LEO XII. (Annibale della Genga), pope from 1823 to 1829, was born near Spoleto on Aug. 2 2, 176o. Educated at the Acca demia dei Nobili ecclesiastici at Rome, he was ordained priest in 1783. In 1792 Pius VI. made him his private secretary, in 1793 creating him titular archbishop of Tyre and despatching him to Lucerne as nuncio. In 1794 he was transferred to the nunciature at Cologne, but owing to the war had to make his residence in Augsburg. During the dozen or more years he spent in Germany he was entrusted with missions to the courts of Dresden, Vienna, Munich and Wurttemberg. After the abolition of the States of the Church, he was treated by the French as a state prisoner, and lived at the abbey of Monticelli, solacing himself with music and with bird-shooting. In 1814 he was chosen to carry the pope's congratu lations to Louis XVLII.: in 1816 he was created cardinal-priest of Santa Maria Maggiore, and appointed to the see of Sinigaglia, which he resigned in 1818. In 182o Pius VII. made him cardinal vicar. In the conclave of 1823, in spite of the active opposition of France, he was elected pope by the zelanti on Sept. 28. At the time he was thought to be dying, but he unexpectedly rallied. His foreign policy, entrusted at first to Della Somaglia and then to the more able Bernetti, moved in general along lines laid down by Consalvi ; and he negotiated concordats advantageous to the papacy. Personally most frugal, Leo reduced taxes, made justice
less costly, and found money for public improvements ; yet he left the finances more confused than he had found them, and even the jubilee of 1825 did not mend matters. His domestic policy was one of extreme reaction. He condemned the Bible societies, and under Jesuit influence reorganized the educational system. Severe ghetto laws led many of the Jews to emigrate. He hunted down the Carbonari and the Freemasons; he took strong measures against political agitation in theatres. Leo, tem peramentally stern, hard-working in spite of bodily infirmity, died at Rome on Feb. so, 1829. He was succeeded by Pius VIII.
de Montor, Histoire du Pape Leon XII. (2 vols., 1843 ; by the secretary of the French embassy in Rome) ; Bruck, "Leo XII.," in Wetzer and Welte's Kirchenlexikon, vol. vii. (Freiburg, 1891) ; F. Nippold, The Papacy in the 19th Century (New York, 1900) , chap. 5; Benrath, "Leo XII.," in Herzog-Hauck, Real encyklopadie, vol. xi. (Leipzig, 1902), 390-393, with bibliography; F. Nielsen, The History of the Papacy in the 19th century (1906), vol. ii. I-30 ; Lady Blennerhassett, in the Cambridge Modern History, vol. x. (1907), 151-154.