fme_1133494 - VATICAN - PIUS IX (Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti) Médaille, Bene Merenti

ITALY - PAPAL STATES - PIUS IX (Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti)

(1792-1878)

Pius IX (1792-1878), elected after a vacancy of only fifteen days, had the longest pontificate of the 19th century. After a happy start, showing in him, if not a liberal, at least an innovator between 1846-1848, the Roman revolution threw him back into conservatism. After the February Revolution in France, unrest spread throughout Europe and even Rome. Faced with the refusal of Pius IX to declare war on Austria, the republic was proclaimed on February 9 at the instigation of Mazzini and Garibaldi. On June 1, an expeditionary force was sent to Rome to restore order. The French seized the city on July 3 and restored Pius IX. He could not prevent Victor Emmanuel II from achieving Italian unity and found himself isolated from 1861. Rome resisted for another nine years before falling into the hands of the King of Italy and becoming the capital in 1870. Pius IX saw the nine last years of his life considering himself a prisoner of Italian power.