The study focuses on the earthquakes of 5 June 1688 and 14 March 1702 in Benevento, an enclave of the Papal States in the monarchy of Naples. In a multi-perspective analysis, it discusses the mental, political, and socio-economic attempts of the elites in local government and the Papal States to cope with these events. Response to these earthquakes proves to be an essential element in the struggle for supremacy, finally decided in his favour by the Archbishop of Benevento, Cardinal V.M. Orisini (later Pope Benedict XIII), who in contemporary historiography was feted as the 'saviour of Benevento'.