DELFINO, ZACCARIA. — Cardinal, born in Venice on 29 May 1527, died in Rome on 19 December 1583. He was bishop of Lesina. In July 1560 he was appointed nuncio in Vienna to Emperor Ferdinand I, with the task of obtaining his assent to the reopening of the Council at Trent. The sovereign’s strong resistance led to D. being accused of not having defended the Pope’s ideas with sufficient energy. In the end, however, he succeeded in obtaining the desired agreement. He was then sent to central and upper Germany to announce the Council to the ecclesiastical and secular princes, while Giovanni Commendone was entrusted with lower Germany, Belgium, and the Rhineland.
At Ferdinand’s behest, the two nuncios attended the Protestant assembly at Naumburg, where they could obtain nothing because of the hostility of those present. The same negative attitude was maintained by the Protestant cities visited by D. Remaining as resident nuncio in Vienna, D. played a leading part in the laborious negotiations between the Pope and the emperor during the Council. In 1563, when the Pope sought the emperor’s consent to the conclusion of the Council, D. obtained II. To convince Ferdinand, D. had also promised him concessions regarding the use of the chalice by the laity and the marriage of priests. The emperor believed that the Pope had secretly authorized D., all the more so because D. had supplied him with a draft of the letters of request. But although the Pope was induced to grant concessions concerning the chalice, he was not prepared to accept the other request; and when Maximilian II, who succeeded Ferdinand, renewed it, always with D.’s support, he replied with the decree of 18 May 1565 against the servility of the nuncios. The emperor’s protection nevertheless secured D.’s promotion to the cardinalate on 26 June of the same year. This promotion, moreover, enabled the Pope to recall D. from Vienna: he had proved himself an able diplomat, but too compliant with the wishes of the sovereign to whom he was accredited.