PIEDMONT
77
PIEDMONT
uel II (d. 1675) sought in vain to escape this dominat-
ing control. Victor Amadeus II (1675-1730) joined
the great alliance against France in the War of the
Spanish Succession. By the victory of Turin in 1706
Prince Eugene drove out the French troops that had
made a sudden descent upon Piedmont, thus ridding
the duke of his enemies. As a reward for joining the
alUance the duke received by the Peace of Utrecht of
1713 the Marquessate of Montferrat, the City of Ales-
sandria, and the Districts of Val Sesia and Lomellina,
so that the part of his territories situated in Italy had
essentially the same extent as the present Department
of Piedmont. Outside of these new territories he was
granted the Island of Sicily, which, however, he lost
again when Spanish troops attacked the island in 1718.
In 1720 as compensation for this loss he received the
Island of Sardinia. He now assumed the title of King
of Sardinia; besides the island, the kingdom included
Savoy and Piedmont on the mainland. In the Polish
and Austrian wars of succession the next king, Charles
Emmanuel III (as king, Charles Emmanuel I, 1730-
73), acquired the additional Italian districts of Tor-
tona and Novara, also Anghiera, Bobbio, and a part
of the principality of Pavia. His .son Victor Amadeus
III (1773-96) was a weak man of little importance.
During his reign the storms caused by the French
Revolution swept over his kingdom. Napoleon's vic-
tories obliged him in 1796 to cede Savoy and Nice to
France, and his son and successor Charles Emmanuel
II (179()-1S02) lost all his territories on the mainland,
which, together with Liguria and Parma, were united
to France. The king abiUcated, entered the Society of
Jesus, and in 1802 resigned the crown to his brother
Victor Emmanuel I. At first the latter resided in
Sardinia.
Until the seventeenth century the position of the Church in Piedmont was a satisfactory one; no re- striction was placed upon its activities. The country contained numerous dioceses; of these Aosta was a suffragan of Tarentaise, Nice of Embrun, and the other dioceses on Italian soil were suffragans of Milan. In 1515 Turin, where the Dukes of Savoy lived, was made an archdiocese with the two suffragan sees of Ivrea and Mondovi. As lord chancellor and first sec- retary of state the Archbishop of Turin was by law a member of the council of state. The ducal family was verj' religious, and until the end of the seventeenth centur>' maintained close relations with the Papal See, which had established a permanent nunciature at Turin in the sixteenth century, while an agent of the Government of Piedmont resided at Rome. For some of their domains the dukes were vassals of the Holy See, but this relation caused no difficulties. There was a large body of clergy, and monasteries were numerous. There were also two religious orders of knights, that of St. Lazarus, an order or hospitallers for the care of the sick, especially lepers, and that of St. Mauritius, which had been founded by Amadeus VIII in 1434 and confirmed in 1572 by Gregory XII. The same pope confirmed the union of the two orders, of which the duke was the perpetual grand master. The orig- inal purpose of these knightly orders was, however, very soon lost sight of; in recent times they have been changed into a secular decoration. Duke Charles Emmanuel I was very zealous in the struggle against Protestantism, and both he and his two successors took energetic measures against the growth of the Waldensians. However, Emmanuel Philibert made the execution of the judgments of the ecclesiastical Inquisition dejjendent on the consent of the senate and judicial investigation by the Government.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century the dukes, who had become absolute rulers, and their administrative officials began to suppress the liberties of the Church in imitation of France. They even interfered in the purely ecclesiastical government of the Chvirch. Thus during the administration of Vic-
tor Amadeus, who was the actual ruler from 1684,
violent dissensions with the Holy See arose and se-
riously injured rehgious life, especially because large
numbers of dioceses and higher ecclesiastical benefices
remained vacant for a long period. Lengthy negotia<-
tions were carried on with Rome. An edict issued by
Victor .\madeus in 1694 for the benefit of the Walden-
sians was rejected at Rome, because it annulled the
old law for the protection of the Catholic Church.
The duke took the most severe measures against this
Roman decree. The senate forbade its publication
under hca\'y penalties, so that it could not be executed,
and the tribunal of the Inquisition of Piedmont lost
nearlj' all its importance. The Dioceses of Casale,
Acqui, and Ventimiglia included parts of the territory
of Piedmont, although the bishops did not reside in
the duchy; this was regarded as a great grievance.
The duke wished to force these bishops to appoint
episcopal vicars for the super\'ision of those of his
subjects belonging to their dioceses; this the bishops
refused to do. Whereupon the landed jiroperty in
Piedmont belonging to the Diocese of Nice was se-
questrated; this led the bishop, after three years of
unsuccessful negotiations, to excommunicate the
secular officials who had carried out the ducal decree.
The senate forbade the recognition of the sentence of
excommunication under the severest penalties, for
the laity the penalty of death, and commanded the
priests to grant the sacraments to the excommuni-
cated. This last command, however, was recalled by
the duke as too extreme a measure against ecclesias-
tical authority.
Victor Amadeus now claimed the entire right of presentation to all the sees and to all the abbeys in his territories granted by the pope in consistory, on ground of a privilege conferred by Pope Nicholas V in 1451 upon Duke Louis of Savoy, whereby the pope, before filling sees and abbacies, would ask for the opinion and consent of the duke in regard to the per- sons nominated. This privilege had been confirmed on various occasions during the sixteenth century. Rome was not willing to acknowledge the privilege in this enlarged form. The duke had also issued an edict by which a secular judge was not to grant per- mission to those desiring to enter the clergy until he had fully informed himself concerning the ability of the candidate, the number of parishes in the locality, and of the priests and monks there, and the nature of the property to be assigned to the candidate for his support. In 1700 a bitter dispute arose between the Archbishop of Turin and the ducal delegation, when the archbishop by a decree declared invalid the eccle- siastical arrangements proposed by the laity against the decrees of the Apostolic See. However, the bish- ops, supported by the nuncio, followed the instruc- tions of the pope in all ecclesiastical questions. Fur- ther disputes also arose concerning the testamentary competency of regulars, a right which was denied the regular clergy by the Government, and as to the rights of the pope in the fiefs of the Roman Church that were possessed by the dukes. These questions were exhaustively examined at Rome, and the advocate of the consistorj', Sardini, was sent to Turin to negotiate the matters; but the agreement adjusting the diffi- culty that was obtained by him was not accepted at Rome. New troubles constantly arose when the duke confiscated the revenues of benefices accruing during their vacancy and abrogated the spolia (prop- erty of ecclesiastics deceased intestate) of ecclesias- tical Ijenefices. The Government appointed an ad- ministrator of its own for the care and administration of the est ates of vacant benefices, but he was not recog- nized by the bishops. Secular approval of ecclesias- tical acts and ordinances was made nece-ssary in a continually increasing number of cases. New negotia- tions, undertaken in 1710 at Rome by Count de Gubernatis, produced no results. The only agreement
