Corsini, Family

CORSINI, FAMILY. - It is recorded in Florence as early as 1271 (enrolled in the Arte della Lana), and in the following century it attained great wealth, giving the city gonfaloniers and priors. From it came, in the 14th century, St. ANDREW C. (v.), bishop of Fiesole (d. 1374); his brother NERI, who succeeded him in the bishopric, was also venerated as blessed (d. 1377).

The family produced illustrious men in those years and in the following ones both for the city and for the Church; particular prominence is required here for that PIETRO C. who was bishop of Volterra on 16 March 1362, then of Florence on 1 Sept. 1363, created cardinal by Urban V at Montefiascone on 7 June 1370, becoming in 1374 bishop of Porto. He was one of the four Italian cardinals who took part in the election of Urban VI, together with the transalpine cardinals. When later their rebellion took shape, C., together with his colleagues Borsano and Orsini, withdrew from Urban, and although he had not given his vote to the election of Clement VII, he sided with him; only after long hesitation did he betake himself to Avignon to the antipope on 13 Sept. 1381; there he died on 16 Aug. 1405.

The C. family again gave eminent prelates to the Church only at the beginning of the 17th century, and precisely with ORLIVIO C., b. at Florence on 12 Aug. 1588, d. at Rome on 31 July 1642. He was a cleric of the chamber when he was created titular archbishop of Tarsus by Gregory XV on 14 March 1621 and was sent as apostolic nuncio to France; recalled by Urban VIII, on 30 Dec. 1623 he was appointed by him to the government of Romagna (1624). He wrote a Relazione sulla inmissione delle acque del Reno nel Po, in order to set out, to the commission charged with studying the means of averting the floods of the Po in that province, what could be done in that regard. B. Castelli took it into account in his work Sulla misura delle acque correnti. He was buried at S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini.

NERI C. senior, born in 1624, followed the curial career, first as clerk of the chamber and then as treasurer general; he was appointed titular archbishop of Damiata on 12 Aug. 1652 and nuncio in France; but upon arriving at Marseille he was arrested by order of the king of France and prevented from exercising his office (Pastor, XIV, I, p. 52; G. Moroni, op. cit., XVII, p. 285); he was created cardinal by Alexander VII on 16 Jan. 1664, but was published only on 15 Feb. 1666 with the title of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus. He was bishop of Arezzo from 8 Feb. 1672 to 8 March 1677, the date on which he resigned. He died in Florence on 19 Sept. 1678; in the C. chapel of the Lateran basilica, a fine tomb, in the niche facing that of Clement XII, preserves his memory. It is also a work by G. B. Maini (1742).

The elevation to the papal see of Cardinal LORENZO, nephew of Cardinal Neri (v. CLEMENTE XII), brought the house of C. to the height of splendor; BARTOLOMEO, son of Filippo, brother of the Pope, was appointed commander of the pontifical cavalry, prince of Sismano (1731), grandee of Spain, president of the ministers of Charles III king of Naples, viceroy of Sicily (1737). He was also assistant at the Throne. He died on 30 Sept. 1747 (Forcella, op. cit., VIII, p. 85, n. 232).

His brother was NERI MARIA iunior, born in Florence on 19 May 1685, died in Rome on 6 Dec. 1770. Received at a very young age at the court of Tuscany, he was then representative of Cosimo III at The Hague, in London, in Paris and at Cambrai. After the death of that grand duke he went to Rome to stay with his uncle Cardinal Lorenzo C. When the latter was raised to the pontificate in 1730 under the name of Clement XII, he was induced to embrace the ecclesiastical state. Appointed secretary of memorials, he was then created cardinal on 14 Aug. and published on 11 Dec. 1730 as deacon of S. Adriano; he later passed to S. Eustachio, and was prefect of the Segnatura di giustizia. Amiable and disinterested, he did not appear to his contemporaries the man best suited to business, and in theological controversies he did not show much understanding, although he even came to be secretary of the Holy Office; he had the ambition to keep men of letters and scholars in his household, but had little direct knowledge of letters and erudition. He rebuilt, under the supervision of Fuga, the Riario palace at the Lungara at the foot of the Janiculum, and there he transferred the collection of prints, of paintings and the renowned Library (purchased in 1884 by the State and today a section of the academic library of the Lincei) which his uncle the pontiff had begun to collect, giving the whole great increase and placing it at the disposal of scholars and artists. He also showed himself a patron in the restoration of certain churches, such as S. Eustachio and S. Isidoro, and munificent toward the hospital of S. Gallicano, of which he was protector. He summoned to Rome Giovanni Gaetano Bottari and Pier Francesco Foggini, who had unlimited influence over him as advisers; he was in contact with Cardinal Domenico Passionei, who was bound to those two by a tenacious friendship; and this caused him to be considered and invoked by the opponents of the Jesuits and by the Roman Jansenists as a support and protector. This tendency of his led him to involve himself in the affairs of the well-known Father Norbert the Capuchin and of the Dutch Jansenists. He did not enjoy much favor under Benedict XIV and even less under Clement XIII. He died at the age of 86 and was buried at the Lateran, where he had been archpriest, in the family chapel.

