Pope Clement XII (; ; 7 April 16526 February 1740), born Lorenzo Corsini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 July 1730 to his death in February 1740. Clement presided over the growth of a surplus in the papal finances. He thus became known for building the new façade of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, beginning construction of the Trevi Fountain, and the purchase of Cardinal Alessandro Albani's collection of antiquities for the papal gallery. In his 1738 bull , he provides the first public papal condemnation of Freemasonry. Early life Lorenzo Corsini was born in Florence in 1652 as the son of Bartolomeo Corsini, Marquis of Casigliano and his wife Elisabetta Strozzi, the sister of the Duke of Bagnuolo. Both of his parents belonged to the old Florentine nobility. He was a distant relative of Saint Andrea Corsini. Corsini studied at the Jesuit Collegio Romano in Rome and also at the University of Pisa where he earned a doctorate in both civil law and canon law. Career Corsini practiced law under the able direction of his uncle, Cardinal Neri Corsini. After the death of his uncle and his father, in 1685, Corsini, now thirty-three, would have become head of the Corsini. Instead he resigned his right of primogeniture and from Pope Innocent XI (1676–1689) he purchased, according to the custom of the time, for 30,000 scudi, a position of prelatial rank and devoted his wealth and leisure to the enlargement of the library bequeathed to him by his uncle. Corsini's home on the Piazza Navona was the center of Rome's scholarly and artistic life. In 1690 he was made titular Archbishop of Nicomedia and chosen nuncio to Vienna, receiving a dispensation from Pope Alexander VIII since he had not yet been ordained a priest. He did not proceed to the imperial court, because Leopold I, the Holy Roman Emperor, maintained that he had the right to select the nuncio from a list of three names furnished by the pope. In 1696, Corsini was appointed treasurer-general and governor of the Castel Sant'Angelo. His good fortune increased during the pontificate of Pope Clement XI (1700–1721), who employed his talents as a courtier and named him Cardinal-Priest of Santa Susanna on 17 May 1706, retaining his services as papal treasurer. He advanced still further under Pope Benedict XIII (1724–1730), who made him Prefect of