Pope Pius VII

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Pius VII

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Name	Giorgio Barnaba Luigi Chiaramonti
Papacy began	March 14, 1800
Papacy ended	August 20, 1823
Predecessor	Pius VI
Successor	Leo XII
Born	August 14, 1740
Place of birth	Cesena, Italy
Died	August 20, 1823
Place of death	Rome, Italy

Pius VII, O.S.B., born Giorgio Barnaba Luigi Chiaramonti (August 14, 1740 – August 20, 1823), was Pope from March 14, 1800 to August 20, 1823.

Chiaramonti was born at Cesena into a noble Italian family. He was educated in Ravenna before joining the Benedictine order in 1756 to continue his studies. He then became a teacher within the order. His career became a series of swift promotions following the election of a family friend, Giovanni Braschi, as Pope Pius VI. Pius appointed him abbot of San Callisto in Rome in 1776 and after making him a bishop made him a cardinal in February 1785.

Election as pope

Following the death of Pius in August 1799 the conclave met in Venice on November 30. There were three main candidates and after several months of stalemate Chiaramonti was elected as a compromise candidate. He was crowned Pius VII on March 21, 1800 in a rather unusual coronation, wearing a papier-mâché papal tiara. (The original having been seized by the French along with Pope Pius VI.)

Relations with France

As when he was cardinal the main concern of the new Pope was the French. The revolutionary regime of Napoleon I led to the Concordat of 1801 negotiated by Ercole Consalvi, which re-systemised the linkage between the French church and Rome.

Styles of
Pope Pius VII

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Reference style	His Holiness
Spoken style	Your Holiness
Religious style	Holy Father
Other Religious style (if awarded after death)	none

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The Pope suffered a major loss of church lands in Germany where following the Peace of Lunéville (1801) a number of German princes compensated for their losses by seizing ecclesiastical property. Whatever hopes Pius may have had with Napoleon, the Papal States were eventually taken by the French around 1808, and when Napoleon subsequently was excommunicated, he had Pius arrested. Pius did not return to Rome until 1814. At the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) the Papal States were largely restored.

His monument (1831) in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, is by the Danish (Protestant) sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen.