Alexander VIII

(1610–91)

   Pope.

   Alexander VIII was born Pietro Ottoboni in Venice. He was educated at the University of Padua and, after acting as Auditor of the Rota Sacra Romana (the papal tribune), he was appointed a Cardinal in 1652 and consecrated Bishop of Brescia in 1654. He became Grand Inquisitor of Rome during the Pontificate of Innocent XI, and was elected Pope in 1689. He is remembered mainly for his condemnation in 1690 of both the Four Gallican Propositions of 1682 and the Thirty-One Propositions of Cornelius jansen. He also censured the doctrine of philosophic sin in that it maintained a distinction between divine and natural law.

   M. Dubruel, ‘Le Pape Alexandre VIII et les affaires de France’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, xv (1914) [no English translation available];

   L. Pastor, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, Vol. 32 (1940).