Skip to content
Cathedra

XIII1605-1799

Baroque and Enlightenment

From Bernini's colonnade to Napoleon's shadow: two centuries of splendor and shrinking leverage.

Popes No. 232-250

The popes of this era built the Rome that visitors still photograph: Bernini's colonnade opening its arms before St. Peter's, fountains, facades, and the theatrical confidence of the Baroque. It was the Counter-Reformation's victory lap in stone, and for a while the substance matched the show.

But the era's political story is a long, elegant retreat. Westphalia settled Europe's religious wars without Rome; Catholic monarchs learned to run their national churches with polite indifference to the pope; the philosophes made mockery fashionable; and in 1773 the Bourbons forced a pope to dissolve the Jesuits, his own best soldiers. The century ends at the absolute bottom: Pius VI, seized by French troops, dying a prisoner in Valence in 1799, while Europe wondered aloud whether he would be the last pope.

The world at the time

  1. 1618

    politicalThe Thirty Years' War

    Europe's confessional catastrophe begins; its peace will be signed over papal protest, a sign of the new order.

  2. 1633

    culturalTrial of Galileo

    The Holy Office forces Galileo's abjuration, the emblematic collision of papal authority with the new science.

  3. 1648

    politicalPeace of Westphalia

    The settlement ending the wars of religion ignores Innocent X's protest entirely; Europe now negotiates without Rome.

  4. 1773

    religiousSuppression of the Jesuits

    Under Bourbon pressure, Clement XIV dissolves the papacy's most loyal order, the era's starkest surrender.

  5. 1789

    politicalThe French Revolution

    The revolution nationalizes the French church and will soon carry a pope off to die in captivity.

Popes of this era

  • Leo XINo. 232 · 1605
  • Paul VNo. 233 · 1605-1621
  • Gregory XVNo. 234 · 1621-1623
  • Urban VIIINo. 235 · 1623-1644
  • Innocent XNo. 236 · 1644-1655
  • Alexander VIINo. 237 · 1655-1667
  • Clement IXNo. 238 · 1667-1669
  • Clement XNo. 239 · 1670-1676
  • Innocent XINo. 240 · 1676-1689
  • Alexander VIIINo. 241 · 1689-1691
  • Innocent XIINo. 242 · 1691-1700
  • Clement XINo. 243 · 1700-1721
  • Innocent XIIINo. 244 · 1721-1724
  • Benedict XIIINo. 245 · 1724-1730
  • Clement XIINo. 246 · 1730-1740
  • Benedict XIVNo. 247 · 1740-1758
  • Clement XIIINo. 248 · 1758-1769
  • Clement XIVNo. 249 · 1769-1774
  • Pius VINo. 250 · 1775-1799