The papal conclave held from 18 to 20 February 1878 saw the election of Vincenzo Pecci, who took the name Leo XIII as pope. Held after the death of Pius IX, who had had the longest pontificate since Saint Peter, it was the first election of a pope who would not rule the Papal States. It was the first to meet in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican because the venue used earlier in the 19th century, the Quirinal Palace, was now the palace of the king of Italy, Umberto I. Questions facing the cardinals When the cardinals assembled, they faced a dilemma. Should they choose a pope who would continue to espouse Pius IX's reactionary religious and political views, and would continue to refuse to accept Italy's Law of Guarantees guaranteeing the pope religious liberty in the Kingdom of Italy? Or should they turn away from the policies of Pius IX and choose a more liberal pope who could work for reconciliation with the king of Italy? Would choosing such a policy be seen as a betrayal of Pius IX, the self-proclaimed "prisoner in the Vatican"? Other broader issues included Church-State relations in Italy, the Third French Republic, Ireland and the United States; the heresy Leo XIII later called Americanism; divisions in the Church caused by the proclamation of papal infallibility by the First Vatican Council; and the status of the First Vatican Council, which had been halted suddenly and never concluded. The length of Pius IX's reign suggested the cardinals give special consideration to the age and health of the man they elected. Conclave Some 61 of 64 cardinals entered the conclave. Two others arrived too late from New York and Dublin to participate and one did not attend for health reasons. Three of the 61 had participated in the previous conclave in 1846: Luigi Amat di San Filippo e Sorso, Fabio Maria Asquini, and Domenico Carafa della Spina di Traetto. With what many churchmen believed was the "unstable" and "anti-Catholic" situation in a Rome that was no longer controlled by the Church, some cardinals, notably Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, urged that the conclave be moved outside Rome, perhaps even to Malta. However the Camerlengo, Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci, advocated otherwise, and an initial vote among cardinals to move to Spain was overturned in a later vote. The conclave finally assembled in the Sistine Chapel in