1830–1831 conclave

Background

Pope Pius VIII died on Thursday, 30 November 1830, at the age of sixty-nine. On 11 December, Monsignor Benedetto Cappelletti, the governor of Rome, informed the cardinals that there was a conspiracy in Rome involving the Bonaparte nephews of Cardinal Joseph Fesch. One in custody had been released to the Russian minister, since his mother was the Russian-born Catharina of Württemberg. Fesch refused to ask his nephews to leave Rome. A paper bomb exploded under the windows of the conclave. The conclave thus opened in an atmosphere of high tension.

Description

When the conclave convened on 14 December, some 45 of the 54 living cardinals participated; eight of whom were not Italian. Bartolomeo Pacca presided as dean of the College of Cardinals.

Initially the chief candidates included Emmanuele De Gregorio and Bartolomeo Pacca, who had been papabili in the 1829 conclave, plus Giacomo Giustiniani, who was a long-serving papal diplomat but who was vetoed by King Ferdinand VII. Giustiniani had served as nuncio at Madrid and provoked the hostility of the prime minister in ecclesiastical matters, and Queen Christina regarding the succession.

From the first day of the scrutiny, which was the 15th, up to the 27th, the votes were fairly evenly divided between De Gregorio and Pacca. However, it became clear eventually that neither of the unvetoed papabili could gain the support of two-thirds of the cardinals, and with Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich wanting a very strong pope to hold firm against the flood of revolution haunting Europe at the time of the conclave, Giuseppe Albani, who led the Austrian faction and supported Pacca, Cardinal Tommaso Bernetti, who vied with Albani for the position of secretary of state, threw his support to De Gregorio.

Cappellari appeared as an alternative to both De Gregorio and Macchi only when the conclave was well-advanced, but even though Albani worked against him, Cappellari eventually took the lead and won the election, taking the papal name Gregory XVI.

No conclave since has lasted as long as a week, but at the time no conclave since 1667 had lasted fewer than three weeks. The conclave took eighty-three ballots to deliver a two-thirds majority to a candidate, whereas no conclave since has taken more than fourteen.

Cappellari, then a Camaldolese priest and prefect of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, was also the last pope not a bishop when elected.

References

References

1. [https://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/SV1830.html Adams, John Paul. "Sede Vacante 1830-1831", California State University Northridge]
2. [https://books.google.com/books?id=paRDAAAAYAAJ&dq=1830%E2%80%9331+papal+conclave&pg=PA178 Silvagni, David. "The Election of Gregory XVI", ''Rome, Its Princes, Priests and People'', vol. 3, (Fanny McLaughlin, tr.), E. Stock, 1887]{{PD-notice}}
3. [https://books.google.com/books?id=BBM3AAAAMAAJ&dq=1830%E2%80%9331+papal+conclave&pg=PA616 Murphy, John Nicholas. ''The Chair of Peter'', Burns and Oates, 1886, p. 616]{{PD-notice}}
4. "Miranda, Salvador. "Conclave of December 14, 1830 to February 2, 1831", Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Florida International University".
5. [https://zenit.org/articles/some-of-the-history-of-conclaves/ "Some of the History of Conclaves", ''Zenit'', March 11, 2013]