X-Nico

17 unusual facts about Pope Pius VII


Anthony Kohlmann

When the Jesuits in Russia, still functioning as a religious community after the suppression of the Society of Jesus in Catholic Europe, were recognized in 1801 by Pope Pius VII, Kohlmann joined them and entered their novitiate on 21 June 1803.

Antoine-Éléonor-Léon Leclerc de Juigné

He was immediately summoned to Rome, where he submitted his resignation in January 1802 in response to the request of Pope Pius VII.

Arch of Titus

The opposite side of the Arch of Titus received new inscriptions after it was restored during the pontificate of Pope Pius VII by Giuseppe Valadier in 1821.

Archcathedral Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul, Poznań

In 1821, Pope Pius VII raised the cathedral to the status of a Metropolitan Archcathedral and added the second patron - Saint Paul.

Étienne-Alexandre Bernier

Under Napoleon Bonaparte, Bernier was assigned to negotiate the unification of nation and church in France with the Papal delegation of Pius VII.

Franciszek Kareu

After Pope Pius VII's official approval of the Jesuits' existence in Russia, he was declared Superior General of the Society of Jesus (1801–1802)

Through the establishment of the Jesuits in the Duchy of Parma in 1793, and the letter of endorsement from Emperor Paul I of Russia, the Pope, Pius VII began mechanisms that eventuated in the universal approval of the existence of the Society in 1814.

In 1801 however, the strong opposition towards the existence of the Society from Charles IV of Spain led Pope Pius VII to qualify his acceptance of the Society by limiting it to the Russian Empire.

Frank the Poet

Not liking the look of Hell, Frank first seeks admission to Purgatory but Pope Pius VII refuses him admittance, explaining Limbo was invented by priests and Popes for their own exclusive use.

History of the Palace of Versailles

Nevertheless, on 3 January 1805, Pope Pius VII, who came to France to officiate at Napoléon's coronation, visited the palace and blessed the throng of people gathered on the parterre d'eau from the balcony of the Hall of Mirrors (Mauguin, 1940–1942).

Jean-Joseph Marcel

In 1805, during a visit by Pope Pius VII, he had the Lord's Prayer printed in one hundred and fifty languages in the Pope's presence.

Juan Bautista Aguirre

He was a friend of the bishop of Tivoli, Monsignor Gregorio Bamaba Chiaramonti, future Pope Pius VII.

Marie-François Auguste de Caffarelli du Falga

Sent as an ambassador to Pope Pius VII, he organised the Pope's trip to France for Napoleon's coronation as emperor.

Massimo d'Azeglio

His father, Cesare d'Azeglio, an officer in the Piedmontese army, held a high position at court; on the return of Pope Pius VII to Rome after the fall of Napoleon, Cesare d'Azeglio was sent as special envoy to the Holy See, and took his son, then sixteen years of age, with him as an extra attaché.

Nogent-sur-Vernisson

The town has a 12th-century AD church of St Martin in which Pope Pius VII celebrated Mass while on his way to the coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804.

Pierre Claude François Daunou

He remained ambivalent towards Napoleon, but, in the latter's controversy with Pope Pius VII, Napoleon, (by then Emperor) was able again to secure from him the learned treatise Sur la puissance temporelle du Pape ("On the Temporal Power of the Papacy, 1809).

Pope Pius VII

Chiaramonti was born at Cesena, the son of Count Scipione Chiaramonti; his mother, Giovanna, was the daughter of the Marquess Ghini and through her the future Pope Pius VII was related to the Braschi family, the family of Pope Pius VI.


Carl Christian Vogel von Vogelstein

Besides religious paintings, landscapes and anatomical studies, Vogel also produced portraits in Rome, of subjects such as Bertel Thorvaldsen, Lucien Bonaparte and – on behalf of the king of Saxony - Pope Pius VII.

Carlo Odescalchi

After becoming acquainted with Joseph Pignatelli and following Pope Pius VII's restoration of the Society of Jesus, he planned on entering the Society but failed due to the resistance of his sister Vittoria, who desperately sought to live near her brother.

Guillaume-André-Réné Baston

Pope Pius VII failing to approve of this nomination, the cathedral chapter revoked the nomination (1814), and Baston went into retirement at Saint-Laurent near Pont-Audemer, where he died.

Joannes-Henricus de Franckenberg

His apostolic courage and his constancy in these trials elicited solemn eulogies from both Pope Pius VI and Pope Pius VII.

Louis-Mathias, Count de Barral

During the long and harassing negotiations which Napoleon carried on with Pope Pius VII, while the latter was virtually a prisoner at Savona and Fontainebleau, Archbishop de Barral acted frequently as the emperor's intermediary.

Nonantola Abbey

Pope Pius VII restored it as a monastery on January 23, 1821, with the provision that the prelature nullius attached to it should belong to the Archbishop of Modena, into which the exempt territory was finally absorbed in 1986 to form the Diocese of Modena-Nonantola.

St Martin's Cathedral, Ypres

After the Concordat of 1801 between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII, Ypres was incorporated into the diocese of Ghent, and Saint Martin's lost its status as a cathedral.