Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

Day 8: Innocent IX

Born Giovanni Facchinetti (apparently not his actual last name, but what he was called based on his father's nickname), the future Innocent IX earned a doctorate in both civil and canon law before opting to join the priesthood. He quickly moved up the ranks - thanks in no small part to working for an influential cardinal named Alessandro Farnese - and would be made a bishop in 1560.

Six years later, Pope Pius V sent him to Venice as papal nuncio, where he worked to support the alliance between the Papal States and Spain against the Ottoman Empire. which would lead the Holy League defeating the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto.

Giovanni returned to Rome in 1575, looking to stay put so he could both further his career and improve his health. He would become a cardinal in 1584, and was an important figure in the administration of Pope Gregory XIV.

When Gregory died in 1591, the Spanish cardinals, perhaps remembering Giovanni's work in Venice, got behind him as their candidate for the papacy. He was elected on the third ballot (even though the Spanish had a majority of the voting cardinals) and took the name Innocent to honor Innocent III.

Innocent started his tenure by supporting Spain (payback, one supposes) against France in that country's Wars of Religion, and he named a couple of cardinals (one of which was his grandnephew). In December, he decided to make a pilgrimage to all seven of Rome's pilgrimage churches, even though he wasn't feeling well. And as you might have expected, his condition worsened afterwards, and he died a couple of weeks later, having served for about two months.