Nuncio
Following his appointment as titular bishop, Caprara served as nuncio at Cologne from 1767 to 1775 where he dealt with the Febronian issue. In 1772 he visited Netherlands and United Kingdom.
Due to heath problems, in 1775 Caprara was appointed nuncio at Lucerne, and in 1785 he was moved to Vienna where he remained until 1793. The Vatican Secretary of State remained dissatisfied of his action in Vienna, where he for his pleaser and passive nature did not oppose the religious reforms undertook by Joseph II in order to make the Catholic Church in his empire the tool of the state, independent of the papacy.
In order to move him away from the nunciature in Vienna, on 18 June 1792 Caprara was promoted Cardinal Priest with the title of Sant'Onofrio. When Napoleon in 1796 conquered North Italy during the War of the First Coalition, Caprara, perhaps to protect his own estates in Bologna, took a stand in favor of the newly created Transpadane Republic even if such Napoleonic Republic had in agenda strong anticlerical measures. In this period he got the nickname of "Jacobin Cardinal". He supported the Treaty of Tolentino in 1997 which imposed terms of surrender on the Papal States.
Caprara participated to the Papal conclave in Venice and had good relations with Pope Pius VII with whom he traveled back to Rome. On 11 August 1800 he was appointed Bishop of Jesi in the Mark of Ancona.
Read more about this topic: Giovanni Battista Caprara