Bentivoglio

BENTIVOGLIO. - A Bolognese family recorded from the beginning of the 13th century; already toward the end of that century and at the beginning of the next, some of its members, more or less tied to the Popoli and of the Guelph party, are found involved in the various factions and vicissitudes of the city. In 1354 they opposed the lordship of Giovanni di Oleggio and were forced into exile. They returned to Bologna with Cardinal Albornoz in 1360. In February 1401 GIOVANNI I proclaimed himself lord of the city, but he was murdered the following year and his party forced into exile. In 1420 we find his son ANTON GALEAZZO once again lord, who held power until 1435, when he was put to death by the papal legate. His son ANNIBALE raised the family's fortunes again in 1443 but was treacherously killed in 1445 through the work of the Canetoli. In 1446, however, SANTE, his kinsman, became lord and in 1447 stipulated with Nicholas V, in the name of Bologna, that convention with the Holy See which lasted until the Napoleonic invasion. With him there developed that renewal of building which rose to particular splendor under GIOVANNI II, son of Annibale, who succeeded Sante in 1462. Giovanni, without officially assuming the lordship, governed Bologna for many years with great pomp and prestige, held in high esteem by the potentates of Italy. Having then alienated the love of the citizens through certain acts of cruelty, Giovanni found himself isolated against the armies of Louis XII and of Pope Julius II, so that in 1506 he had to leave his city with his family, and he died excommunicated in Milan in 1508. The family tried in vain several times to return to Bologna and settled in Ferrara.

After the exile in Ferrara, there came from the B. family those prelates who conferred new luster upon it. The first and most illustrious among them was: GUIDO, b. in Ferrara on 4 Oct. 1579; he studied law at Padua and there had as his master of sciences, as he himself attests, Galileo Galilei. Chosen by Clement VIII as secret chamberlain in 1587, he soon betook himself to Rome, where he enjoyed the favors of Paul V, who sent him as nuncio to Flanders in 1607; having returned from there in 1615, he passed to the nunciature of Paris the following year and did not leave it until 1621, when he was created cardinal. He enjoyed wide credit in the Curia as protector of the kingdom of France and head of the Inquisition, until he died on 7 Sept. 1644 during the Conclave assembled for the death of Urban VIII. Particularly inclined to historical studies, he wrote in 24 books the history Della guerra di Fiandra from 1559 to 1607 (Cologne 1632-36) and the Relazioni in tempo delle sue nunziature (Antwerp 1629); finally, in 1642, those Memorie of his, a vivid picture of the curial life of his time and rich in information that documents its vicissitudes. For these writings of his, which were reprinted several times, B. is numbered among the best writers of his age.

Pio Paschini

MARCO CORNELIO

Born in Ferrara on March 27, 1668, died in Rome on December 30, 1732; having taken his degree in his native city and having been a reformer of that Studium, he subsequently held various offices in the Curia; then on October 21, 1711 he was sent by Clement XI as nuncio to France, where he had to work hard to secure acceptance of the famous bull Unigenitus. Slandered before the regent, he had to be recalled and was created cardinal on November 29, 1719. In July 1726 he was appointed ambassador of Spain to the Pope and worked for the creation as cardinal of Emanuel, infante of Portugal.

Under the pseudonym Selvaggio Porpora, he published in Rome in 1729 his translation in blank verse of Statius's Thebaid, which is the third Italian poetic translation from the Latin, after those of Caro and Marchetti. All the critics of the eighteenth century were agreed in declaring that in B.'s translation Statius had become, to put it in Zeno's words, «sublime without bombast, great without disproportion, sweet without softness». And truly B.'s Thebaid is an eighteenth-century Thebaid; «remade — writes Calcaterra — according to the tastes of the early eighteenth century, by a poet who had relived it through his literary love for Tasso and for Ariosto, and who wished to continue the epic tradition of his Ferrara». It is a legend that Cardinal B. had bought this work from Frugoni and published it as his own: Frugoni himself several times declared to his first biographer that he had had no part whatsoever in the translation of the Thebaid.

Giulio Natali

ANNIBALE

Archbishop, b. in the first half of the 17th century, d. April 21, 1663. He distinguished himself in his youth for his poetic production in the vernacular, of which only Applausi poetici in lode di Lionora Barroni has survived. In 1644 he was appointed titular archbishop of Thebes.

Emma Santovito

DOMENICO

Papal general, b. of the noble B. family in Bologna on July 3, 1781, d. in Rome on Dec. 26, 1851. Admitted in 1805 with the rank of second lieutenant into the corps of the guards of honor of Eugene Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy, and then as captain in the 2nd Italian chasseurs regiment, he took part in all the Napoleonic campaigns between 1808 and 1814. After the fall of the empire and his return to his homeland, on June 28, 1815 he entered service as lieutenant colonel of the 1st regiment of the papal carabinieri. For the vigorous defense of the town and recovery of Rieti, against the Sercognani column, he was promoted to colonel and was subsequently placed at the head of the corps of carabinieri reorganized into a regiment. In the spring of 1848 he briefly held the ministry of Arms, but, a most loyal soldier, after the disturbances of the following November he retired to private life. - See Pl. LXXXII.

Paolo Dalla Torre