After studying at the Jesuit College, Rome, Pignatelli joined the Curia under Pope Urban VIII, becoming successively governor of Viterbo and papal ambassador to Tuscany and to Poland and Austria. He was made cardinal in 1681 by Pope Innocent XI, whose pontificate Pignatelli emulated after being elected pope on July 12, 1691, as Innocent XII. In 1693 he broke the politico-religious deadlock between King Louis XIV of France and the Holy See by influencing Louis to disavow the four Gallican Articles of 1682 issued against Innocent XI. In exchange, Innocent agreed to extend the king's right to administer vacant sees. Upon Louis's insistence in 1699, Innocent condemned Maximes des saints (“Maxims of the Saints”) compiled by the eminent French mystic archbishop Fénelon of Cambrai, whose work was one of the key issues in the controversy over a heretical doctrine of Christian perfection known as Quietism. Fénelon submitted immediately. A reforming pope, he denounced a number of clerical abuses, particularly nepotism.