Editing Bernardo Tanucci (section)

==Biography==

=== Early years ===
Born of a poor family in [[Stia]], near [[Arezzo]] ([[Tuscany]]), Tanucci was educated, thanks to a patron, at the [[University of Pisa]]. Tanucci was appointed a professor of law there in 1725 and attracted attention by his defence of the authenticity of the ''[[Codex Pisanus]]'' of the [[Pandects]] of Justinian. When [[Charles III of Spain|Charles, Duke of Parma]], son of [[Philip V of Spain]], who succeeded him as monarch and became Charles III, passed through Tuscany on his way to conquer the Kingdom of Naples, [[Cosimo III de' Medici]], Grand Duke of Tuscany, encouraged him to take Tanucci with him. In Naples Charles appointed him at first councillor of state, then superintendent of posts, minister of justice in 1752, foreign minister in 1754 and finally prime minister and a [[marquis]].<ref name=":0" />

=== Prime Minister ===
As prime minister Tanucci was most zealous [[regalist]] in establishing the supremacy of a modernized State over the Catholic Church, and in abolishing the feudal privileges of Papacy and the nobility in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Governing under the principles of [[enlightened absolutism]], he restricted the jurisdiction of the bishops, eliminated medieval privilege, and closed convents and monasteries, and reduced the taxes to be forwarded to the pontifical [[Curia]].{{sfn|Cernigliaro|2012}} These reforms were sanctioned in a Concordat signed with the Papacy in 1741, the application of which, however, went far beyond the intentions of the Holy See.

For the reform of the laws Tanucci instituted a commission of learned jurists with instructions to create a new legal code, the ''Codice Carolino'', which was, however, not put into force. When Charles of Naples became Charles III of Spain in 1759, Tanucci was made president of the council of regency instituted for the nine-year-old [[Ferdinand IV of Naples|Ferdinand IV]], who even when he reached his majority preferred to leave the government in Tanucci's hands, constantly overseen from [[Spain]] by Charles III.<ref name=":0" />

In foreign affairs, Tanucci kept Naples out of wars and entanglements, though in 1742 an English fleet off the coast helped ensure Neapolitan neutrality in the [[War of the Austrian Succession|war between Spain and Austria]]. Following the discovery of the [[Herculaneum papyri]] in 1752, per the advice from Bernardo, King Charles VII of Naples established a commission to study them.<ref name=Koekoe2017>{{cite web|url=http://etc.ancient.eu/education/villa-papyri/|title=Herculaneum: Villa of the Papyri|year=2017|access-date=January 19, 2019|author=Jade Koekoe}}</ref>

Tanucci worked at establishing for Bourbon Naples the kind of controls over the church that were effected by the [[Catholic Church in France|Gallican church]] in Bourbon France:  revenues of vacant bishoprics and abbeys went to the crown, superfluous convents were suppressed, tithes abolished and the acquisition of new Church property by [[mortmain]] was forbidden. Royal assent was required for the publication in Naples of [[papal bull]]s and concessions were no longer considered eternal. The status of Naples as a papal fief, dating from the time of the [[Hohenstaufen]], was denied: the king of Naples served at the pleasure of God only. Appeals to Rome were forbidden without the royal permission. Marriage was declared a civil contract. And by the order of Charles III the [[Suppression of the Jesuits|Jesuits were suppressed]] and expelled from the Kingdom of Naples in 1767, a move in which Tanucci was in general sympathy with other ministers at the Bourbon courts, as [[Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, 10th Count of Aranda|Aranda]] in Spain, [[Étienne François, duc de Choiseul|Choiseul]] in France, [[Guillaume du Tillot|du Tillot]] in Parma, and also with [[Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquess of Pombal|Pombal]] in Portugal.<ref name=":0" />

[[Pope Clement XIII]] responded with excommunication, whereupon Tanucci occupied the monasteries at [[Benevento]] and [[Pontecorvo]], which were not returned to the Roman Church until after the pope's general order of dissolution of the Society of Jesus in 1773. The protests of the bishops against many of the new teachings in the schools after the expulsion of the Jesuits were dismissed as invalid. His policy in finance and in regard to the food taxes provoked popular revolutions on several occasions.<ref name=":0" />

=== Decline and later years ===
When, in 1774, [[Maria Carolina of Austria]], the Habsburg queen of Ferdinand IV, joined the Council of State, the power of Tanucci began to decline. In vain he endeavored to neutralize the queen's influence, but in 1777 he was dismissed and retired.<ref name=":0" /> He died in Naples in 1783 and was buried in the Basilica of [[San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini]].<ref name=":0" />