CHIGI, FAMILY. - The Chigi family appears in the history of Siena in the 13th century, and from the beginning its members held banking positions and some were entrusted by their city with missions, especially to the papal court. The family acquired nobility in 1377 and was ennobled by the Blessed Giovanni (1300-63), an hermit in the convent of S. Leonardo di Lecceto, and by the Blessed Angela (who died in the second half of the 14th century), an hermit (after four marriages) in the monastery of S. Agostino in Siena. The branches of the Chigi family still in existence today descend from the brothers Mariano (1439-1504) and Benedetto (b. 1449).
Mariano was a banker of great renown, took part in extraordinary Sienese embassies in 1492 and 1502 to Alexander VI and Cesare Borgia respectively; in 1473-74 he rebuilt the palace in via del Casato di sotto in Siena; in 1502 he commissioned from Pietro Perugino the panel of the Crucifixion with various Saints, in the church of S. Agostino in Siena.
Of Mariano’s sons, Agostino (c. 1465-1520), after his father had established a banking company in 1487 with Stefano Ghinucci, moved to Rome in 1487. In 1502 he set up another trading company with Francesco Tomasi and soon opened new banking branches with the Spannocchi. He was treasurer of the Church, obtained concessions and privileges for the supply of grain to the Papal States, the farming of customs duties, those of the salt pans of the Apostolic Camera and of the Kingdom, together with those of the alum mines of Tolfa, Agnano and Ischia. For the alum trade of Tolfa, Agostino greatly benefited from the cession of Port’Ercole to him in 1506 by the commune of Siena. This, though sparing in conferring honorary titles on its citizens, bestowed on Agostino the title of “Magnifico.”
From his bank in Rome Agostino maintained commercial relations with all Europe; he had twenty thousand employees and a fortune said to amount to eight hundred thousand ducats. He financed Cesare Borgia in his wars, the Medici during their exile, and Leo X in his extravagances. Julius II adopted Agostino and his brother Sigismondo, along with their descendants, into the della Rovere family. But the honors conferred on him by this Pope, as by Alexander VI before him, were nothing compared to those he received from Leo X, who attended three banquets given by Agostino in his suburban villa on the Lungara, known as the Farnesina (30 April 1518, summer 1518, 28 August 1519). After the third of these banquets, Leo X blessed the marriage of Agostino (widower of Margherita Saracini and already a friend of the famous Imperia) to Francesca Ordeaschi, by whom he had several legitimized children. Then the Pope, with the twelve cardinals present, attended the drawing up of Agostino’s will, in which it was stipulated, among other things, that the chapel in S. Maria della Pace should be completed, beneath the Sibyls by Raphael and the Prophets on his own design; and that in S. Maria del Popolo, designed by Raphael and intended to house the tomb of the Magnifico. Agostino, among other things, left to his sons the villa later called the Farnesina, designed by Baldassarre Peruzzi and adorned with paintings by him, by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi known as il Sodoma, by Sebastiano del Piombo, by Raphael and by his pupils. Agostino was also a friend of men of letters such as Bembo, Giovio and Aretino, and he opened a printing house in Rome from which issued the *Pindaro* of 1515 and the *Tesoretto* of 1516.
The wealth accumulated by the magnificent Agostino did not long survive his death: his direct line died out in 1573. His brother Sigismondo (1479-1525), married (1507) to Sulpizia
Pandolfo Petrucci had built (1505) the Villa delle Vòlte (Sovicille) and had enlarged and embellished his father’s palace in Siena. His son Mario (1511–64) dissipated much of the inherited patrimony; from him was born Flavio (1548–1611), father of Fabio, VIZI (v.). In May 1656, Alexander VII, hitherto opposed to nepotism, decided to summon to Rome his brother Mario (1594–1669), Mario’s son Flavio, and the sons of his other brother Augusto (1605–51), namely Agostino and Sigismondo. Mario became general of the Holy Roman Church; Flavio (1631–93) was created cardinal on 9 April 1657, superintendent of the general affairs of the Holy See, legate of Avignon, and then (1659) librarian of the Holy Roman Church. He was prefect of several Congregations, sent as legate a latere to France to execute the Peace of Pisa (12 February 1664), and became bishop of Albano in 1686 and bishop of Porto in 1689. He commissioned from Bernini the Palazzo Chigi (now Odescalchi, enlarged and deformed on the façade) in Piazza dei SS. Apostoli, where he assembled classical statues sold in 1728 to the King of Poland and now forming the core of the Albertinum in Dresden, as well as ancient and modern paintings. He commissioned from Bernini the funerary monument of Alexander VII in St Peter’s Basilica. He contributed substantially to the decoration of the Chapel of the Madonna del Voto, begun by Alexander VII in Siena Cathedral under Bernini’s direction, and built the Villa Cetinale (Sovicille) with architecture by Carlo Fontana. Together with his father Mario and his cousin Agostino (1634–1705, prince of Farnese from 1658 and prince of the Holy Roman Empire from 1659), he purchased (1661) from the Savelli the territory of Ariccia, later erected into a duchy, and from the Orsini the territories of Campagnano di Formello, Cesano, and Scrofano, later erected respectively into a principality, a duchy, and seigneuries. Alone (1663), he bought from the Cesi the territory of Magliano Pecorareccio, erected into a marquessate. In the palace (once Aldobrandini) at the corner of the Corso and Piazza Colonna, completed by Agostino on all four sides of the courtyard, the Chigi Library was housed, its most substantial and finest part of manuscripts gathered by Fabio (later Alexander VII) and later augmented with printed books. Sold with the palace by the Chigi in 1918 to the Italian State, it was aggregated in 1922 to the Vatican Apostolic Library.
