CESARINI, Alessandro. — Cardinal, born in Rome in an uncertain year, died there on 13 Feb. 1542. Leo X, whose esteem and friendship he enjoyed, raised him to the sacred purple in 1517 while he was an apostolic protonotary, and he received the deaconry of SS. Sergio and Bacco, later changed (1523) to that of S. Maria in Via Lata. In 1522 he was sent to Saragossa to the new pope Adrian VI, together with Cardinals Colonna and Orsini, to hasten his coming to Rome and for other business of the Sacred College (v. the instructions given to the legates in *Papiers d'état du card. de Granvelle* published under the direction of M. Ch. Weiss, I, Paris 1841, pp. 241–250).
During the sack of Rome in 1527, though of imperial allegiance and though he had paid a large sum to ransom himself, his palace at S. Eustachio was plundered. He was one of the four cardinals who accompanied Clement VII to Bologna (1529) for the coronation of Emperor Charles V. When the latter returned there in 1532, C. was sent to meet him together with Cardinal Grimani. Again he was dispatched to meet Charles V with Cardinal Piccolomini in Dec. 1535, to discuss, among other matters, the thorny question of the succession to the Duchy of Milan upon the death of Francesco Sforza, the convocation of a council, and the condemnation of Henry VIII of England. He was also a papal legate between Francis I and Charles V shortly before the truce of Nice was signed between them (June 1538). From 1534 he was a member of the cardinalitial commission created by Paul III for the reform of the Church.