AQUINO, LADISLAO D'

AQUINO, LADISLAO d'. — Cardinal, born in Naples around 1546, from the family of St. Thomas, died in Rome in 1621. Pius V opened the way for his prelatial career by summoning him to Rome; Gregory XIII appointed him Bishop of Venafro (1588). Paul V made him nuncio, first attempting to send him to Turin, where Charles Emmanuel I, at that moment in a phase of anti-Spanish reaction, refused to accept him—not without reason, as he knew him to be loyal to Spain. He was then sent to Switzerland, where he had to acknowledge that what the Protestants had taken from the obedience of the Catholic Church was irretrievably lost. He became cardinal in 1616, and when the conclave of Gregory XV began, he entered it, according to popular rumor, with excellent prospects. Death overtook him during the same conclave. The information and report he left regarding the nunciature of Lucerna do not reveal in him either excessive insight or an awareness of the missionary nature of that most delicate office.