Pius IX, originally Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, also called Pio Nono 1792-1878
Italian pope

Born in Sinigaglia, Papal States, he took deacon's orders (1818), and was made Archbishop of Spoleto (1827), and Bishop of Imola (1832). In 1840 he became a cardinal, and was elected pope on the death of Gregory XVI in 1846. He entered at once on a course of reforms. He granted an amnesty to all political prisoners and exiles, removed most of the disabilities of the Jews, authorized railways, projected a council of state, and in 1848 published his Statuto Fondamentale, a scheme for the temporal government of the Papal States by two chambers, one nominated by the pope, the other (with the power of taxation) elected by the people. At first the new pope was the idol of the populace. But the revolutionary fever of 1848 spread too fast for a reforming pope, and his refusal to make war upon the Austrians finally forfeited the affections of the Romans. In 1848 his first minister, Count Pelegrino Rossi, was murdered, and two days later a mob assembled in the square of the Quirinal. The pope escaped to Gaeta, and a republic was proclaimed in Rome. In 1849 a French expedition was sent to Civita Vecchia; in July General Oudinot took Rome after a siege of 30 days; and henceforward the papal government was re-established. Pius IX proved an unyielding conservative and Ultramontane, closely allied with the Jesuits. The war of the French and Sardinians against Austria in 1859 and the popular vote of 1860 incorporated a great part of papal territory with the Sardinian (Italian) kingdom, but Pius always refused to recognize the fact. He re-established the hierarchy in England, sanctioned a Catholic University in Ireland, and condemned the Queen's Colleges. He concluded a reactionary concordat with Austria. By the bull Ineffabilis Deus in 1854 he decreed the Immaculate Conception; his famous encyclical Quanta Cura and the Syllabus of Errors, appeared in 1864. The Vatican Council (1869-79) proclaimed the infallibility of the pope. For the last 10 years the pope's temporal power had only been maintained by the French garrison, and on its withdrawal in 1870 the soldiers of Victor Emmanuel II entered Rome. For the rest of his days the pope lived a voluntary 'prisoner' within the Vatican.

Bibliography: Frank J Coppa, Pope Pius IX (1979)