Innocent X, original name Giambattista Pamfili 1574-1655
Italian pope

An unscrupulous man, he was notorious for his nepotism. Shortly after his election (1644) he began systematic attacks on the Barbarini, relatives of his predecessor, Urban VIII. His victims fled to France and successfully appealed for protection to Cardinal Mazarin, who threatened to annex the papal enclave of Avignon, whereupon Innocent backed down. Innocent's condemnation of the Peace of Westphalia served only to demonstrate the growing impotence of the papacy, while his support for Spanish claims to Portugal (which had regained its independence again in 1640) proved equally fruitless. Even the Bull Cum Occasione (1653) condemning Jansenist views on grace, rather than restoring unity to the Church, merely sparked more than a century of internal religious controversy.