ANDREA C., nephew of Cardinal Neri, born in Rome on 11 June 1735, died there on 19 Jan. 1795. Admitted at a very young age to the pontifical court, he was created cardinal deacon of S. Angelo in Pescheria at the age of 24 by Clement XIII on 19 Dec. 1759. He passed to the presbyteral title of S. Matteo in Merulana on 11 Sept. 1769, and to the bishopric of Sabina on 16 July 1776. He was educated by Bottari and Foggini, close friends of his uncle. He did not excel in intellect and followed his uncle's line in his attitude toward the Roman Jansenists. He showed himself very active in bringing about the suppression of the Jesuits, and proceeded without any regard in carrying out the suppression. He protected Scipione de' Ricci and favored his appointment as bishop of Pistoia; but in the end he broke away from him. He was prefect of the Segnatura di giustizia and archpriest of S. Maria Maggiore.

Andrea was the last great prelate of the house, which continued to provide men of government to the grand duchy of Tuscany and then to the Kingdom of Italy. Cf. G. B. Picotti, s. v. in Enc. Ital., XI (1931), p. 525 ff.

TOMMASO

Politician, born in Florence on 7 November 1767, died in Rome on 6 January 1856. Cultured, prudent and skilled in public affairs, he increased the splendid library and the prized ancestral collections of Rome and Florence, and played a not insignificant part in the events that characterize the history of the Papal State during the past century.

A member of the courts of the Grand Duke of Tuscany and of Maria Luigia of Bourbon, he undertook diplomatic missions to the Republic (1796) and to the First French Empire (1805). Summoned to Paris in 1809, he was appointed by Napoleon senator, chamberlain, count of the Empire, with the task of establishing the electoral colleges in Rome and of installing the supreme Court of imperial jurisdiction in the Palazzo della Cancelleria. For a short time he was senator of Rome in the time of Pius VII, then he was in the retinue of Card. Marini in demanding from the Austrian general Welden an accounting for the neutrality of the Roman State (1848), brutally violated.

After Pius IX departed for Gaeta, he took part in the Provisional Junta of government, but then, having opposed the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, he found himself compelled to flee to his native Florence. Once the restoration had taken place, Pius IX counted him among the members of the new Consulta di Stato for finances, and in the few years remaining to him he contributed not a little to the restoration of the treasury and to the reorganization of the public administration.

Paolo Dalla Torre

NERI, brother of Tommaso, Tuscan minister, born on 23 November 1771 in Florence, died there on 25 October 1845. After the outbreak of the French Revolution he was entrusted with the search for a modus vivendi with Paris (1796), but he failed in this mission. When Tuscany was occupied by Napoleon, he was summoned, above all for his particular financial expertise, to be part of the Council of State in Paris (1809). At the Lorrainese restoration C. became Tuscan plenipotentiary at the Congress of Vienna, conducting himself with tact and moderation, qualities that did not fail him even at the Congresses of Ljubljana (1821) and of Verona (1822), where he likewise represented his court. Director of the Secretariat of State from 1814, collaborator and successor of Fossombroni, the Tuscan policy of the Restoration is to a great extent identified with his name.

The measures of an economic and financial character during this period, the strenuous resistance opposed to Austria's attempts at intervention in the internal affairs of the grand duchy, in short that moderate Tuscan policy shunning both reaction and revolution, is to C.'s credit.

In relations with the Holy See C. held firm to the Josephinist theories, fixed in the old Leopoldine legislation. During the pontificates of Pius VII, of Leo XII and of Pius VIII, relations between the Holy See and Tuscany were on the whole cordial, even if at times disagreements arose over certain jurisdictional claims of the Florentine authorities. Relations worsened noticeably, however, toward the end of the pontificate of Gregory XVI. On the one hand this was due to certain governmental provisions (prohibition of printing pastorals whose text had not been previously approved by the civil authority, etc.), on the other, to C.'s having refused to proceed with the extradition of individuals requested by the Holy See in accordance with a special convention concluded in 1827. - See plate XXXIV.

Silvio Furlani