LUDOVISI, LUDOVICO. - Cardinal, b. 27 Oct. 1595 in Bologna, d. there 18 Nov. 1632. Educated in Rome at the Jesuit Collegio Germanico, he returned in 1612 to Bologna, where his uncle Cardinal Alessandro L. had gone as archbishop, in order to pursue legal studies at that university, and he left it with a doctorate in 1615. By his uncle, who had become pope under the name Gregory XV (1621-23), he was made cardinal and shortly afterwards also archbishop of Bologna (1621).
Invested with a very notable number of "ecclesiastical benefices," he enriched his family in fabulous fashion; he bought and built splendid villas (at Frascati and in Rome), for the embellishment of which he engaged the work of the best artists of the time. He was a lover of literature and of art. He was of great help to his uncle in the drafting of the new regulation for the election of the pope, to be carried out by secret scrutiny and with a written vote, in the institution of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, and in all the affairs of government. But if the riches of L. were immense, as was the case with all the cardinal-nephews of the time, his charity was likewise immense. He provided generously for the poor, for the hospitals, for the convents and for all the charitable works existing in Rome, where he erected the church of S. Ignazio, spending 200,000 scudi on it; he had numerous other churches built at his own expense within and outside Rome. Ill with gout, he left Rome on 27 March 1632 to reach Bologna by order of Urban VIII, and there he was overtaken by death.
Bibliography
Gennaro Auletta