Beccadelli, Ludovico

BECCADELLI, LODOVICO. — Apostolic nuncio; born in Bologna on 29 January 1501, died in Prato on 17 October 1572. He completed his literary studies at Padua under Benedetto Lampridio, from whom he learned Greek. In his youth he was a friend of Giovanni della Casa and later of Bembo, Trifone Gabriele, and Cosimo Geri. When Gaspare Contarini was made a cardinal in 1534, he wished B. to join his retinue in Rome, and there he began his friendship with Marcello Cervini and Bernardino Maffei, then papal secretaries. He was with Cardinal Reginald Pole when, in 1539, the latter went as legate to Charles V, and then with Contarini when, in 1540, he went as legate to Germany; he accompanied him to Bologna in 1542. After Contarini’s death that year, he went to Reggio on the instructions of Cardinal Cervini, who was its bishop, and remained there as vicar general, thus entering the ecclesiastical career. From there he entered the service of Cardinal Morone when, in 1544, the latter was appointed legate to Bologna; but he remained there only briefly, because Paul III entrusted him with the education of his fourteen-year-old nephew Ranuccio Farnese. Meanwhile, he was also charged with going to Trent for the Council (1545), where he was initially designated as secretary, but did not remain. On 27 May 1549 Paul III gave B. the bishopric of Ravello, and in March 1550 Julius III sent him as nuncio to Venice, where he remained until July 1554, performing his office with great prudence and to the satisfaction of that Signoria. On 16 June Julius III had meanwhile appointed him his vicarius in spiritualibus in Rome. In 1555 he accompanied Morone on the latter’s brief legation to Germany; then, on 19 September 1555, he was transferred to the archbishopric of Ragusa in Dalmatia, where he went to reside; he left there and was present at the Council of Trent in 1561–62. Subsequently, at the invitation of Cosimo I, duke of Florence, he was given temporary governance of the archdiocese of Pisa and responsibility for the education of the young Cardinal Ferdinando, Cosimo’s son. He therefore resigned the archbishopric of Ragusa in December 1564 and was instead provided with the prepositure of Prato, where he died renowned as an excellent prelate and a learned and able scholar.