ALTIERI, Ludovico. — Cardinal, b. in Rome on 11 July 1805, son of Paluzzo and Maria Anna of Saxony, d. at Albano on 11 Aug. 1867. After serving as a secret chamberlain to Leo XII, he was appointed by Gregory XVI secretary of the Congregation of Studies. Elected titular archbishop of Ephesus in 1826 and nuncio to Vienna with the rank of pro-legate a latere, his principal task was to combat the Josephine laws. Among other achievements, he succeeded in securing the restitution of the property of the Greek-Ruthenian College in Rome. Created cardinal in the consistory of 14 Dec. 1840, Gregory XVI published the appointment only on 23 Apr. 1845 and assigned him the deaconry of S. Maria in Portico, which was created as a presbyteral title in his favor. Pius IX appointed him, in 1847, president of Rome and its district. By papal mandate, the following year he delivered the inaugural address to the Council of the Parliament at the Palazzo della Cancelleria. He also held the office of secretary of memorials. In 1850 he was called to serve on the cardinal commission, alongside Della Genga Sermattei and Vannicelli Casoni, tasked with restoring the papal government, and later became camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church (1857), archpriest of S. Giovanni in Laterano, and president of the Council of State for finance. In the consistory of 17 Sept. 1860 he opted for the suburbicarian see of Albano, where he carried out zealous pastoral work. When cholera broke out in August 1867, he immediately went to his diocese, attending the sick, administering Viaticum to the dying barefoot, and generously distributing all he had in the episcopal palace. Stricken by the disease, he died peacefully. Pius IX, in the allocution of the consistory on 20 Sept. 1867, extolled his sacrifice in moving terms.
Some discourses delivered by him at the Academy of Catholic Religion and a posthumously published dissertation on the centenary of the death of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, edited by Monsignor Agostino Bartolini, remain of him.