CLEMENT XIII. (Carlo Rersonico), a native of Veoice, succeeded Benedict XIV. in July 1758. lie was more distinguished for his piety and private virtues than for political abilities or knowledge of the world His pontificate was a continual, but on his part ineffectual struggle to uphold the ecclesiastical Immunities and the old pre mathes of the see of Rome against the determination of the other powers to be complete masters in their respective countries. lie strove bard to support the Jesuits, who had become obnoxious to various courts, and who were suddenly suppressed in Portugal, Spain, France, and Naples. In their distress, most of the expelled fathers sought an asylum in the Papal States, and found in Clement a generous protector. All the remonstrances and threats of France and Spain could not induce him to abolish the order, which he considered as the firmest support of the Roman see. The King of France seized upon Avignon, and the King of Naples upon Benevento; still the pope held firm till his death. The Venetian senate, by a eerie° of decrees passed in September 1768, enforced numerous reforms in eccle slastial discipline in their own dominions, subjected the clergy to the payment of tithes, suppressed some convents, placed the rest under restrictions with regard to their property and the number of their inmates, and subjected all eceletiostics to the jurisdiction of the secular courts in temporal matters. Clement strongly remonstrated
against these innovations: ho threatened excommunication, but the senate persisted in its resolutions. He also came to a rupture with the republic of Genoa, because he had sent an apostolio vicar into Corsica, which was then in a state of revolt against the Genoese. The Elector of Bavaria, about the game time, declared that none but his own subjects should bold benefices within his dominions. Maria Theresa made similar enactments in her own states, and she took away the censorship of books from the ecclesiastical authorities, and gave it to the secular magistrates. Tuscany, Parma, and Naples sup pressed convents, and checked the practice of donations and legacies to the church. In the midst of all these blows against the papal authority, Clement died in February 1769. A splendid mausoleum was raised to Urn by Pius VL in St. Peter's church, which is much admired, especially for its statue of the pope kneeling at prayers, and the two lions couching at the foot of the monument. It. was one of the earlier, and among the best works of Canova, who was employed eightyear' upon it.