Giulio Rospigliosi, who took the name Clemens IX, was Pope for only two and a half years, from June 1667 to December 1669. He was an accomplished man of letters, who wrote poetry, dramas and libretti, as well as what may be the first comic opera. He was a patron of Nicolas Poussin, commissioning A Dance to the Music of Time from him and dictating its iconography.
Portrait of Pope Clemens IX by Carlo Maratta.
