Pius VI, originally Giovanni Angelo Braschi 1717-99
Italian pope

Born in Cesena, Papal States, he became cardinal in 1773 and pope in 1775. To him Rome owes the drainage of the Pontine Marsh, the improvement of the port of Ancona, the completion of St Peter's, the foundation of the New Museum of the Vatican, and the embellishment of the city. In the American Revolution he released the American Catholic clergy from the jurisdiction of the vicar apostolic in England. In the 1780s he went to Vienna, but failed to restrain the reforming Emperor Joseph II from further curtailing papal privileges. Soon after came the French Revolution and the confiscation of Church property in France. The pope launched his thunders in vain, and then the murder of the French agent in Rome (1793) gave the Directory an excuse for the attack. Napoleon I took possession of the Legations, and afterwards of the March of Ancona, and extorted (1797) the surrender of these provinces from Pius. The murder of a member of the French embassy in December was avenged by Alexandre Berthier's taking possession of Rome in 1798. Pius was called on to renounce his temporal sovereignty, and on his refusal was seized, carried to Siena, the Certosa, Grenoble and finally Valence, where he died.