ALEXANDER VII  . (Fabio Chigi), pope from 1655 to 1667, was born at Siena on the 13th of February 1599 . He was successively inquisitor at Malta, vice-legate at Ferrara and nuncio in Cologne (1639-1651) . Though expected to take part in the negotiations which led in 1648 to the peace of Westphalia, he refused to deliberate with heretics, and protested against the treaties when completed . Innocent X. subsequently made him cardinal secretary of state . When Innocent died, Chigi, the candidate favoured by Spain, was elected pope on the 7th of April 1655• The conclave believed he was strongly opposed to the nepotism then prevalent . In the first year of his reign Alexander VII. forbade his relations even to visit Rome; but in 1656 he gave them the best-paid civil and ecclesiastical offices, also palaces and princely estates . Alexander disliked business of state, preferring literature and philosophy; a collection of his Latin poems appeared at Paris in 1656 under the title Philomalhi Laborer Juveniles . He also encouraged architecture, and in particular constructed the beautiful colonnade in the piazza of St Peter's . He favoured the Jesuits, especially in their conflict with the Jansenists, forbade in 1661 the translation of the Roman Missal into French, and in 1665 canonized Francis of Sales . His pontificate was marked by protracted controversies with France and Portugal . He died on the 22nd of May 1667 .

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