The story of the struggle, fought with cunning, not force, between the forgotten Roman nobleman Barnaba Chiaramonti, who became Pope Pius VII, and the all-too-well-remembered Napoleon.”—Jonathan Sumption, The Spectator , “Books of the Year”

Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII. By Ambrogio A. Caiani To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII. By Ambrogio A. Caiani

To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Lesser men would have found reconciliation impossible, but Napoleon had a respectful, if unorthodox, view of religion. Napoleon boldly committed himself to reconciliation with the church — on his terms. Napoleon would tap Etienne-Alexandre Bernier, a former royalist rebel, as his chief negotiator with the papacy in historic negotiations. The commission lamented the fact that modern legal codes made no provision for the old legal instrument of the appel comme d'abus. Footnote 91 Under this procedure, during the ancien régime, appeals against ecclesiastical decisions could be brought to secular courts of appeal, like the old parlements. Here, clerical rulings or actions could be overturned. This instrument was used against clergy who exceeded the boundaries of their jurisdiction and intruded into the realms of the secular. The commission proposed its reintegration into imperial law and thus gave judges a potent weapon against rogue archbishops. Their suggestion that parlementaire Gallicanism be resurrected was decidedly unexpected. Régnier argued that articles six and seven of the organic laws of the Concordat (which the papacy had never accepted) had allowed for allegations of clerical abuse of power to be judged by the council of state. Footnote 92 They advised that the emperor could transfer the council's jurisdiction over the clergy to the imperial courts of justice. Thus, metropolitans refusing to invest candidates could be tried through an appel comme d'abus as criminally negligent in the exercise of their duties and indicted accordingly. Footnote 93 Imperial prosecutors anywhere in the empire could thus pursue any metropolitan who did not invest nominees. It was a safe assumption that Savary's police force would vigorously enforce this anti-clerical legislation. Try Ambrogio A. Caiani’s To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII...It is the story of the struggle, fought with cunning, not force, between the forgotten Roman nobleman Barnaba Chiaramonti, who became Pope Pius VII, and the all-too-well-remembered Napoleon.”—Jonathan Sumption, Spectator‘Books of the Year’ Caiani uses newfound research from the Vatican Archives and isn’t afraid to provide readers with the unusual conclusion that neither Napoleon nor Pope Pius emerge as the victor of the decade-long confrontation.”—Eleanor Longman-Rood, Reaction

Desperately, Radet took an axe to the front door, somewhat compromising any vestigial element of surprise in his attempt to take the Sovereign Pontiff into Imperial custody. By the time he arrived in the pope’s study, he was looking decidedly sweaty and dishevelled. Radet succeeded, none the less, in initiating an extended papal captivity with profound implications for the Holy See and European politics.

Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII, 1800-1815 - Goodreads To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII, 1800-1815 - Goodreads

Ambrogio's main research interests have focused on RevolutionaryFrance, Napoleonic Italy and Catholicism. His doctorate examined the declining fortunes of Louis XVI's court during the early French Revolution and was published by Cambridge University Press in 2012.Alamy Double Portrait of Napoleon and Pope Pius VII by L. B. Coclers (c.1805, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Napoleon died 200 years ago this week Napoleon reached center stage following the Coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799. Once in power, Napoleon sought to ameliorate the effects of the French civil war. Those who supported the revolution pitted themselves against both royalist and Catholic forces in the Vendée wars, a series of farmer and peasant uprisings partly over the right to practice the Catholic faith. Napoleon sympathized with the peasants in the Vendée region and sought to reconcile the principles of the French Revolution with the Catholic Church.

To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII, by Ambrogio A. Caiani To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII, by Ambrogio A. Caiani

Above all, Napoleon believed that the church should be subordinate to the state. Thus, we should not be surprised that following the rapprochement, he declared that St. Neopolus — an obscure (and, Caiani suggests, possibly fictitious) early Christian martyr — would be celebrated each Aug. 15. For most Catholics, this was the date of the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and also, by coincidence, Napoleon’s birthday. Ambrogio Caiani gives us a bold, provocative new assessment of the French Emperor and his relationship with the Catholic Church. In gripping, vivid prose, Caiani brings to life the struggle for power that would shape modern Europe. It all makes for a historical read which is both original and enjoyable."—Antonia Fraser, author of Marie Antoinette The greatest test in the history of the modern Catholic Church began at 2 a.m. on July 6, 1809. That’s when French troops swarmed the Quirinal Palace in Rome. The midnight arrest of Pope Pius VII at the hands of troops under the ultimate command of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was a watershed event in history, argues Ambrogio A. Caiani in his book “To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII.”“To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII.” This 5 May will mark the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death on St Helena. The occasion will no doubt be marked, as was the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo six years ago, by a flood of new books about the emperor, adding yet more to the estimated 200,000 already written. Given this saturation, one wonders if there is anything left to say. This fascinating book proves that there is. It does so by focusing on a crucial yet neglected aspect of Napoleon’s rule: his bitter, decade-long confrontation with Pope Pius VII. This marked an important step both in the emperor’s decline and fall, and in the evolution of the Catholic Church.Caiani points out that the operation that netted the pope used swarm tactics that Napoleon himself would have approved of, yet while Napoleon was a master of battlefields, the pope proved to be an evenly matched political opponent. The two tussled over a fundamental question, one that still haunts European politics — should the state or the church exercise supreme authority? Prior to the French Revolution, the Papal States included territory in both France and much of Northern Italy. The whole episode’s history likely influenced another French emperor, Napoleon III, who helped shepherd the unification of Italy that destroyed the Papal States in 1870, when Italy was unified. It would be almost half a century before the Vatican would again gain some form of sovereignty, which would include only a small sliver of modern Rome, a far cry from those who wanted the Vatican to have at least a tiny portion of coastal territory as well. His second book entitled: To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII 1800-1815waspublished by Yale University Press in April 2021 just before the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death.Ambrogio has written a short blog about his work on Napoleon and Pius VII, and has taken part in an interview on his book.