Pope Pius VI was born with the given name of Giovanni Angelo Braschi in the year 1717 A.D., and died in 1799 A.D. He began his reign as Pope in the year 1775 A.D. and ended his reign in the year 1799 A.D., during the Modern Papacy. Pius VI was from Cesena, and his papal number is: 250 out of 267 officially recognized Roman Catholic Popes.
Summary: Long-reigning pope who faced the French Revolution and died in exile.
Biography:Pius VI governed at the moment when the old European order gave way to revolutionary upheaval. The French Revolution challenged not only papal territories but the entire cultural and political framework in which the papacy had long operated.
He condemned revolutionary excesses and eventually saw the Papal States invaded; he was taken prisoner by French forces and died in exile in Valence. His personal humiliation symbolized the collapse of an era.
Pius VI’s legacy is tragic and epochal: he was the pope through whom the ancien régime papacy suffered revolutionary displacement.
