BERNETTI, TOMMASO. — Cardinal, born at Fermo on 29 December 1779, died there on 21 March 1852. He studied law in his native city and went to Rome to practice under Bartolucci. Intelligent and active, he soon succeeded in attracting notice and was appointed secretary of the Rota. The nephew of Cardinal Brancadoro, archbishop of Fermo, when his uncle was confined to Reims by Napo'cone, he followed him, remaining with him for five years. In 1813 Pius VII sent him to Maestricht with the task of delivering secret letters to the emperor of Austria. This and other successfully executed missions of confidence brought him into prominence at the restored Roman court. After Murat’s defeat, during whose ephemeral government he had been forced to leave Rome, he was sent to negotiate the evacuation of the Legations by the Austrians (1815). Highly esteemed by Consalvi, he was appointed delegate to Ferrara, where he gave proof of promptness and energy, combined with tact, and subsequently assessor of Arms and, after Msgr. Pacca’s flight, director general of police and governor of Rome (1820–26). In this delicate dual office he came to be appreciated for maturity of mind and soundness of judgment, especially during the troubled two-year period of 1820–1821 and the Conclave of 1823. Leo XII sent him to Moscow for the coronation of Tsar Nicholas I (1826) and entrusted him with important negotiations in Vienna and Paris. As a sign of gratitude and esteem, he was created cardinal of the order of deacons, with the title of S. Cesareo in Palatio, on 25 June 1827, which he held until 22 January 1844, when he transferred to that of S. Lorenzo in Damaso. Subsequently appointed legate to Ravenna, he never reached his see, partly because of his poor state of health (he suffered acutely from gout), and partly because he himself did not wish to go to a locality still subject to the rule of extraordinary commissions. A connoisseur of the ills afflicting the papal administration, he desired their causes to be radically removed, rather than having them dealt with sporadically and ineffectively. In the summer of 1828 he was called to succeed Della Somaglia in the Secretariat of State, an office from which he was removed upon the accession of Pius VIII, who replaced him with Albani (March 1829). “The fact that I have not been recalled to the post I occupied two months ago,” he wrote with serene objectivity to his very close friend Msgr. Amat on 8 April, “has not caused me the slightest bitterness... If I were to begin again, who knows whether I would have had the same good fortune? Indeed, I fear that the exact opposite would have happened, if for no other reason than because of the accumulation of circumstances.” Upon the death of Pius VIII, he led in the conclave, together with Falzacappa, the faction opposed to Albani. The new pontiff, Gregory XVI, recalled him to the Secretariat of State (February 1831). His gifts of intelligence and ability were immediately put to a severe test by the revolution that shook the State and by the discordant and intrusive policy of the great powers. Distrustful of the France of Louis Philippe, he had to rely on Austria, while seeking, whenever possible, to free himself from its tutelage. The “new era” he had promised did not come to pass, but he deserves credit for a serious attempt at administrative reform. A convinced supporter of centralization and unity of government, in opposition even to the ideas of Cardinal Oppizzoni, legate a latere for the four Legations, he sought to nullify in practice the results of the Conference and the Memorandum of the four powers (21 May 1831), reaffirming the priority of papal initiative and aiming to establish independent lines of action for the future. He knew how to take advantage of the Austro-French dispute, which culminated in the occupation of Ancona (1832), in order to obtain a modus vivendi and a definite date for evacuation. At the same time, alongside significant reforms of the army and the public security forces, he created the centurions, a local volunteer militia which, in his view, was to help free the State from foreign tutelage. And, at least for the moment, he succeeded in saving the State and safeguarding its dignity. “I know very well,” he confided to Amat on 19 March 1831, “that they would now like to propose conciliations, give advice, settle matters through moral intervention, etc., and all this will be well; but first let the bones be put back into their proper places.” Relieved of the burden of internal affairs by Gamberini’s appointment in 1833, in 1836, under the pretext of illness but in reality because of Austria’s insistence, which disliked his desire for independence, and owing to the complaints of many against his policy of lavish spending, he was replaced by Lambruschini. For many years he remained in the background, following events intelligently (of the manifesto of the rebels of Savigno, he wrote that “it is a certain sort of thing that cannot fail to leave an impression because it contains truths that draw blood,” 28 September 1843). In the Consistory of 22 January 1844 he was elevated to the dignity of vice-chancellor of the Holy Church and was simultaneously called to serve on a commission for the further strengthening of the papal army. Pius IX also made use of his abilities in his first acts, appointing him, together with Gizzi, Lambruschini, and Amat, to the provisional consultative commission of government. But his poor health tormented him. During the agitated events of 1848 he experienced the bitterness of a temporary arrest (1 May) following the allocution of 29 April. After Rossi was killed, he withdrew to S. Elpidio, from where he later went to Naples in order to join Pius IX at Gaeta. After the restoration of temporal power, he returned to Fermo in very poor health and there died peacefully. Good, learned, witty, and active, he is one of the most interesting figures among the prelates of the nineteenth century. His unpublished letters to Amat are preserved in the central museum of the Risorgimento in Rome.
Alberto Maria Ghisalberri