The life of Pope Clement XIV Fleuron T105310-1

Marquis Louis-Antoine Caraccioli (6 November 1719 – 29 May 1803) was a prolific French writer, poet, historian, and

biographer Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography. Biographers Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...

long considered an "enemy of Philosophy" because of his extensive writings as a religious apologist.

Life

Caraccioli was born in Paris to a noble family of Neapolitan origin, and held the title of Marquis. He studied in Mans and travelled in Italy, Germany and Poland and returned to Paris around 1768. Caraccioli started his literary career during his travels in Italy. He wrote prolifically on a broad range of subjects. Caraccioli survived the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

, despite his close ties to French

aristocracy Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At t ...

during the reigns of

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...

and

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

, but was left financially ruined. In 1795, he was awarded a 2000 franc pension by the

National Convention The National Convention (french: link=no, Convention nationale) was the parliament of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for the rest of its existence during the French Revolution, following the two-year National ...

. He died poor in Paris, in 1803, leaving, it is said, only eighty francs behind him. His work was not ranked highly in his time; one of the old French biographical dictionaries, ''Nouvelle biographie générale'', describes him as ''un littérateur'' (a maker of literature) rather than ''un écrivain'' (a writer). He is especially interesting to eighteenth-century scholars of

manners Etiquette () is the set of norms of personal behaviour in polite society, usually occurring in the form of an ethical code of the expected and accepted social behaviours that accord with the conventions and norms observed and practised by a ...

Pope Clement XIV Pope Clement XIV ( la, Clemens XIV; it, Clemente XIV; 31 October 1705 – 22 September 1774), born Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 May 1769 to his death in Sep ...

and

ultramontanism Ultramontanism is a clerical political conception within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the Pope. It contrasts with Gallicanism, the belief that popular civil authority—often represented by th ...

, among other subjects. Caraccioli is best known among book collectors for his color-printed books – ''Le livre de quatre couleurs'' (1757) and ''Le livre à la mode'' (1759) – as well as ''La jouissance de soi-même'' (1759), ''Liège de Le véritable mentor'' (1759), ''Le langage de la raison'' (1763), ''De la gaieté'' (1767), ''L’agriculture simplifiée'' (1769), ''Le Voyage de la Raison en Europe'' (1772), and ''Lettres intéressantes du pape Clément XIV'' (1776), many of which went through numerous editions in Europe and the United States and have been translated into several languages. ''Lettres intéressantes du pape Clément XIV'', which are considered by many to be forgeries, initially misled many Europeans about the life of the then recently deceased

Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

.Attenborough, J.M., "A Remarkable Literary Deception", ''The Gentleman's Magazine'', Bradbury, Evans, 1904, p. 219
/ref> One of his most studied and collected books, ''Les adieux de la Maréchale de *** à ses enfants'' (1769) (trans. ''Advice from a Lady of Quality to her Children, in the Last Stage of a Lingering Illness, In a Series of Evening-Conferences on the Most Interesting Subjects'') was written in a series of "conferences" or meetings, which substitute for chapters or the more common use of letters. Unlike most courtesy books, Caraccioli's has the semblance of a plot and reads somewhat like a novel, which ends with the death of the main character. Caraccioli's work evolved a great deal over the half-century in which it was produced, and gradually reflected many modern values. Today many of his books are collected by various libraries throughout Europe and America, especially the

Bibliothèque nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...

and the

William Andrews Clark Memorial Library The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library (Clark Library), an affiliated library of the University of California, Los Angeles, holds rare books and manuscripts with particular strengths in English literature and history (1641–1800), Oscar ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

Major works

* ''Caractère de l'amitié'' * ''Conversation avec soi-même'' * ''Jouissance de soi-même'' * ''De la Grandeur d'âme'' * ''Tableau de la mort'' * ''De la gaieté'' * ''Les adieux de la Maréchale de *** à ses enfants'' * ''Langage de la raison'' * ''Langage de la religion'' * ''Religion de l'honnête homme'' * ''Le Chrétien du temps'' * ''Diogène à Paris'' * ''Le Livre à la mode'' * ''Vraie manière d'élever les princes'' * ''Dictionnaire pittoresque et sententieux'' * ''Vie de Clément XIV'' * ''Lettres intéressantes du pape Clément XIV''
''Voyage de la raison en Europe''

References

External links

*
''Louis-Antoine Caraccioli peintre de l'Italie : une manifestation ignorée de l'ultramontanisme''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Caraccioli, Louis-Antoine 1719 births 1803 deaths 18th-century French writers 18th-century French male writers French essayists French biographers French male essayists 18th-century essayists Male biographers

Life

Major works

References

Further reading

External links