Pope Clement XII

Lorenzo Corsini became Pope Clement XII in July 1730, already seventy-eight and nearly blind. He ran the papal treasury carefully enough to pile up a surplus, then turned it loose on the city: commissioning the new façade of Saint John Lateran, launching construction of the Trevi Fountain, buying Cardinal Albani's trove of ancient sculptures for the Vatican collection. In 1738 he issued In eminenti apostolatus, the first papal bull condemning Freemasonry — a secret society most Catholics had never heard of. He died in February 1740, having redecorated Rome and drawn a line the Church would hol…