ALBANI, Cardinal Gian Francesco, was elected Pope in November 1700, as the successor of Innocent XII. After his election, he hesitated about accepting the high office; but after some days ascended the chair of St Peter by the title of Clement XI. Whatever were his reasons for hesitation, he became one of the most active and zealous pontiffs in supporting the prerogatives and pretensions of the Holy See; which embroiled him with Victor Amadeus of Savoy, with Naples, and with Austria. But his most noted interference was in the religious dissensions in France; when by his bull entitled "Vineam Domini," he confirmed the edict of his predecessors against the Jansenists; but the issuing of his celebrated bull "Unigenitus," in 1713, set the kingdom of France in a flame. In this he condemned as heretical 101 propositions in Quesnel's Reflections Morales sur le Nouveau Testament, in which that author had maintained various opinions of St Augustin and the older fathers, which favoured the Jansenist doctrines on Grace and Free Will.
After a severe struggle and keen debates, Le Tellier, the Jesuit confessor of Louis XIV., persuaded his master to receive the bull; and it was at length registered by the Parliament of Paris; but these questions had for several years estranged France from the Holy See.
Another affair which troubled this pope was the disputes concerning the Jesuit missionaries in China, who had risen high in the consideration of the Imperial government, and seemed too independent of the court of Rome. Clement sent as his legate Cardinal Tourron in 1702; but he died at Macao, and his successor, Father Mezzabarba, was but coldly received at Pekin, and soon after ordered to quit China, at the instigation, as it was alleged, of the Jesuits; a source of deep mortification to this aspiring pontiff.
Clement warmly espoused the cause of the exiled house of Stuart, and furnished the son of James II. with money
Albania. for his ill-advised attempt on Britain in 1715. After the failure of that expedition, he offered the prince an asylum at Urbino, where, as the Chevalier de St George, he had from the Pope a pension of 30,000 scudi; and, on his marriage with Clementina, daughter of the heroic John Sobieski, gave him a palace at Rome for his residence. This Pope died in March 1721.
Clement was a scholar, and wrote an excellent Latin style. His Homilies have been translated into Italian by Cescimbeni.