The family of Emilio Bonaventura Altieri belongs…

The family of Emilio Bonaventura Altieri belongs to the ancient Roman nobility and has enjoyed the highest consideration at Rome for several centuries; they had occasionally contracted alliances with the Colonnas and the Orsinis.

During earlier pontificates, Altieri has held many important offices and has been entrusted with several delicate missions.

Pope Urban VIII had given him charge of the works designed to protect the territory of Ravenna from the unruly Po River; Pope Innocent X had sent him as nuncio to Naples, where he remained for eight years.

He is credited with the re-establishment of peace after the stormy days of Masaniello.

Pope Alexander VII had confided to him a mission to Poland.

Pope Clement IX had named him Superintendent of the Papal Exchequer (in charge of the Church's finances), and in 1667 his maestro di camera, and he was made Secretary of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars.

Just before his death, Clement IX had made him a Cardinal.

He was then about seventy-nine years of age; and Clement IX, when making him a member of the Sacred College, said to him: "You will be our successor."

After Clement’s funeral, sixty-two electors entered into conclave on December 20, 1669.

Forty-two votes were necessary, and heated discussion prevailed for four months; Giovanni Cardinal Conti was supported by twenty-two votes; Cardinal Rospigliosi, nephew of the late Pope, had thirty, or, as some say, thirty-three, with two at the accesso, so that he needed only seven more votes to gain the tiara.

Cardinal Cerri obtained twenty-three votes.

At length, the cardinals agreed to resort to the old expedient of electing a cardinal of advanced years, and proposed Cardinal Altieri, an octogenarian, whose long life has been spent in the service of the Church, and whom Clement IX, on the eve of his death, had raised to the dignity of the purple.

The reason a prelate of such transcendent merits received the cardinalate so late in life seems to have been that he had waived his claims to the elevation in favor of an older brother.

On April 29, 1670, the papacy had been offered to him by fifty-nine Cardinals present at the election; only two being against him.

He, however, objected because of his age, for he was almost eighty, and exclaimed, "I am too old to bear such a burden."

Pointing to Cardinal Brancacci, Altieri said he was the Cardinal whom they ought to elect.

He persists in refusing, protesting that he no longer has strength or memory; but he is crowned on May 11.

With tears he accepts, and out of gratitude to his benefactor, by ten years his junior, he assumes the name of Clement X.