Pope Pius VI

Pope Pius VI was pope from 1775 to 1799. During the French Revolution he condemned the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, clashed with revolutionary France, and died in captivity at Valence.

Born: 1717 CE
Died: 1799 CE
Role: Pope

Pope during the French Revolution (1717-1799)

1717-1799 CE

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Also known as: Pius VI, Giovanni Angelo Braschi

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Pope Pius VI timeline facts

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1717-1775: Braschi before the tiara
1775: Elected pope
1796-1798: Revolution reaches Rome
1798-1799: Captivity and death

Life Journey

The pope caught in the French Revolution's religious crisis

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1 of 5/Braschi before the tiara

Next: Elected pope

1717-1775

Braschi before the tiara

Giovanni Angelo Braschi was born in the Papal States and rose through church administration before becoming pope.

1775

Elected pope

Pius VI became pope in 1775, ruling the Church as European monarchies questioned older forms of papal authority.

1790-1791

French church crisis

During the French Revolution, Pius VI rejected the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the oath it required from priests and bishops.

1796-1798

Revolution reaches Rome

French victories in Italy brought revolutionary pressure directly onto the Papal States.

1798-1799

Captivity and death

Pius VI was taken from Rome and died in French custody at Valence in 1799.

1717-1775

Braschi before the tiara

Giovanni Angelo Braschi was born in the Papal States and rose through church administration before becoming pope.

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1717-1775

Braschi before the tiara

Pius VI began life as Giovanni Angelo Braschi, born at Cesena in 1717. He trained in law and rose through papal administration, gaining experience in the government of the Papal States before his election. That background mattered because the papacy he inherited was both a spiritual office and a territorial power. In the late eighteenth century, popes faced Enlightenment criticism, reforming Catholic monarchies, and growing pressure on church property and privilege.

He entered the papacy as an administrator as much as a theologian.

1775

Elected pope

Pius VI was elected pope in 1775 after a long conclave. His early papacy was shaped by the politics of Catholic Europe, where rulers increasingly wanted tighter state control over church institutions. He defended papal authority, patronised building in Rome, and tried to preserve the standing of the Papal States. Yet the wider climate was changing. The French Revolution would soon turn debates about reform and privilege into a direct assault on the old relationship between church, monarchy, and state.

His papacy began in reforming Europe and was overtaken by revolutionary Europe.

1790-1791

French church crisis

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed in 1790, reorganised the French Church under state authority. It made bishops and priests elected officials and required an oath of loyalty to the new constitutional order. Pius VI condemned the measure in 1791 because it subordinated church authority to the revolutionary state. The result was a deep religious schism. Some clergy swore the oath; others refused. Communities that had supported reform now had to decide whether loyalty to the Revolution could be reconciled with loyalty to Rome.

A constitutional reform became a crisis of conscience for priests and ordinary believers.

1796-1798

Revolution reaches Rome

As revolutionary France fought across Europe, the Papal States became vulnerable. Napoleon's Italian campaigns forced papal concessions and territorial losses, and French pressure did not end there. In 1798, French forces entered Rome, proclaimed a Roman Republic, and removed Pius VI from the city. The papacy was no longer only debating the Revolution from a distance. It had become one of the Revolution's targets, caught between spiritual authority and military reality.

The Revolution's war turned a religious dispute into a territorial defeat for the papacy.

1798-1799

Captivity and death

After his removal from Rome, Pius VI was carried through a series of places under French control and finally reached Valence in southern France. He was old, ill, and politically defeated. He died there in August 1799, still a prisoner of revolutionary France. To supporters of the papacy, his death seemed to reveal the Revolution's hostility to the Church. Yet the papacy survived the crisis. A new pope, Pius VII, would later negotiate with Napoleon and try to rebuild the Church's position in a transformed Europe.

His death marked a low point for papal power, not the end of it.

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