LUDOVISI, LUDOVICO. - Cardinal, b. 27 Oct. 1595 in Bologna, d. there 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, in order to pursue legal studies at that university; he received his doctorate in 1615. His uncle, having become pope under the name Gregory XV (1621–23), made him cardinal and shortly afterwards also archbishop of Bologna (1621).
Endowed with a very considerable number of “ecclesiastical benefices,” he enriched his family fabulously; he purchased and built splendid villas (at Frascati and in Rome), for the adornment of which he employed the finest artists of the time. He was a lover of literature and art. He was of great assistance to his uncle in drafting the new regulations for the election of the pope, to be conducted by secret scrutiny and written vote, in establishing the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, and in all matters of government. But if L.’s wealth was immense, as was that of all the cardinal-nephews of the period, his charity too was immense. He provided generously for the poor, hospitals, convents, and all the charitable institutions existing in Rome, where he erected the church of S. Ignazio, spending 200,000 scudi upon it; he had many others built at his own expense, within and outside Rome. Afflicted with gout, he left Rome on 27 March 1632 to proceed to Bologna by order of Urbano VIII, and there he was overtaken by death.