page_title: Pope Clement X
section_title: Pontificate
hierarchical_section_title: Pope Clement X / Pontificate
caption_attribution_description: Gianlorenzo bernini, busto di Clemente X
context_page_description: Pope Clement X, born Emilio Bonaventura Altieri, was Pope from 29 April 1670 to his death in 1676.
context_section_description: On 29 April 1670, the papacy was offered to him by fifty-nine cardinals present at the election; only two being against him. He, however, objected because of his age, for he was almost eighty, and exclaimed, "I am too old to bear such a burden." Pointing to Cardinal Brancaccio, Altieri said he was the cardinal whom they ought to elect. He persisted in refusing, protesting that he no longer had strength or memory; eventually, with tears he accepted, and out of gratitude to his benefactor, by ten years his junior, he assumed the name of Clement X. He was crowned on 11 May.
  On 8 June Clement X took possession of St. John Lateran. On 11 June, he confirmed the Minor Observantines in the Holy Land in the privileges and indulgences granted to those who visit the holy places, according to the decrees of Alexander VII and Clement IX. In the same month, he granted to the prelate-clerks of the chamber the use of the violet-coloured band around their hats. Occasionally forgetful, he sometimes promised the same favors to different people and came to rely on his cardinal-nephew, Cardinal Paoluzzi-Altieri.
  All but one of the male scions of the Altieri family had chosen the ecclesiastical career. On his accession to the papacy, Clement X, in order to save the Altieri name from extinction, adopted the Paoluzzi family, and proposed that one of the Paluzzi should marry Laura Caterina Altieri, the sole heiress of the family. In exchange for adopting the Altieri surname, he would make one of the Paoluzzi a cardinal. Following the wedding, which he officiated, he appointed his niece's uncle-in-law Cardinal Paoluzzi-Altieri to the office of cardinal nephew to take on the duties which he was prevented from doing by age. The main activity was to invest the Church's money, and with advancing years gradually entrusted to him the management of affairs, to such an extent that the Romans said he had reserved to himself only the episcopal functions of benedicere et sanctificare, resigning in favour of the cardinal the administrative duties of regere et gubernare.
  Clement X advised the Christian princes to love each other and to prove it by generous measures, and by a prudent and scrupulous conduct. It was especially between Spain and France that the pope desired to witness a renewal of feelings of good understanding.
  In 1671, the Pope published an edict by which he declared that a noble might be a merchant without loss of his nobility, provided always that he did not sell by retail. In 1676, Gianlorenzo Bernini sculpted one of his final statues, a bust of Clement X.
caption: Bust of Pope Clement X by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
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