Not only is this the earliest known photograph of a Pope,
but it's a photograph of a man born in 1792.
February 7, 1878: Pope Pius IX dies of a heart attack in the Vatican. He was 85 years old, and had reigned for 31 years. Aside from the 1st Pope, Saint Peter himself, 34 years, he is the longest-reigning Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.
He was born on May 13, 1792, in Senigallia, in the Marche region of Italy, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, with the name Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti. In 1814, as a theology student in his hometown of Sinigaglia, he met Pope Pius VII. The following year, he entered the Papal Noble Guard, but was soon dismissed after an epileptic seizure. He threw himself on the mercy of Pius VII, who elevated him, and supported his continued theological studies.
His seizures became less frequent. He was ordained as a priest in 1819, and earned the trust of the next Pope, Leo XII, who appointed him Archbishop of Spoleto in 1827. Pope Gregory XVI named him a Cardinal in 1839, and Cardinal Ferretti was named his successor on June 16, 1846, at the age of 54. He took the regnal name Pius IX, in honor of his patron, Pius VII.
He modernized the Papal States, before they were absorbed into the Kingdom of Italy in 1870. He was also Pope during the Irish Potato Famine of 1845 to 1849, for which he raised aid; the European Revolutions of 1848, which led him to become considerably more conservative; the rise (1852) and fall (1870) of France's Second Empire; the Crimean War of 1853 to 1856, which he did nothing to end; the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, which he did nothing to end, nor did he do anything to encourage the abolition of slavery in America; the unification of Germany in 1871, which saw him at odds with Chancellor Otto von Bismarck; and the Paris Commune, also in 1871, which he opposed.
He convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which raised the role of Mary in the Church, and ratified his doctrine of Papal infallibility.
He developed erysipelas, especially on his legs, which made walking painful and eventually nearly impossible. A heat wave in 1877 sent his health into decline, but he lived long enough to see the death of his former enemy, King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, on January 9, 1878. On February 7, he had a seizure, which gave him a fatal heart attack.
He was beatified in 2000, but, as of 2022, has not been canonized as a saint. In 1874, while he was still alive, a street in Montreal was named for him: Pie-IX Boulevard (pronounced "Pee-noof"). It forms part of Quebec Route 125, and part of the border of Montreal's 1976 Olympic Park. The station serving that Park on the Montreal Metro (subway) system is named Pie-IX. In 1937, as part of the Boulevard, the Pie-IX Bridge was built over the Prairies River. It was rebuilt in 1967.
Pius IX was succeeded by Leo XIII, and he reigned for 25 years. So, for 56 years, 1846 to 1903 -- in America, the Presidencies of James K. Polk to Theodore Roosevelt -- there were 16 Presidents, but only 2 Popes. (Of course, there had only recently been a 2nd monarch of Great Britain, as Queen Victoria had been on that throne from 1837 to 1901, succeeded by King Edward VII.)
Leo XIII was followed in 1903 by Pius X, in 1914 by Benedict XV, in 1922 by Pius XI, in 1939 by Pius XII, in 1958 by John XXIII, in 1963 by Paul VI, in 1978 by John Paul I, and then, after just 33 days, the shortest-reigning modern Pope, by John Paul II. His reign of 26 years is the 2nd-longest in the modern era. He was succeeded in 2005 by Benedict XVI. He resigned in 2013 (all the other changes mentioned here were through the death of the preceding Pope), and was succeeded by Francis.
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February 7, 1878 was a Thursday. There were no scores on this historic day.
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