CAPILLUPI, IPPOLITO

CAPILLUPI, IPPOLITO. — Born in Mantua to Benedetto, whom Ariosto praises in the *Orlando Furioso* and Bandello honored by dedicating a novella to him in 1511, Capilupi grew up at the court of the Gonzaga, serving as a page to the celebrated Isabella d’Este and companion to her son Ercole Gonzaga. Well-educated and skilled, he became Ercole’s secretary as soon as the latter was elevated to the purple, and later his agent in Rome, his correspondent and informant, and on four occasions his conclavist. During the pontificate of Julius III, he also served as agent to Ferrante Gonzaga, and—whether due to his ties with Spain or for other reasons—made little progress in his ecclesiastical career until Pius IV, who appointed him Bishop of Fano and nuncio to Venice, while Paul IV, who was anti-Spanish, confined him to Castel Sant’Angelo for thirteen months. In 1564, he retired to Fano and completed the cathedral there; but, as he was not suited to the episcopal office, he resigned the diocese and returned to Rome, where he spent his final days in the Palazzo di Campo Marzio, restored under the guidance of Michelangelo. He died in 1580 and was buried at Aracoeli, with the epitaph composed by Marc-Antoine Muret. A poet himself, though less gifted than his brother Lelio, author of the *Centonum Virgilianorum*, he edited the poetry of his brothers and was a friend of scholars and artists, among whom he counted Torquato Tasso, Michelangelo, and Titian. A discerning collector of paintings, antiquities, incunabula, and manuscripts, he remained throughout his life a man of the humanist Renaissance, untouched by the religious renewal unfolding in his time.