Scipione de' Ricci was born in
Florence, of a notable local family. On June 19, 1780, he was appointed
Bishop of Pistoia and Prato, the most populous of the dioceses of Tuscany. As bishop, he acted with energy in his government of the diocese and cited the measures of
Pius VI in favour of pastoral renewal. The absolutist monarchy of the
Grand Duchy of Tuscany was in the hands of the
Habsburg dynasty, which in Austria had already made its own the ecclesiastical policies expounded by the German
Febronius, of fundamentally
Gallican tendency. With the support of
Leopold I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, or perhaps at the latter's instigation, Ricci summoned the 1786
Synod of Pistoia, whose members, drawn from the local clergy, voted with the encouragement of the bishop and the absolutist regime for a heady list of propositions of mixed provenance. Some came simply from
Febronianism, others from
Gallicanism, others from
Jansenism. Among the measures voted were some that simply dealt with public order issues connected with saints' festivals, some repeated regulations that had been part of Church law for centuries. Others concerned matters of Church doctrine well beyond the authority of a single diocese, others were moderate pastoral proposals. A number were hoary old chestnuts of Church reform, such as the censoring of "legendary" material in service-books, an issue proposed to the Council of Trent and dealt with the liturgical reforms initiated by Pope
Pius V and his successors. The synod's decrees, promulgated by means of a pastoral letter of the bishop, met naturally with warm approval from the Grand Duke. The next phase in the latter's programme was a "national"
synod of the Tuscan bishops, which duly met at
Florence on April 23, 1787. At this point, however, the plan stalled. The bishops who made up its participants refused to allow a voice to any not of their own order, and in the end the decrees of Pistoia were supported by only three bishops. Nevertheless, the acts of the synod of Pistoia were published in Latin and Italian at Pavia in 1788. Despite having been cited by Ricci as the inspirer of his moves, Pope
Pius VI intervened and had the Pistoia resolutions examined. A series of extracted propositions were eventually condemned by the papal bull
Auctorem fidei of August 28, 1794. Deprived of the personal support of the Grand Duke (who had in the meantime become
Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II), under pressure from Rome, and threatened with mob violence as a suspected destroyer of holy relics, Ricci had already resigned his see in 1791, and lived in
Florence as a private gentleman until his death. In May 1805, upon the return of
Pope Pius VII from
Paris, he signed an act of submission to papal authority. He died on 28 December 1810, and is buried at Rignana, near
Greve in Chianti. ==Memoirs==