LEOI'OLD II. of Germany and L of Tuscany, was the second son of Maria Theresa of Austria and her husband Francis of Lorraine. After Maria Theresa succeeded, by the death of her father Charles VI., to the Austrian dominions, the grand-duchy of Tuscany, which, according to treaties, was to remain separate from the hereditary states of Austria, devolved upon Leopold, his elder brother Joseph being the presumptive heir of the Austrian dominions. As soon as Leopold was of age he took possession of Tuscany, in 1765, and fixed his residence at Florence. During the five and twenty years of his administration he greatly improved the condition of Tuscany. His principal reforms concerned the administration of justice and the discipline of the clergy in his dominions. By his 'Motu proprio,' in 1786, he promul gated a new criminal code, abolished torture and the pain of death, and established penitentiaries to reclaim offenders. He finally abolished the Inquisition in Tuscany in July 1782, and placed the monks and nuns of his dominions under the jurisdiction of the respective bishops. The discovery of licentious practices carried on in certain nunneries in the towns of Pistoia and Prato with the connivance of their monkish directors induced Leopold to investigate and reform the whole system of monastic discipline, and he entrusted Ricci, bishop of I'istoia, with full power for that purpose. This occasioned a long and angry contro versy with the court of Rome, which pretended to have the sole cognisance of matters affecting individuals of the clergy and monastic orders. Leopold however carried his point, and the pope consented that the bishops of Tuscany should have the jurisdiction over the convents of their respective dioceses. Ricci, who had high notions of religious purity, and was by his enemies accused of Jansenism, attempted other reforms; he endeavoured to enlighten the people as to the proper limits of image-worship and the invocation of saints, he suppressed certain relics which gave occasion to superstitious practices, he encouraged the spreading of religious works and especially of the Gospel among his flock, and lastly he assembled a diocesan council at Pistols in September 1786, in which he maintained the spiritual inde pendence of the bishops. He advocated the use of the liturgy in the
oral language of the country, he exposed the abuse of indulgences, approved of the four articles of the Galilean council of 1632, and lastly appealed to a national council as a legitimate and canonical means for terminating controversies. Several of Ricci's propositions were condemned by the pope in a bull as scandalous, rash, and injuri ous to the Holy See. Leopold supported Ricci, but he could not prevent his being annoyed in many ways and at last obliged to resign his charge. The whole of this curious controversy is given in Potter's work, ` Vie de Scipion de Ricci,' 3 vole., Brussels, 1825, in which the numerous annexed documents and quotations from other works form the most important part. Leopold himself convoked a council at Florence, of the bishops of Tuscany, in 1787, and proposed to them 57 articles concerning the reform of ecclesiastical discipline. He enforced residence of incumbents, and forbade pluralities, suppressed many convents and distributed their revenues among the poor bene fices, wherein he favoured the parochial clergy, and extended their jurisdiction, as he had supported and extended the jurisdiction of the bishops. He forbade the publication of the bulls and censures of Rome without the approbation of the government ; he forbade the ecclesiastical courts from interfering with laymen in temporal matters, and restrained their jurisdiction to spiritual affairs only ; and he subjected clergymen to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts in all criminal cases. All these were considered in that age as very bold innovations for a Roman Catholic prince to undertake, and contrast remarkably with recent proceedings of the present Emperor of Austria.