Roman Catholic Pope. He served as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1769 to 1774. Born to a physician in Sant'Arcangelo di Romagna near Rimini, Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli received his first education in Verucchio and later under the Jesuits in Rimini and under the Piarist Fathers in Urbino. Entering the Order of the Friars Minor Conventuals in Mondaino, Forlì, he received the religious name of Lorenzo. Furthering his studies in Pesaro, Fano, Recanati and later in Rome, in 1731 he obtained a doctorate in theology. Lecturing the latter subject along with philosophy in the convents of the Order in Ascoli, Bologna and Milan, in 1741 he was elected definitor general of his Order. Declining the latter's generalship in 1765, according to some authors through his desire for a higher office, for many years he was a prominent figure in Pontifical affairs in Rome. An accomplished theologian who loved music, poetry and horse riding, Ganganelli was created cardinal priest in the consistory of September 24, 1759 by Pope Clement XIII with the title of San Lorenzo in Panisperna, some sources state that his created came through the instance of Father Lorenzo Ricci, Superior General of the Society of Jesus. Ascribed to the Sacred Congregations of the Index, Propaganda Fide, Correction of Oriental Books, and Rites, he opted for the title of Ss. XII Apostoli on March 29, 1762. Elected to the Papacy on May 19, 1769, assuming the named Clement XIV, having already distanced himself from his once Jesuit friends during his cardinalate, he inherited from his predecessor Clement XIII, the hostility of every state of Catholic Europe towards the Society of Jesus which led him to suppress it on August 16, 1773, through the Papal bull 'Dominus ac Redemptor', dated July 21 of that year. In reality, Pope Clement had little option but to issue this momentous brief. Saluted as a victory for enlightenment, although it produced the elimination of the Jesuits everywhere except in Prussia and Russia, whose sovereigns, King Frederick II the Great and Czarina Catherine I the Great, prohibited its promulgation, the negative impact on the Catholic education in Europe and on the missionary work all over the world was immense, with the suppression removing the Pope's only independent support and putting the Church into the hands of the secular princes. A reserved and insecure man, who, afraid of being influenced, preferred to work alone, allowing the Cardinals little participation in his decisions, affected by depression and deeply afraid of assassination, the Pope died on September 22, 1774. The rapid decomposition of his body produced speculations of poisoning but an autopsy performed in the presence of many spectators, ascribed death to scorbutic and hemorrhoidal dispositions of long-standing, aggravated by excessive labor and by the habit of provoking artificial perspiration even during the greatest heat, proving thus that the theory of poising was untrue. Originally buried inside the Patriarchal Vatican Basilica, on January 21, 1802 his remains were transferred to the Basilica of Ss. XII Apostoli of his Order in Rome and reburied in a marble mausoleum sculpted by Antonio Canova.