MARMAGGI, FRANCESCO. - Cardinal, b. in Rome on 31 Aug. 1876, d. there on 3 Nov. 1949. Of a humble Trastevere family, ordained priest in 1900, he devoted himself fervently to the ministry, especially in his native district and wholly for the benefit of youth.
Having entered the Secretariat of State, he distinguished himself there by an uncommon sense of balance in resolving grave problems during the First World War. After serving as undersecretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, he was elected, in 1920, titular archbishop of Adrianople and appointed first apostolic nuncio to Romania, where he played a most notable part in the return to the Church of King Ferdinando di Hohenzollern.
Transferred in 1923 to Czechoslovakia, and thence in 1928 to Poland, he was created cardinal by Pio XI in the Consistory of 16 Dec. 1935. Appointed by Pio XII, in the first days of his pontificate, prefect of the Congregation of the Council, he devoted all his activity to that important dicastery, while continuing his beneficent and tireless work of charity toward the poor of Trastevere, who found in him a most tender father.