Innocent XII. (Antonio Pignatelli), pope from 1691 to 1700 in succession to Alexander VIII., was born in Naples on the 13th of March 1615, was educated at the Jesuit College in Rome, entered upon his official career at the age of twenty, and became vice-legate of Urbino, governor of Perugia, and nuncio to Tuscany, to Poland and to Austria. He was made cardinal and archbishop of Naples by Innocent XI., whose pontificate he took as a model for his own, which began on the 12th of July 1691. Full of reforming zeal, he issued ordinances against begging, extravagance and gambling; forbade judges to accept presents from suitors; built new courts of justice; prohibited the sale of offices, maintaining the financial equilibrium by reducing expenses; and, an almost revolutionary step, struck at the root of nepotism, in a bull of 1692 ordaining that thenceforth no pope should grant estates, offices or revenues to any relative. Innocent likewise put an end to the strained relations that had existed between France and the Holy See for nearly fifty years. He adjusted the difficulties over the regalia, and obtained from the French bishops the virtual repudiation of the Declaration of Gallican Liberties. He confirmed the bull of Alexander VIII. against Jansenism (1696); and, in 1699, under pressure from Louis XIV., condemned certain of Fénelon’s doctrines which Bossuet had denounced as quietistic (see Fénelon). When the question of the Spanish succession was being agitated he advised Charles II. to make his will in favour of the duke of Anjou. Innocent died, on the eve of the great conflict, on the 27th of September 1700. Moderate, benevolent, just, Innocent was one of the best popes of the modern age.
See Guarnacci, Vitae et res gestae Pontiff. Rom. (Rome, 1751), i. 389 sqq.; Ranke, Popes (Eng. trans., Austin), iii. 186 sqq.; v. Reumont, Gesch. der Stadt Rom. iii. 2, p. 640 sqq.; and the Bullarium Innoc. XII. (Rome, 1697). (T. F. C.)
Innocent XIII. (Michele Angelo Conti), pope from 1721 to
1724, was the son of the duke of Poli, and a member of a family
that had produced several popes, among them Innocent III.,
was born in Rome on the 13th of May 1655, served as nuncio in
Switzerland, and, for a much longer time, in Portugal, was made
cardinal and bishop of Osimo and Viterbo by Clement XI., whom
he succeeded on the 8th of May 1721. One of his first acts was
to invest the emperor Charles VI. with Naples (1722); but
against the imperial investiture of Don Carlos with Parma and
Piacenza he protested, albeit in vain. He recognized the
Pretender, “James III.,” and promised him subsidies conditional
upon the re-establishment of Roman Catholicism in England.
Moved by deep-seated distrust of the Jesuits and by their
continued practice of “Accommodation,” despite express papal
prohibition (see Clement XI.), Innocent forbade the Order to
receive new members in China, and was said to have meditated
its suppression. This encouraged the French Jansenist bishops
to press for the revocation of the bull Unigenitus; but the pope
commanded its unreserved acceptance. He weakly yielded to
pressure and bestowed the cardinal’s hat upon the corrupt and
debauched Dubois. Innocent died on the 7th of March 1724,
and was succeeded by Benedict XIII.
See Guarnacci, Vitae et res gestae Pontiff. Rom. (Rome, 1751), ii. 137 sqq., 381 sqq.; Sandini, Vitae Pontiff. Rom. (Padua, 1739); M. v. Mayer, Die Papstwahl Innocenz XIII. (Vienna, 1874); Michaud, “La Fin du Clement XI. et le commencement du pontificat d’Innocent XIII.” in the Internat. Theol. Zeitschr. v. 42 sqq., 304 sqq. (T. F. C.)
