FRANCHI, ALESSANDRO. - Cardinal, born in Rome on 25 June 1819, died there on 31 July 1878. A student at the Roman Seminary and a graduate in theology, after sustaining a public disputation he was called by Card. Lambruschici to the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs and became a minute-writer in the Secretariat of State. In 1853 he was sent as chargé d’affaires ad interim to Spain and played a major part in the conclusion of the Concordat with the Holy See.
Elected, in 1856, titular archbishop of Thessalonica and apostolic internuncio at the Tuscan court, he remained in Florence until the departure of the Grand Duke (1859). Having returned to Rome, in 1866 he assumed the office of secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs.
In 1868 he went as apostolic nuncio to Spain and, having left that nation after the abdication of Queen Isabella, was sent (1871) to Constantinople as extraordinary ambassador to the sultan. In the Consistory of 22 Dec. 1873 Pius IX created him cardinal, assigning him the title of S. Maria in Trastevere, and in the following year he received the prefecture of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide. In the Conclave of 1878 he was among the papabili, and Leo XIII, immediately after his election, appointed him Secretary of State; but he was able to retain that most exalted office for only a few months, having been overtaken by death.
Mario de Camillo