Orsini's lack of political expertise led him to increasingly rely on an unscrupulous secretary (Cardinal Niccolò Coscia) whose financial abuses ruined the papal treasury, causing great damage to the Church in Rome.

At the age of eighteen he resigned his inheritance and entered the Dominican Order where he received the name of "Vincenzo Maria".

[3] Through the influence of his family, he was named, by Pope Clement X, Cardinal-Priest of San Sisto on 22 February 1672 (allegedly against his will).

Eventually he was persuaded to accept by Agustín Pipia, Master of the Order of Preachers and on 29 May 1724, Orsini was elected pontiff.

A man fond above all of asceticism and religious celebrations, he built several hospitals, but according to Cardinal Prospero Lambertini (later Pope Benedict XIV), "did not have any idea about how to rule".

He ultimately confirmed the authenticity of Augustine's bones, which had been discovered in 1695 in the Basilica San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro.

[6] The government of the Papal States was effectively held in Benedict XIII's stead by Cardinal Niccolò Coscia, who had been the pope's secretary when he was archbishop of Benevento, and who committed a long series of financial abuses to his own advantage, causing the ruin of the Papal treasury.

[10] With the papal bull Pretiosus, dated 26 May 1727, Benedict XIII granted to all Dominicans major houses of study and in particular to the Roman College of St. Thomas, the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas Angelicum the right of conferring academic degrees in theology to students outside the Order.

[11] Benedict XIII was suddenly attacked by a catarrh, contracted while officiating at the funeral service of Cardinal Marco Antonio Ansidei, of which he died on 21 February 1730 at the age of 81.

His funeral ceremonies were performed at the Vatican, whence he was removed to the Santa Maria sopra Minerva where he was buried in a tomb completed by Pietro Bracci and others.

On 21 February 1931, also in Tortona, the process was revitalized[12] but the presumed doubts about the morality of the late pontiff's Cardinal Secretary of State, Niccolò Coscia, caused its closing in 1940.

The diocesan phase for the beatification process concluded on 24 February 2017 at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran with Vallini celebrating the conclusion of the inquest.