Pope Leo XII

Annibale della Genga, elected after a career as papal diplomat, governed in the conservative climate of the post-Napoleonic Restoration. He sided with the intransigent zelanti, seeking to restore traditional order in the Papal States and the Church. He tightened controls over education, censorship, and Roman Jews, whom he confined more strictly to the ghetto—measures later widely criticized. He proclaimed the Holy Year of 1825, drawing many pilgrims, and condemned Freemasonry and indifferentism. His austerity and reactionary policies made him unpopular with much of the Roman populace. Often ill, he reigned only some five years, leaving a Papal State increasingly out of step with the age.