The longest conclave of the modern era and the magnanimity of a pontiff

17 August 1740. Prospero Lambertini, a native of Bologna, was elected as Benedict XIV following a conclave lasting over six months – the longest in modern history. He brought the Roman Curia back into the European cultural sphere, from which it had been isolated for decades. His interest in all fields of knowledge made him attentive to the needs of scientists (whom he supported by funding wide-ranging research) and to the development of scholarship: he established university chairs in mathematics, chemistry and physics, and Rome became a centre of high-level scholarship. A scholar in his own right and the author of seminal works on canon law, he maintained relationships with many other scholars of the time: a friend of Ludovico Antonio Muratori, the leading historian of the era, he also had contacts with Voltaire, who dedicated one of his works to him. He acquired the largest private library available in Rome, that of the Ottoboni family, to enrich the Vatican Library, placing the learned cardinals Querini and, later, Passionei at its helm, whilst the famous historian Giuseppe Garampi was put in charge of the secret archive. He promoted a revision of the Index of Prohibited Books (from which the general ban on works teaching the heliocentric theory was removed) and of the criteria for its compilation, which from then on included the obligation to consult the author in question, giving them the opportunity to defend themselves and clarify their views. His pontificate was a courageous attempt at reconciliation between the Church and modernity.

18 August 1276. Adrian V, the Genoese Ottobono Fieschi, elderly and ailing, died after a pontificate lasting just 39 days. The election had taken place in accordance with the strict rules introduced two years earlier by the constitution "Ubi periculum", through which Gregory X had established the conclave for the election of popes. The ‘custody’ of the conclave was entrusted to the Senator and Governor of Rome, at that time Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily. He strictly enforced the new rules by confining the cardinals to the Lateran and drastically reducing their rations to force them to reach a swift decision. The day after the election, Adrian convened a consistory in which, recalling the hardships he had endured during the conclave, he suspended the Ubi periculum, reserving the right to reform it at a later date – something he did not, however, have time to do.

20 August 1823. Pius VII, Luigi Barnaba Chiaramonti, died; he had been elected following the death of Pius VI, who had been held captive in France. Pius VII, too, suffered captivity at the hands of Napoleon. Kind-hearted and courageous, after Napoleon’s defeat he welcomed his persecutor’s relatives to Rome, as they sought refuge that had been denied them elsewhere. He provided them with protection and accommodation in a palace overlooking what is now Piazza Venezia, and one can still make out the small terrace there, sheltered by a canopy that allowed them to look out without being seen (or harassed by the Roman citizens, who were at that time strongly anti-French). That small terrace is a sign of the Pope’s magnanimity, but also of his extraordinary strength.