SIGISMONDO (1649–78), brother of Agostino, Grand Prior of Rome of the Order of Malta, was created cardinal on 12 December 1667 and governed the legation of Ferrara from 1673 to 1676. Augusto, son of Agostino (1662–1744), received from Clement XI in 1712 the office of marshal of the Holy Roman Church and custodian of the Conclave, vacant owing to the extinction of the Savelli and made hereditary in the Chigi family. Agostino (1710–69), son of Augusto, knight of the Austrian Golden Fleece, by his marriage to Giulia Augusta Albani of the princes of Soriano, secured for the family any eventual rights to the hereditary goods of the house of Clement XI. His brother Flavio (1711–71), created cardinal on 26 November 1753, notably enriched the Chigi Library with printed books. SIGISMONDO (1736–93), son of Agostino, a man of brilliant gifts and a friend of archaeological studies, the arts, and literature (notably his relations with Vincenzo Monti), incurred the disfavour of the papal government for his advanced opinions; it seized upon an untenable accusation of attempted poisoning against him by Cardinal Filippo Carandini as a pretext to condemn him in absentia to perpetual banishment. Agostino (1771–1855), son of Sigismondo, likewise a man of letters and a friend of the arts, is especially known for the diary he kept from 18 April 1809 to 9 June 1809 and from 11 June 1814 to 9 December 1855, the eve of his death, with a voluntary gap for the five years of French occupation in Rome; he was the first to unite the name of Chigi with that of Albani. Flavio (1810–85), his son, represented Pius IX at Moscow for the coronation festivities of Alexander II (1855), served as nuncio in Munich and Paris, and was created cardinal on 22 December 1873. Of the cardinal’s great-nephews, Agostino (1858–96) fell valiantly at Adua, and the present head of the Chigi della Rovere Albani branch, Ludovico (b. 1866), has been Grand Master of the Order of Malta since 30 May 1931.
From Benedetto (b. 1449), brother of Mariano, descended Camillo (b. 1503), who was one of the ambassadors sent to Charles V in 1550 to dissuade him from erecting a citadel in Siena, and Scipione (b. 1507), his brother, who, with other citizens, after the expulsion of the Spaniards (July 1552), was called to reform the government of Siena and in April 1555, with seven others, went as envoy to the Duke of Florence to negotiate the surrender of Siena and its state. From the nephew Scipione (1584–1633), a musician of notable fame, patron, captain of the people, and gonfalonier, descended the Chigi known as of Città, extinct in the 18th century. From Iacomo, brother of this Scipione, descended the Chigi known as of Camollia, among whom is to be remembered Carlo Corradino Chigi (1802–81), who first entered the Sardinian navy and distinguished himself in the expedition to Tripoli (1825) but left it in 1839. A worthy governor of Elba from 1840 to 1846, gonfalonier of Fivizzano at the difficult moment of its annexation to the Duchy of Modena in 1847, he organized the Tuscan militias in 1848, had to manage relations between them and the Sardinian army, and fought valiantly at Curtatone, where he lost his left hand. He commanded the civic guard of Florence, resigned rather than violate his oath to the Grand Duke, yet did not support the reaction. Gonfalonier of Siena in 1859, he was the first among Tuscan magistrates to secure the vote for annexation to the Kingdom. In the Senate, to which he belonged from 1860, he
In 1867 he delivered a fierce speech against the proposal to suppress religious corporations.
From Agnese C. (b. 1629), married in 1645 to Ansano Zondadari, descends the C.-Zondadari branch, established by her brother Cardinal Flavio (1631–93), who left to her and her eldest son Bonaventura (1652–1719) the marquisate of S. Quirico, conferred by Cosimo III in 1677, together with his other Tuscan estates, on condition that they assume the name and arms of C., for himself and his descendants, in order of primogeniture. Of Agnese’s other children, Marcantonio (1658–1722) was elected on 13 January 1720 Grand Master of the Order of Malta; Anton Felice (1663–1737), archbishop of Damascus from 1699, was sent by Clement XI first as extraordinary nuncio to Philip V during his wars in Italy and Spain, then as ordinary nuncio to Spain from 1706, recalled in 1709 and obliged to remain three years in the state of Avignon; he was created cardinal on 18 May 1712; Alessandro (1669–1744) was archbishop of Siena from
1714. Anton Felice (1739–1823), bishop in 1785 of Adana in Cilicia and nuncio to Brussels, was expelled in 1787 by order of Joseph II; archbishop of Siena from 1795, he was created cardinal on 23 February 1801
See Plate XCIV.
Chigi, family — Medal of Agostino C. preserved in the Biblioteca Chigiana — Rome.
Chigi, family — Detail of the C. chapel. Drawing by Raphael (1515) — Rome, church of S. Maria del Popolo.
Galatea alla Parnczina. R. Accademia d’Italia. Collezione — La Parnczina V. Roma 1934; O. Montenovesi, Agostino C. banchiere e appaltatore dell’allume di Tolfa, in Archivio della R. Deputazione romana di st. patria, 80 (1937), pp. 107–47; V. Golzio, Documenti artistici sul Seicento nell’archivio C., with introduction by R. Paribeni (R. Istituto d’Archeologia e Storia dell’arte), ibid. 1939; P. Paschini, I C. (R. Istituto di Studi Romani. — Le grandi famiglie romane, 3), ibid. 1946. Giovanni Incisa della Rocchetta