Our country, in the conclaves
For centuries, the papacy was a matter for Italians only. Or rather, for inhabitants of the Italian Peninsula, because Italy did not exist as a political reality until 1860. And above all, it was a matter for some Roman families, who turned the papacy into a hereditary fiefdom. Some had several popes: Segni (4), Orsini (3), Medici (3 popes), Piccolomini (2) or Della Rovere (2). Others had just one: Borghese, Colonna, Farnese, Caetani, Visconti, Pamphili, Carafa, Boncompagni, Aldobrandini, Ludovisi, Barberini, Chigi, Rospigliosi, Altieri, Odescalchi, Ottoboni, Pignatelli and Corsini... and so on, between the 12th and 18th centuries.
Hence, none of the great European dynasties (Habsburg, Bourbon, etc.) were ever able to "place" any of their members as pope. However, the sovereigns of Spain, France, and Austria-Hungary reserved the Ius exclusivæ (literally "right of exclusion" in Latin), which was the right to veto a candidate once elected. The last to exercise it was Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, against Cardinal Mariano Rampolla in the conclave of 1903. The elected pope, Saint Pius X, abolished it the following year.
Read also Congregations, the key mechanism Sergi Rodríguez López-Ros
From 1605 to 1903, Spain exercised this veto in conclaves, which it exercised in 1655 (Philip IV, against Cardinal Giulio Cesare Sacchetti), 1721 (Philip V, against Cardinal Francesco Pignatelli), 1730 (Philip V, against Cardinal Giuseppe Renato), 1740 (Philip V, against Cardinal Pier Marcellino Corradini), 1823 (Charles III of Spain and Ferdinand II of the Two Siclies, against Cardinal Giovanni Carlo Boschi) and 1830-31 (Ferdinand VII, against Cardinal Giacomo Giustiniani).
Italian tailor Raniero Mancinelli, who on his own initiative makes suits for a possible future Pope, works in his shop in Rome.
Gregorio Borgia/APContrary to what traditional historiography claims, our country has been one of the main countries to have had popes: up to ten (plus the antipope Benedict XII, Pope Luna). The key is that many of the popes attributed to Italy, when they were elected pontiffs belonged to territories that were part of Spain. If we leave aside Saint Damasus (the first to be called "pope2"), who was actually a Roman born in Hispania, the Crown of Aragon, thanks to the skill of Ferdinand II of Aragon (later, the Catholic), he managed to place two cardinals of the Borgia family (Calixtus III and Alexander VI) as popes and was close to placing his tutor, Cardinal Joan Margarit, as pope in the conclave of 1484.
They were followed, already with Spain constituted as such, by the Dutchman Adrian VI (the last non-Italian until 1978), who was in Tortosa when he was elected, thus establishing the tradition that the bishops of that diocese wear a cardinal's skullcap (except in Rome), which still endures. And, later, the Neapolitans Paul IV, Innocent XII and Benedict XIII and the Milanese Pius IV, Saint Pius V, Gregory XIV and Blessed Innocent XI. Not in vain, at various historical moments, our country had the autonomous territories of Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Parma, Lucca, Milanese, Tuscany, Finale Ligure and the Royal Presidios in the Italian Peninsula.
Read alsoSince human nature is what it is, after those hereditary pontificates, several cardinals have attempted to continue that tradition in the 19th and 20th centuries, albeit with a nuance: claiming to be pontiff simply because they had been private secretaries or secretaries of state. This is the case with Leo XII and Pius XII, as if being the Pope's principal collaborator placed him as a crown prince in relation to a sovereign king. An anonymous princess in Fellini's film Roma (1972) nostalgically acknowledges this: "We were all relatives." And that had nothing to do with the gospel. Neither then nor now.
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