At a January 18 press conference, Vatican officials and scholars discussed events, including symposia and a concert, to commemorate the bicentenary of the death of Cardinal Ercole Consalvi (1757-1824).
Cardinal Consalvi, Pope Pius VII’s Secretary of State, was “one of the greatest statesmen who has ever served the papal court,” in the judgment of the Catholic Encyclopedia (1908). The prelate, “a leader of the opposition to Napoleon … succeeded in the face of great difficulty in obtaining the restitution of most of the Papal States” during the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), Encyclopaedia Britannica
notes.