INNOCENTS’ DAY, or Childermas, a festival celebrated in
the Latin church on the 28th of December, and in the Greek
church on the 29th (O.S.) in memory of the massacre of the
children by Herod. The Church early regarded these little ones
as the first martyrs. It is uncertain when the day was first kept
as a saint’s day. At first it seems to have been absorbed into the
celebration of the Epiphany, but by the 5th century it was kept
as a separate festival. In Rome it was a day of fasting and
mourning. In the middle ages the festival was the occasion for
much indulgence to the children. The boy-bishop (q.v.), whose
tenure of office lasted till Childermas, had his last exercise of
authority then, the day being one of the series of days which
were known as the Feast of Fools. Parents temporarily abdicated
authority, and in nunneries and monasteries the youngest nun
and monk were for the twenty-four hours allowed to masquerade
as abbess and abbot. These mockeries of religion were condemned
by the Council of Basel (1431); but though shorn of its
extravagances the day is still observed as a feast day and merry-making
for children in Catholic countries, and particularly as an
occasion for practical joking like an April Fool’s Day. In
Spanish-America when such a joke has been played, the phrase
equivalent to “You April fool!” is Que la inocencia le valga!
May your innocence protect you! The society of Lincoln’s Inn
specially celebrated Childermas, annually electing a “king of the
Cockneys.” Innocents’ Day was ever accounted unlucky.
Nothing was begun and no marriages took place then. Louis XI.
prohibited all state business. The coronation of Edward IV.,
fixed for a Sunday, was postponed till the Monday when it was
found the Sunday fell on the 28th of December. In rural England
it was deemed unlucky to do housework, put on new clothes or
pare the nails. At various places in Gloucestershire, Somerset
and Worcestershire muffled peals were rung (Notes and Queries,
1st series, vol. viii. p. 617). In Northampton the festival was
called “Dyzemas Day” (possibly from Gr. δυσ- “ill” and
“mass”), and there is a proverb “What is begun on Dyzemas
will never be finished.” The Irish call the day La Croasta na
bliana, “the cross day of the year,” or Diar dasin darg, “blood
Thursday,” and many legends attach to it (Notes and Queries,
4th series, vol. xii. p. 185). In medieval England the children
were reminded of the mournfulness of the day by being whipped
in bed on Innocents’ morning. This custom survived to the
17th century.
INNSBRUCK, the capital of the Austrian province of Tirol,
and one of the most beautifully situated towns in Europe. In
1900 the population was 26,866 (with a garrison of about 2000
men), mainly German-speaking and Romanist. Built at a
height of 1880 ft., in a wide plain formed by the middle valley
of the Inn and on the right bank of that river, it is surrounded by
lofty mountains that seem to overhang the town. It occupies
a strong military position (its commercial and industrial importance
is now but secondary) at the junction of the great highway
from Germany to Italy over the Brenner Pass, by which it is by
rail 10912 m. from Munich and 17412 m. from Verona, with that
from Bregenz in the Vorarlberg, distant 122 m., by rail under the
Arlberg Pass. It takes its name from its position, close to the
chief bridge over the Inn. It is the seat of the supreme judicial
court of the Tirol, the Diet of which meets in the Landhaus.
The streets are broad, there are several open places and the
houses are handsome, many of those in the old town dating
from the 17th and 18th centuries, and being adorned with
frescoes, while the arcades beneath are used as shops.
The principal monument is the Franciscan or Court church (1553–1563). In it is the magnificent 16th-century cenotaph (his body is elsewhere) of the emperor Maximilian (d. 1519), who, as count of the Tirol from 1490 onwards, was much beloved by his subjects. It represents the emperor kneeling in prayer on a gigantic marble sarcophagus, surrounded by twenty-eight colossal bronze statues of mourners, of which twenty-three figure ancestors, relatives or contemporaries of Maximilian, while five represent his favourite heroes of antiquity—among these five are the two finest statues (both by Peter Vischer of Nuremberg), those of King Arthur of Britain and of Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king. On the sides of the sarcophagus are twenty-four marble reliefs, depicting the principal events in the life of Maximilian, nearly all by Alexander Colin of Malines, while the general design of the whole monument is attributed to Gilg Sesselschreiber, the court painter. In one of the aisles of the same church is the Silver Chapel, so called from a silver Madonna and silver bas-reliefs on the altar; it contains the tombs of Archduke Ferdinand, count of the Tirol (d. 1595) and his non-royal wife, Philippine Welser of Augsburg (d. 1580), whose happy married life spent close by is one of the most romantic episodes in Tirolese history. In the other aisle are the tombs, with monuments, of the heroes of the War of Independence of 1809, Hofer, Haspinger and Speckbacher. It was in this church
