CESI. – Umbrian-Sabine family originating in the place of that name, which began to rise in the fifteenth century and, during the sixteenth, united in one of its branches the marquisate of Monticelli (1572), the duchy of Acquasparta (1588), and the principality of S. Angelo and S. Paolo (1613). Its fortunes in the Roman Curia began with PAOLO EMILIO, born in 1481, an apostolic protonotary, created cardinal by Leo X in the great promotion of 1 April 1517. With him began that series of figures who held cardinalates and episcopates during the sixteenth century and the beginning of the following one. In fact, Paolo Emilio held Todi in commendam from 1 June 1523; Narni from 20 May 1525, which he transferred to BARTOLOMEO C. a few months later; Orte from 7 April 1525, transferred to POMPONIO C. in 1538; Cervia in 1525, transferred to OTTAVIO C. in 1528; and even Sion in Switzerland, which he held from 12 November 1522 until his death, which overtook him at the age of fifty-six in the Curia on 5 August 1537. He was also archpriest of S. Maria Maggiore. At the death of Cardinal Giov. Antonio di S. Giorgio (1511), he acquired his palace in Borgo Vecchio and completed it by turning the vineyard extending over the hill behind it into a garden and creating there an antiquarium of important antiquities taken from the discoveries being made everywhere at that time (cf. An. Hülsen, Römische Antihengärten des XVI. Jahrh., Heidelberg 1917; E. Martinori, op. cit. in the bibliography, pp. 47 ff.).
FEDERICO, Paolo Emilio’s brother, born in 1500; he received the bishopric of Todi through his brother’s resignation on 11 June 1523 and held it until 1545; he was created cardinal by Paul III on 19 December 1544; he held Cremona in commendam from 18 March 1551 to 13 March 1560; he died bishop of Porto on 28 January 1565 and was buried at S. Maria Maggiore. He was considered wealthy, learned, and highly experienced; in Rome he built the church of S. Caterina dei Funari.
PIER DONATO was a cleric of the Camera; he received the bishopric of Narni in commendam on 25 June 1546 and resigned it in favor of ROMOLO C. on 12 July 1566; he was created cardinal by Pius V on 7 May 1570. He was legate to Bologna in 1580. He died in the Curia on 29 September 1586 and was buried at S. Maria della Vallicella.
BARTOLOMEO, born around 1565, held the office of treasurer general in the Curia, which led him to the cardinalate on 5 January 1596. Archbishop of Conza from 10 March 1608, he resigned in 1614; on 5 May 1621 he received the see of Tivoli; however, he died that same year, on 18 October, and was buried at S. Maria Maggiore.
The office of treasurer general was also held by PIER DONATO the younger, born around 1583, an apostolic protonotary participant from 8 April 1615, later created cardinal by Urban VIII on 16 December 1641, chamberlain of the Sacred College on 9 January 1651, and deceased in the Curia on 30 January 1656. A contemporary judged him as follows: «nel tesorierato è stato tenace, libero nel parlare, di natura gagliarda, intelligente de' negozi, di lettere mediocrementemente» (Cf. Pastor, XIII, p. 716).
FEDERICO acquired greater renown among posterity, born in Rome on 13 March 1585 to Giovanni Federico, who was the brother of Cardinal Bartolomeo, and Olimpia Orsini.
Despite his father’s ill disposition, which led him to squander the substantial patrimony and, in 1622, to alienate to Cardinal Ludovisi even 102 pieces of antiquities from the family collection (Pastor, XIII, p. 50), Federico remained constant in his love of literary and scientific studies and, on 18 August 1603, together with Gian Franco Stelluti, Anastasio de Fillia, and Giovanni Eckio, founded the Accademia dei Lincei, taking the name of Coeli-vafus Lyncæus. Only in 1607 was the fifth member added, Giov. Batt. Porta; Galileo Galilei was the sixth, and he was officially admitted on 25 April 1611 on the occasion of his journey to Rome. Galileo himself informs us that «i Lincei sono una compagnia di accademici... ed hanno per fine gli studi delle buone lettere e in particolare di filosofia e altre scienze a quella conferenti; e inoltre attendono i più intendenti a scrivere e pubblicare le loro fatiche» (Edizione Nazionale delle opere di G. Galilei, V, p. 184). C. became a friend of Galileo and maintained relations with him in the following years concerning the discoveries he was making and the controversies they provoked. C. showed Galileo particular protection and favor during his stay in Rome in 1615–16, asserting the freedom of scientific inquiry. When it became necessary to publish a response to the Libra astronomica of Fr. Grassi, C., together with his colleagues, invited Galileo to publish the «Saggiatore» and promoted its printing, which appeared under the care of the Lincei themselves in 1623. Indeed, almost all of them had embraced Galileo’s cause, although C. himself had only with difficulty converted to the Copernican system.
At Easter 1624 Galileo was C.’s guest at Acquasparta. He had, moreover, made botanical research the field of his studies, in which he may be considered a true precursor.
He had taken particular care over the printing of Galileo’s Dialogo dei due massimi sistemi when he died on 1 August 1630, without having had any surviving male offspring from his two wives, Artemisia Colonna (married in 1614) and Isabella Salviati (married in 1616).
The Academy, whose number of members had remained very limited, entrusted to the care of its protector, Cardinal Barberini, fell silent and soon ceased to exist.