[1] Not permitted by Pope Clement XIII to land at Civitavecchia in Italy, along with the other Jesuits of the province of Aragon, they sailed to the Corsican Republic, where Pignatelli displayed a marked ability for organization in providing for 600 priests and seminarians.

Pignatelli was again required to secure shelter in the legation of Ferrara, not only for the Jesuits of his own province, but also for those forced home from the missions in New Spain.

The two Pignatelli brothers were then obliged to seek refuge in Bologna, where they lived in retirement, being forbidden to exercise their Christian ministry.

A few years later, the newly elected Pope Pius VI granted permission for the surviving ex-Jesuits to reunite with the members of the Society of Jesus still functioning in the Russian Empire.

During this delay Pignatelli was permitted by Ferdinand, Duke of Parma (who had violently expelled them from his lands in 1768), to re-establish the Society in his duchy.

Schools and a college were opened in Sicily, but when this part of the kingdom fell into Napoleon's power the dispersion of the Jesuits was ordered, though the decree was not rigorously enforced.

Pignatelli founded colleges in Rome, Tivoli, and Orvieto, and the Jesuit fathers were gradually invited to other cities.

During the exile of Pope Pius VII and the French occupation of the Papal States, the Society continued untouched, owing largely to the prudence of Pignatelli; he even managed to avoid any oaths of allegiance to Napoleon.

[2] Pignatelli died in Rome, then under French occupation, on 15 November 1811, due to hemorrhaging resulting from his tuberculosis, which had begun the previous month.