Mortara case
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The Mortara case was an Italian cause célèbre that captured the attention of much of Europe and North America in the 1850s and 1860s. It concerned the Papal States' seizure of a six-year-old boy named
The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, painting by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, 1862. This representation departs significantly from the historical record of how Mortara was taken – no clergy were present, for example.
Pope Pius IX (r. 1846–1878), depicted in Harper's Weekly in 1867
The Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna, photographed in 2006
Giacomo Antonelli, the Pope's head of government as Cardinal Secretary of State
Pope Pius IX
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Pope Pius IX was head of the Catholic Church from 16 June 1846 until his death in February 1878.
Mortara case
…testimony that she had administered an emergency baptism to the boy when he fell ill as an infant. Mortara grew up as a Catholic under the protection of Pope Pius IX, who refused his parents' desperate pleas for his return. Mortara eventually became a priest. The domestic and international outrage against the Papal…
Portrait by Adolphe Braun, 1875
1871 portrait by George Peter Alexander Healy
The birthplace house of Pius IX in Senigallia
Illustration showing Mastai-Ferretti at his first Holy Mass in 1819