ALTIERI. — Roman family, known as early as the Middle Ages, belonging to the lesser nobility and actively participating in civic life. The first to make a name for himself in the literary field was MARCO ANTONIO (1450–1532), a disciple of Pomponio Leto and friend of Bartolomeo Platina, author of a novella, L’Amorosa, and of a curious volume, Li Nuptiali, in which, while describing Roman customs concerning weddings, he finds occasion to recall events, families, and figures of his own age. He also deserves credit for restoring peace among the Roman barons in 1511; he was castellan of the Rocca di Viterbo, conservator of Rome, and envoy to the imperial camp in 1527.
After him, the so-called humanist tradition was reinvigorated by RUTILIO (d. 1600), professor and rector of the University, and by MARIO (d. 1613), whose treatise De censuris ecclesiasticis was published; but the A. aspired to greater fortune and, in the seventeenth century, took the ecclesiastical path. A LORENZO, in fact, brother-in-law of Gentile Delfino, bishop of Camerino, set two sons on that path, GIOVANNI BATTISTA and EMILIO. The former became one of the most influential cardinals at court; the latter, advancing through various offices from auditor of the Rota to nuncio, attained the papacy under the name of Clement X at nearly eighty years of age, but still in time to ensure the continuity of the family, which had no direct descendants, through the Albertoni. LAURA CATERINA, the last of the A., had in fact entered this latter family, and her surname was taken by her husband Gaspare, by his father, and by his uncle Paluzzo, who was made a cardinal and Secretary of State (cardinal padrone); it was he who established the new fortunes of the house.
The A.-Albertoni, later simply called A., who had already given the Church, besides the cardinals and the Pontiff mentioned above, a blessed woman, BARBO, LUDOVICO (v.), continued to provide cardinals in the following two centuries: LORENZO (1671–1741), GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1673–1740), VINCENZO MARIA (1724–1800), and LUDOVICO (v. sotto).