest) during the political crisis in the middle of the reign of Gregory XVI. The Papal States were occupied by Austrian troops. and he was replaced by his nemesis, the even more conservative Luigi Cardinal Lambruschini. Bernetti was finally ordained by his brother Alessandro in 1839. He participated in the Conclaves of 1829, 1830, and 1846. In 1848 he fled from Rome with Pius IX and never returned, spending his retirement in his home town.

Pius VII died on July 20, 1823. On the 20th of August, at a meeting of the General Congregation of Cardinals, it was decided to hold the conclave at the Quirinale Palace (Cancellieri, pp 70-71, who also gives the details of the distribution of quarters, pp. 95-102). On September 2, the Cardinals entered conclave; voting began on September 3, with forty-nine cardinals participating (Artaud de Montor, p. 38, says 50).

The Conclave of 1823 was in effect an attempt on the part of the cardinals to come to grips with the implications of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic republics created in Italy, and Italian aspirations toward self-government and unity. Cardinal Consalvi had been working toward accommodations with the new European political situation through a series of treaties with various states, and toward a more humane and rational administrative system for the Papal States. But his policies of dealing with non-Catholic states and making concessions unfavorable to Catholic supremacy in religious matters offended many sincere Catholics; and his efforts toward introducing more non-clerics into the papal administration and allowing more local self-government in the Papal States were repugnant to the absolutists. Ultimately, the election became a referendum on the continuation or abandonment of Consalvi's policies.

On September 16, Count Apponyi, the Austrian Ambassador was admitted to present an address to the Cardinals. In it he declared that Cardinal Albani would represent the views of the Austrian Court inside the Conclave. From the first days, Antonio Cardinal Severoli, the former papal Nuncio in Vienna, stood as opposition to Cardinal Consalvi, but he was in his turn opposed by the Austrians because he was opposed to Metternich's interventionist policies in Italian affairs. In his Memoirs, Metternich quotes a letter which he wrote to Count Tatischeff (April 6, 1829), recalling that during this conclave Cardinal Consalvi had favored Francesco Cardinal Castiglione:

"After the death of Pius VII., Consalvi wished to elevate [Castiglione] to the Pontificate, and he was not elected because he declared he would have no other Secretary of State than the same Cardinal. The Zelanti carried it against the moderate party."

On September 21, Cardinal Severoli managed to obtain 26 votes, only seven short of election. Giuseppe Cardinal Albani, on behalf of the Austrian Court, interposed the Veto (exclusiva) against Cardinal Severoli. In a letter to the Dean of the Sacred College, Cardinal Albani wrote (Goddes de Liancourt and Manning, 96-97):

In my quality of Ambassador extraordinary of Austria at the Sacred College assembled in conclave, which quality has been notified to your Eminences and brought to your knowledge, as well by means of the letter addressed to you by His Majesty the Emperor and King, as by the declaration made to your Eminences by the Imperial and Royal Ambassador of Austria, and, further, in virtue of the instructions which I have received I fulfill the unpleasing duty of declaring that the Imperial and Royal Court of Vienna will not accept for Sovereign Pontiff His Eminence the Cardinal Severoli and gives him a formal exclusion this 21st day of September, 1823.

The next day the French ambassador, the Duc de Laval, conveyed in a letter to the French cardinals his master's desire for a moderate Italian, and intimated that Consalvi was not acceptable. He was likewise opposed to any of the candidates of the 'zelanti', Cardinals di Gregorio, Bertazzoli, and Cavalchini, and indicated that the French Court would not like the candidacy of della Genga. This was thoroughly confusing, as the rule allowed only one veto by a Power in a conclave. Severoli's group, for their part, asked their excluded candidate to recommend an alternate candidate for them, and he suggested della Genga. Consalvi's friends were prepared to stand by Cardinal Castiglioni (Lector, 485-491)

The extreme conservatives ('zelanti') finally won the day, on September 28, securing just enough votes (thirty-four) to elect Annibale Cardinal Sermattei della Genga (who, ironically, had been Card. Pacca's successor at Cologne). As Pope Leo XII, della Genga immediately replaced Consalvi as Secretary of State.

For the Conclave of 1823, see: Chevalier Alexis François Artaud de Montor, Histoire du Pape Léon XII (Paris 1843), I, pp. 26-84 (with a fold-out chart of the various votes during the Conclave). G. Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica Vol. 38 (Venezia 1846), 51-53. Count C. A. de Goddes de Liancourt and James A. Manning, Pius the Ninth (London 1847). Also, Francesco Cancellieri, Notizie historiche delle stagioni e de' siti in cui sono stati tenuti i conclavi nella città di Roma... (Roma 1823). Lucius Lector [pseudonym of Joseph Guthlin], Le conclave (Paris 1894). Memoirs of Prince Metternich (1815-1829) (ed. Prince Richard Metternich) (tr. Mrs. Anexander Napier) Volume IV (New York 1881) pp . 61-66; 617.

For Cardinal Bernetti, see Elogio funebre del Cardinale Tommaso Bernetti recitato il giorno anniversario della sua morte nella Metropolitana di Fermo li 17 Marzo 1853 (Loreto 1853). On the replacement of Cardinal Consalvi, see: Ernest Daudet, Le Cardinal Consalvi (Paris 1866) 234-238.

For Cardinal Pacca, see the extensive entry in Charles Berton, Dictionnaire des cardinaux (1857) 1305-1342, based on his extensive memoirs: Mémoires du Cardinal Pacca (tr. Abbé Jamet) 2 volumes (Caen 1832); Marchese di Villarosa, Notizie di alcuni cavaliere del sacro ordine Gerosolimitano illustri per lettere e per belle arti . (Napoli 1841) pp. 231-239. Francis A. Burkle-Young, Papal Elections in the Age of Transition, 1878-1922 (Lanham MD: Lexington Books 2000), 22-23.