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1798 · Europe · Faith

Capture of Pope Pius VI

French revolutionary forces occupied Rome, proclaimed a republic and carried Pius VI into exile, where he died.

Atlas dossier · Enlightenment & Revolutions

Free device narration · synchronized English captions · transcript available

Why it matters

The episode shows how revolution disrupted the old alliance of monarchy, church and temporal power.

Date
1798
Historical setting
Enlightenment & Revolutions · Europe
People & communities
Pius VI · Louis-Alexandre Berthier · French Directory
01

Event

French revolutionary forces occupied Rome, proclaimed a republic and carried Pius VI into exile, where he died.

02

People

Pius VI · Louis-Alexandre Berthier · French Directory

03

Consequences

The episode shows how revolution disrupted the old alliance of monarchy, church and temporal power.

Interpretation note

Evidence, memory and historical debate

This dossier distinguishes the event’s basic chronology from later arguments about meaning, responsibility and legacy. When comparing religious, national, Indigenous or scholarly interpretations, consult the primary and institutional sources above alongside peer-reviewed historical work.

Elsewhere in the world

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