CESARINI, ALESSANDRO. - Cardinal, b. in Rome in an uncertain year, d. there on 13 Feb. 1542. Leo X, whose esteem and friendship he enjoyed, raised him to the sacred purple in 1517 while he was apostolic protonotary, and he held the deaconry title of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, later changed (1523) to that of St. Mary 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 negotiations of the Sacred College (v. the instructions given to the legates in Papiers d'état du card. de Granvelle publiés sous la direction de m. Ch. Weiss, I, Paris 1841, pp. 241-250).
During the sack of Rome in 1527, although he was of the imperial party and although he had paid a large sum to ransom it, 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 the emperor Charles V. When the latter returned there in 1532, C. was sent to meet him together with Cardinal Grimani. He was again sent to meet Charles V with Cardinal Piccolomini in Dec. 1535, to treat, among other questions, the very thorny one of the succession to the duchy of Milan following the death of Francesco Sforza, of the convocation of a council, and of the condemnation of Henry VIII of England. He was once more a legate on the move between Francis I and Charles V shortly before the truce of Nice was concluded between them (June 1538). From 1534 he was a member of the cardinalatial commission created by Paul III for the reform of the Church.
Bibliography3 works
Renata Orazi Ausenda