TANUCCI, BERNARDO

Marchese, Neapolitan statesman who, in concert with other chief ministers of the Bourbon courts of Portugal, France, and Spain, worked tirelessly to oppose the papacy and to expel and suppress the Jesuits; b. Stia, Tuscany, Feb. 20, 1698; d. near Naples, April 29, 1783. Although born in poverty, Tanucci through generous patrons received a liberal education and completed law studies at the University of Pisa, where in 1725 he was assigned a chair of jurisprudence. Engaging in frequent controversies, he became known for vehemence and invective rather than for any notable erudition. Readiness to resort to drastic action, so evident in his later life, found early expression in the riots that he incited among the Pisans in his effort to prevail over a rival named Grandi, with whom he was quarreling over the Pandects of Justinian.

Minister of State. In 1734, when the future Charles III of Spain was marching through Tuscany to seize Naples, he heard of Tanucci's opposition to the right of asylum for criminals and to the claims of the Holy Roman Empire in Italy and persuaded Tanucci to accompany him. For nearly a quarter of a century, Tanucci served as Charles's adviser and chief minister for Neapolitan affairs; even after he had become king of Spain in 1759, Charles III sought Tanucci's advice.

As chief of the Council of Regents that was established to rule the Kingdom of Naples for Charles's young son Ferdinand, Tanucci controlled the royal household as well as the government; even after Ferdinand should have assumed the responsibilities of government, Tanucci kept him so steadily diverted by the pleasures of the chase and other frivolities that governmental responsibilities were left in his own hands.

Tanucci was especially careful that each dispute between the Church and the kingdom was resolved in favor of the State. The Concordat of 1741, instead of protecting the Church, was exploited by Tanucci to sanction and continue irregularities. He arbitrarily limited the number of religious and priestly vocations; he merged dioceses and prevented episcopal vacancies from being filled, so that diocesan revenues could be confiscated; and he abolished tithes and saw to it that wills that had been made in favor of the Church or its charitable organizations were altered or set aside so that money could be secured to balance deficits caused by Tanucci's unwise fiscal policies. Only (St.) Alphonsus liguori's indomitable persistence enabled him to found the Redemptorist Order, over Tanucci's opposition. The teaching authority of the Church was attacked, the general acceptance of Gallicanism was advocated, and the Church's efforts to prevent the spread of Jansenism were frustrated. For a time Tanucci had masked his hostility toward the Church and the Jesuits so effectively that the general of the order, Ignatius Visconti, declared him a special beneficiary of the spiritual works of the society.

Tanucci's energies were at times so concentrated on strengthening the State at the expense of the Church that the kingdom's external security was neglected. This negligence permitted an English fleet to slip into a position from which it forced Tanucci's government to sign a humiliating pledge of neutrality. Despite his preoccupation with the conflict with the Church, Tanucci always maintained some of his early interest in education, in jurisprudence, and in research. He directed the revision of the curriculum of the University of Naples, established a commission to revise the legal code, and began the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Expulsion of the Jesuits. When Charles III, for reasons that had in large measure been suggested by Tanucci, but which the king said were to "remain unrevealed in our royal bosom," expelled the Jesuits from Spain early in April of 1767, it was anticipated that Tanucci, despite his emphatic denials, would soon take similar action in the Kingdom of Naples. On November 3 of the same year, Tanucci struck with characteristic violence. Whereas the soldiers of Charles III had waited until dawn to knock at the doors of the Jesuit residences to gain admission, left the furniture intact, and allowed the fathers to take a change of clothing as they departed, Tanucci's men smashed the doors down at midnight, shattered the furniture, and hustled the fathers to the wharves with nothing but the clothing they were wearing.

Although Clement XIII could not deter Tanucci from expelling the Jesuits as Sebastião pombal, Gilbert choi seul, and Pedro Aranda had done, he refused to yield to their insistence that the order be suppressed throughout the world. Just before the pope's death in 1769, Tanucci issued a pamphlet declaring that the pope was obliged to comply with the demands of the Catholic governments, and after the pope's death a special edition of the pamphlet was directed to each cardinal with the obvious intent of influencing the upcoming conclave.

For several years Tanucci had opposed Cardinal Ganganelli's prospective candidacy and even after the Bourbon faction in the conclave had voted for the cardinal, Tanucci's disappointment was reflected in the coldness of the congratulations that reached Clement XIV from Naples. Between the election of Clement XIV in the spring of 1769 and the summer of 1773, Tanucci's bullying demands for the suppression of the Jesuits joined those of Joseé Moñino, who represented Charles III in Rome. Writing to Charles III just before the Brief of Suppression was issued in 1773, Tanucci expressed fear that he would not live until the Jesuits had been suppressed throughout the world, and with the evident purpose of averting this disappointment told another of the stories that was to impel Louis XV to call him "the most mischievous mendacious caviller that ever walked the earth." The story concerned someone caught while stalking King Ferdinand in Naples. According to Tanucci this would-be assassin was a Jesuit hireling from Terracina. After the death of Clement XIV, Tanucci wrote to Charles explaining that although the Jesuits really had not poisoned the pope, they had allowed him to believe he had been poisoned, and the antidotes taken under this misapprehension had killed him.

Tanucci continued to control the government of the Kingdom of Naples and to exchange advice with Charles until the marriage of King Ferdinand of Naples to Princess Marie Caroline of Austria. The new queen succeeded in aligning the government of Naples with that of Hapsburg Austria, rather than with Bourbon Spain, and Tanucci. after a determined struggle to prevent this realignment, was forced to resign in 1777. He withdrew to the countryside near Naples. where he died, friendless and alone, in 1783.

Bibliography: l. pastor, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, 40 v. (London–St. Louis 1938–61) v. 36–39. p. calÀ-ulloa, Di Bernardo Tanucci e dei suoi tempi (Naples 1875). c. lo sordo, Tanucci e la Reggenza al tempo di Ferdinando IV (Bari 1912). h. m. acton, The Bourbons of Naples (1734–1825) (New York 1958). e. pontier, Enciclopedia Italiana di scienzi, littere ed arti, 36 v. (Rome 1929–39) 33:241.

[r. f. copeland]