September 21 1676 – 14 Tishrei 5437
Pope Innocent XI, originally Benedetto Odescalchi, from a Genoan banking family, ascended to the papacy. Although early in his papal career he tried to ban money-lending by Roman Jews (which would have benefited his own family while destroying many Jewish families’ only livelihood), he later extend a certain amount of clemency to Italian Jews. He freed Jewish prisoners who’d been incarcerated by the Venetian Doge, Francesco Morisini, and opposed forced baptism, although the practice of conversion by coercion did not altogether disappear in his day.