CLEMENT XI. (Giovanni Francesco Albani), pope from 1700 to 1721, was born in Urbino on July 22, 1649, and after filling various important offices in the Curia became pope on Nov. 23, 1700, succeeding Innocent XII. His private life and his adminis tration were blameless, but it was his misfortune to reign in troublous times. In the war of the Spanish Succession he would willingly have remained neutral, but was forced first to recognize Philip V., then driven by the emperor to recognize the archduke, Charles. In the peace of Utrecht he was ignored ; Sardinia and Sicily, Parma and Piacenza, were disposed of without regard to papal claims. When he quarrelled with the duke of Savoy, and revoked his investiture rights in Sicily (1715), his interdict was treated with contempt. Clement reaffirmed papal infallibility in matters of fact (1705 ), and in 1713 issued the bull Unigenitus, comdemning r0I Jansenistic propositions. (See JANSENISM and QUESNEL, PASQUIER.) He also forbade missionaries in China to "accommodate" their teachings to pagan notions in order to win converts. Clement was a generous patron of art and letters.
See Elci, The Present State of the Court of Rome (trans. 1706) ; Polidoro, De Vita et Reb. Gest. Clem. XI. (Urbino, 1727) • Reboulet, Hist. de Clem. XI. Pape (Avignon, 1752) ; Guarnacci, Vitae et res gest. Pontiff. Rom. (Rome, 1750 ; Sandini, Vitae Pontiff. Rom. (Padua, 1739) ; Buder, Leben u. Taten Clementis XI. (Frankfurt, 1720-21) ; Clementis XI. Opera Omnia (Frankfurt, 1729) ; Pometti, "Studii sul pontificato di Clem. XI.," in the Archivio della R. Soc. romana di storia patria, vols. xxi.-xxiii. (1898-1900), and bibl. in Hergenrother, Allg. Kirchengesch. iii. 5o6 (188o) .