Who he was
Of the noble Corsini family of Florence, kin of St Andrew Corsini, he trained in law and entered the Church at thirty-three after giving up his rights as eldest son. He served as papal treasurer, was made a cardinal by Clement XI, and was elected at seventy-eight. He went completely blind in his second year as pope and in later years governed from his bed.
What he is remembered for
He restored the papal finances and built on a grand scale: the façade of St John Lateran with its Corsini Chapel, the Palace of the Consulta, and the start of the Trevi Fountain, as well as the Capitoline collection of statues. He issued the first papal condemnation of Freemasonry (1738), gave St Paul of the Cross the church of Sts John and Paul for the Passionists, and canonised St Vincent de Paul.
Sources
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