PIUS VI. (Giovanni Angelo Braschi), pope from 1775 to 1799, was born at Cesena, on Dec. 27, 1717. After taking the degree of doctor of laws he went to Ferrara and became the private sec retary of Cardinal Ruffo, in whose bishopric of Ostia and Velletri he held the post of uditore until 1753. His skill in the conduct of a mission to the court of Naples won him the esteem of Benedict XIV., who appointed him one of his secretaries and canon of St. Peter's. In 1758 he was raised to the prelature, and in 1766 to the treasurership of the apostolic chamber by Clement XIII., and in 1773 he became cardinal-priest of San Onofrio. In the four months' conclave which followed the death of Clement XIV., Spain, France and Portugal at length dropped their objection to Braschi, and he was elected to the vacant see on Feb. 15, 1775.
Pius had received the support of the ministers of the Crowns and the anti-Jesuit party upon a tacit understanding that he would continue the action of Clement, by whose brief Dominus ac redemptor (1773) the dissolution of the Society of Jesus had been pronounced. On the other hand the zelanti, who believed him secretly inclined towards Jesuitism, expected from him some reparation for the alleged wrongs of the previous reign. The half measures adopted by Pius gave little satisfaction to either party. It is perhaps largely due to him that the order was able to escape shipwreck in White Russia and Silesia; in 1792 he considered its re-establishment as a bulwark against revolutionary ideas.
The authority of the papacy was threatened in Austria by the social and ecclesiastical reforms undertaken by Joseph II. and, in the hope of staying them, Pius adopted the exceptional course of visiting Vienna in person. His mission proved a fiasco; he was, however, able a few years later to curb those German archbishops who, in 1786 at the Congress at Ems, had shown a tendency towards independence. Difficulties also arose in Naples
and in Tuscany. At the outbreak of the French Revolution Pius saw the old Gallican Church suppressed, the pontifical and eccle siastical possessions in France confiscated and an effigy of him self burnt by the populace at the Palais Royal. The murder of the republican agent, Hugo Basseville, in the streets of Rome (January 1793) gave new ground of offence; the papal court was charged with complicity by the French Convention ; and Pius threw in his lot with the league against France. In 1796 Napoleon invaded Italy, defeated the papal troops and occupied Ancona and Loreto. Pius sued for peace, which was granted at Tolentino on Feb. 19, 1797; but on Dec. 28 of that year, in a riot created by some Italian and French revolutionists, General Duphot of the French embassy was killed and a new pretext furnished for invasion. General Berthier marched to Rome, entered it un opposed on Feb. 13, 1798, and, proclaiming a republic, demanded of the pope the renunciation of his temporal authority. Upon his refusal he was taken prisoner, and on Feb. 20 was escorted from the Vatican to Siena, and thence to the Certosa near Flor ence. The French declaration of war against Tuscany led to his removal by way of Parma, Piacenza, Turin and Grenoble to the citadel of Valence, where he died six weeks later, on Aug. 29, 1799. Pius VII. succeeded him.
See Zopffel and Benrath, "Pius VI.," in Herzog-Hauck, Realency klopiidie, 3rd ed., vol. xv., pp. 441-451 (Leipzig, 1904, with elaborate bibliography) ; F. Nielsen, History of the Papacy in the ipth Century, vol. i. chap. vii. (London, 1906) ; J. Gendry, Pie VI. sa vie, son pontificat, d'apres les archives vaticanes et de nombreux documents inedits (2 vols., 1907).