LUDOVISI, Ludovico. – Cardinal, born on 27 Oct. 1595 in Bologna, died there on 18 Nov. 1632. Educated in Rome at the Jesuit German College, he returned in 1612 to Bologna, where his uncle Cardinal Alessandro L. had gone as archbishop, to pursue legal studies at the university and graduated in 1615. His uncle, who became pope under the name Gregory XV (1621–23), created him cardinal and shortly thereafter also archbishop of Bologna (1621).
Endowed with a very considerable number of ecclesiastical benefices, he enriched his family fabulously; he acquired and built splendid villas (at Frascati and in Rome), for whose adornment he engaged the finest artists of the time. He was a lover of literature and art. He rendered great assistance to his uncle in drafting the new regulations for the papal election, to be conducted by secret ballot and written vote, in the establishment of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, and in all matters of government. Yet as immense were the riches of L., as was the case with all cardinal-nephews of the time, so too was his charity boundless. He generously provided for the poor, hospitals, convents, and all charitable works in Rome, where he spent 200,000 scudi on enlarging the church of S. Ignazio; he also built numerous others at his own expense both within and outside Rome. Stricken with gout, he left Rome on 27 March 1632 to reach Bologna on the orders of Urban VIII, and there he died.