The death of Pope Clement XIV in 1774 had triggered a conclave to choose a successor.

Spain, France and Portugal drop all objections to the election of Giovanni Angelo Braschi, who is one of the more moderate opponents of the anti-Jesuit stance of the late pope.

Braschi was born in Cesena on Christmas in 1717 as the eldest of eight children to Count Marco Aurelio Tommaso Braschi and Ana Teresa Bandi.

His siblings are Felice Silvestro, Giulia Francesca, Cornelio Francesco, Maria Olimpia, Anna Maria Costanza, Giuseppe Luigi and Maria Lucia Margherita.

He was baptized in Cesena on the following December 27 and was given the baptismal name of Angelo Onofrio Melchiorre Natale Giovanni Antonio.

After he completed his studies in the Jesuit college of Cesena and receiving his doctorate of both canon and civil law in 1734, Braschi continued his studies at the University of Ferrara.

It was there that he became the private secretary of Cardinal Tommaso Ruffo, papal legate, in whose bishopric of Ostia and Velletri he held the post of auditor until 1753.

Cardinal Ruffo took him as his conclavist at the 1740 papal conclave and when the latter became the Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals in 1740, Braschi was appointed as his auditor.

His skill in the conduct of a mission to the court of Naples won him the esteem of Pope Benedict XIV who appointed him as one of his secretaries in 1753 following the death of Cardinal Ruffo.

The pope also appointed him as a canon of St Peter's Basilica in 1755.

In 1758, putting an end to an engagement to be married he was ordained to the priesthood.

Braschi was also appointed as the Referendary of the Apostolic Signatura in 1758 and held that position until 1759.

He also became the auditor and secretary of Cardinal Carlo Rezzonico, the nephew of Pope Clement XIII. In 1766, he was appointed as the treasurer of the camera apostolica by Pope Clement XIII.

Those who suffered under his conscientious economics had managed to convince Pope Clement XIV to elevate him into the cardinalate.

Braschi had been elevated on April 26, 1773, in Rome as the Cardinal-Priest of Sant'Onofrio.

This was a promotion which rendered him innocuous for a brief period of time.

Braschi receives support from those who dislike the Jesuits and are of the belief he will continue the actions of Clement XIV and hold true to his brief Dominus ac Redemptor (1773) which had seen the dissolution of the order, but the zelanti faction—pro-Jesuit—believes that he is in secret sympathetic towards the Jesuits and expects reparation for the wrongs suffered in the previous reign.

As a result, Braschi—as pope—will be led into situations in which he gives little satisfaction to either side: it is perhaps due to him the Jesuits have managed to escape dissolution in White Russia and Silesia.