Portrait of Pius VI

Pius VI – in Latin: Pius Sextus; in Italian: Pio VI – (1717–1799) was the 250th Pope of the Catholic Church from 1775 to 1799. He is best known for his opposition to the French Revolution, particularly to the ‘Civil Constitution of the Clergy’, through which the Constituent Assembly sought to reorganise the French secular clergy and thereby establish a new Church, the “Constitutional Churc”.
During the Italian campaign of 1798, Bonaparte established the Roman Republic under the authority of the French Directory. Pius VI was taken prisoner by French troops, who forced him to leave Rome on 20 February 1798. Imprisoned in Valence, France, from July 1799, he died there shortly afterwards.