Innocent X

Giovanni Battista Pamphili (1574-1655) belonged to a noble Roman family, originally from Gubbio. He graduated in law, had a brilliant career in the Curia before being consecrated bishop (1627) and being made ??a cardinal by Pope Urban VIII (1630). At the death of the pope, Pamphili was elected as his successor in the conclave of 1644, choosing the name of Innocent X. Skillful politically, he protested in vain against the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War and, most importantly, the universalist ambitions of the Catholic Church. In 1649, Pope Innocent X decided, following the murder of the local bishop, to invade the Duchy of Castro and the subsequent destruction of the city (Second War of Castro). He was also the pope who convened the fourteenth jubilee, which officially condemned the Jansenist doctrine, and he entrusted the final arrangement of Piazza Navona to Bernini. The close relationship of the pontiff with his sister-in-law, Olimpia Maidalchini, was also a source of criticism and malicious rumours.