FRANCESCO INGOLI. — Priest, born in Ravenna on 21 November 1578 into a distinguished family, died in Rome on 29 April 1649. He studied in Padua, where he earned his degree on 27 May 1601. He was skilled in civil and canon law and belonged to the College of Doctors of Ravenna. He taught law to the youth of Ravenna. Auditor to the legate Cardinal Bonifacio Gaetano, he was brought by him to Rome, where, after Gaetano’s death, he entered the service of Cardinal Lancellotti. Ingoli engaged in astronomical studies and in 1616 wrote a discourse against the Copernican system, which earned him a response from Galileo, and also against Kepler. He was in favour with Gregory XV, who appointed him tutor to his nephew Cardinal Lodovico Ludovisi, whom he accompanied to Bologna when the latter was named archbishop there. The same Pope entrusted him with preparing the ceremonial for the conclave, in collaboration with several cardinals. He was then elected secretary of the Congregation for Ceremonies.
When Gregory XV founded the new Congregation of Propaganda Fide, he named Ingoli—an erudite man of wide linguistic knowledge—its first secretary, a position he held uninterruptedly for 27 years until his death. Soon Ingoli became the driving force of the new Congregation, and in this role he earned the semi-official title of “most respectable prelate.” He was responsible for the Congregation’s principal initiatives. As early as 17 January 1622, he had letters written to the superiors general of the missionary orders requiring their subjects to report periodically on the state of each mission, thus securing the first means on which to base the Congregation’s work. Of tenacious character, he struggled against opponents: the religious orders, for their privileges, and Spain and Portugal, for their patronage rights, repeatedly confirmed even after the foundation of Propaganda by the Holy See. The patronage disputes became the greatest difficulty, which Ingoli sought to circumvent. Thus, on 24 June 1623, he invited the superiors general of the orders to require their subjects to obtain patents from the Holy Congregation. Later he proposed and implemented the institutions of apostolic delegates and apostolic vicars, directly dependent on Rome. Financial difficulties cut short other initiatives.
He worked for the abolition of the religious orders’ privileges by promoting the missionaries of the secular clergy and fostering, in accordance with apostolic principles, the indigenous clergy. He took particular care of the Christian communities in Japan, which became the “favourite” of the Holy Congregation, sending two bishops there, though they never reached their destination. With equal attention he concerned himself with the rest of the missionary world. In evangelization he championed respect for the civilization and customs of peoples against Europeanization and the multiplicity of religious orders in the same mission territory for mutual oversight. He founded the polyglot press, now the Vatican press, for printing catechisms and indigenous vocabularies. Despite certain shortcomings due to information that was difficult to verify and his combative character, he became the undisputed oracle of Propaganda. From the beginning, in fact, the most important documents and those presented for discussion by the cardinals bear his personal annotations and reflections, summarizing their content, proposing remedies and directives, which were almost always accepted by the commission of cardinals.
Summaries and general comparisons with related reflections or remedies became directives for the Holy Congregation, which, at Ingoli’s death, had definitively secured its existence, had won the trust and dependence of the missionary orders, had begun to redress the deficits of the patronage system, and had initiated solutions to the most important problems. At least in terms of grandeur, he never wore prelatial vestments and was affectionate toward the poor. He was buried in Sant’Andrea della Valle.