Ganganelli, John Vincent Antony

, who was elevated to the popedom by the name of Clement XIV. was the son of a physician, and born in 1705. He was educated at Rimini, near his birth-place, and at the age of eighteen entered into the Franciscan order at Urbino. After finishing his studies at various seminaries, he was appointed in 1740 to be professor of divinity in the college of St Bonaventure, at Rome. In this situation he gained the good opinion of pope Benedict XIV. who gave him the place of counsellor of the holy office; and in 1759 Clement XIII. made him a cardinal. It is said that in all his intercourse with his brethren and at their public assemblies, he endeavoured to lower their tone, and to persuade them that it was almost too late to oppose the will of the sovereigns of Europe by a display of ecclesiastical power. This could not be very acceptable to the cardinals, who persisted in their opinion of the power of the reigning pontiff, and encouraged him in his disputes with France and other kingdoms. On the death of Clement XIII. Ganganelli was elected in his room In May 1769, chiefly by the influence of the courts of France and Spain, who now urged him to suppress the order of Jesuits, and although he did not enter on that measure without much deliberation, it was at last carried, and forms the principal event of his pontificate. He signed the brief for this purpose on July 21, 1773, and it is said, with considerable reluctance. The consequence to papal power was no doubt | great, but it appeared after all to be but one link in the great chain of causes which must relieve the world entirely from its influence. Ganganelli did not long survive this event, dying Sept. 22, 1773. After his death, a life of him was published by Caraccioli, replete with anecdotes illustrative of his amiable character and liberal sentiments; but we know not how to give credit to a writer who soon afterwards published some volumes of “Letters” by Ganganelli, which, it is now universally acknowledged, were forgeries. ¹