Clement XII

Lorenzo Corsini (1652-1740) was born into an influential aristocratic Florentine family, related through the marriage of his parents with an equally powerful family of the Tuscan city, the Strozzi. Already a member of the Curia under the previous pontiffs, as a lawyer and papal treasurer, he was appointed cardinal in 1706 by Pope Clement XI. He was elected pope in 1730, when he was almost 80 years old and despite serious health problems. He worked in the first place to restore papal finances and was the first pope to issue a decree against Freemasonry. He enlarged the port of Ancona, the maritime outlet to the east to Rome and connected it to the capital through the Via Clementina. From the artistic point of view, his contribution was crucial: in fact it was he himself who had the new façade of Saint John Lateran built, where he is buried, and the Trevi Fountain. He also acquired collections of antiquities, (especially statues and inscriptions) which belonged to Cardinal Albani for the Pontifical gallery.