Guido Bentivoglio

Guido Cardinal Bentivoglio d'Aragona (October 4, 1579 – September 7, 1644), was an Italian cardinal, statesman and historian.

Biography

A member of the Ferrara branch of the influential Bentivoglio family of Bologna, he was the younger son of marchese Cornelio Bentivoglio and Isabella Bendidio. After studying at the universities of Ferrara and Padua, where in 1598 he received a doctorate "utrique jure"— in both civil and canon law— he returned to Ferrara, to the humanistic studies that honed his elegant writing style. There Pope Clement VIII, on a visit to the city that had recently fallen under direct papal control at long last, made him his private chamberlain, and he returned with Clement to Rome.

Under Clement's successor, Pope Paul V, he was elected titular archbishop of Rhodes, 14 May 1607, with a dispensation for being three months shy of the canonical age and not having yet received the sacred orders, in order to give him appropriate credentials as nuncio in Flanders, (1 June 1607-24 October 1615). [His hitherto unpublished correspondence as nuncio at Brussels, from the Archivo Bentivoglio, Ferrara, was published by Raffaele Belvederi, "Guido Bentivoglio, Diplomatico", 2 vols. (Rovigo) 1947.] Three topics occupied almost all his time: the struggle over the Jülich-Cleves inheritance, [The duke having died childless in 1609, the inheritance was contested between the heirs of his two eldest sisters: the heir of Maria Eleonora of Cleves (1550-1608), the eldest sister, was Anna of Prussia, the Electress of Brandenburg, a Protestant; the son and heir of the second sister, Anna of Cleves (1552-1632), was the Count Palatine of Neuburg, a Catholic.] which was set to ignite the Thirty Years War, the flight of the prince de Condé from France in objection to Henri IV's divorce and remarriage [That the new marriage might lead to an heir, displacing young Condé farther from the succession, was not lost on Bentivoglio.] , and the degree of toleration for Catholics in England and Ireland under James I. His correspondence reveals Bentivoglio as "the skilled diplomatist, [He managed to intercept Gondomar's most private cyphered correspondence.] polished by constant intercourse with the most refined society, as well as the mature observer," according to Ludwig Pastor. [H.G.K. reviewing "Guido Bentivoglio, Diplomatico" "The English Historical Review" 64 No. 251 (April 1949:272).]

Afterwards he was nuncio in France (9 July 1616). On his return to Rome in 1621 he bought Scipio Borghese's new palazzo on the Quirinale [Now Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi. Though he commissioned frescos in the palazzo, within a few years he sold it again, to cover his mounting debts, to the Lante famnily, who sold it to Cardinal Mazarin. (Alphonsus Ciacconius, I, c.4.155, noted in Robert Eisler, "An Unknown Fresco-Work by Guido Reni" "The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs" 7 No. 28 (July 1905:314 note 23).] and was created cardinal in June of that year and entrusted by Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII with the management of French affairs at the papal court, a position he retained until 1641, when Pope Urban VIII, his intimate friend, appointed him to the suburbican see of Palestrina. Filippo Baldinucci, the biographer of Claude Lorrain, asserts that Cardinal Bentivoglio launched the artist's career by purchasing two landscapes by him, which brought the artist to the attention of Urban VIII. [The paintings in question have never been traced, though Michael Kitson risked a connection with a painting now at the Kimball Art Museum (Kitson, "Claude's Earliest 'Coast Scene with the Rape of Europa' "The Burlington Magazine" 115 No. 849 {December 1973:v] ); they would seem to have predated the painter's "Liber Veritatis", in which he recorded his compositions in sketches.] On 22 June 1633, Cardinal Bentivoglio was one of the signers of the papal condemnation of Galileo. [ [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/condemnation.html Text, and signers] ] An able writer and skilful diplomat, Bentivoglio was marked out as Urban's successor, but he died suddenly after the opening of the 1644 conclave. He is buried in the church of San Silvestro nel Quirinale, Rome.

Bentivoglio took Girolamo Frescobaldi with him to Brussels as his household composer. [Consequently Frescobaldi's madrigals for five voices, which inaugurated his published career, were published at Antwerp, 1608 and dedicated to Bentivoglio, in whose household they had been composed. ("New Grove Encyclopedia of Music" s.v. "Girolamo Frascobaldi".] He commissioned his portrait from Anthony van Dyck ("illustration"); his portrait bust was sculpted by François Duquesnoy "Il Fiammingo", a Franco-Flemish sculptor working in Rome [It was formerly in the Galerie Jacques Heim, London. ]

Main works

* "Della guerra di Fiandria" (best edition, Cologne, 1633-1639).
* "Relazioni di G. Bentivoglio in tempo delle sue Nunziature di Fiandria e di Francia" (Antwerp, 1639; Cologne, 1630)
*"Lettere diplomatiche di Guido Bentivoglio" (Brussels, 1631).
*(Guido Bentivoglio) Costantino Panigada, ed. "Memorie e Lettere" (Bari: Laterza, series Scrittori d'Italia) 1934.

The complete edition of his works was published at Venice in 1668.

Notes

References

*1911
*cite book|first=Raffaele|last=Belvederi|year=1947|title=Guido Bentivoglio, Diplomatico|location=Rovigo|publisher=Centro di Cultura "Aldo Masieri"

Further reading

*(Guido Bentivoglio), Costantino Panigada, ed. 1934. "Memorie e lettere" (Bari)

External links

* [http://www.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios1621.htm Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church: Guido Bentivoglio]
* [http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bbenda.html Catholic Hierarchy: Guido Cardinal Bentivoglio d'Aragona]