Pope Pius IX

A carte-de-visite portrait of Pope Pius IX, sometimes known as 'Pio Nono'.

In 1846 Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti (1792-1878) became the 252nd man to occupy the chair of St. Peter. Initially a liberal, he never recovered from his exile of 1848 and for the rest of his life remained convinced that political concessions to democracy merely fuelled the fires of revolution. An opponent of Italian unity, he became a virtual prisoner in the Vatican.

Photographed by Fratelli d'Alessandri of Rome.