MATTEI, ALESSANDRO. - Cardinal, b. in Rome on 20 Feb. 1744. He was elected archbishop of Ferrara by Pius VI (1777) and cardinal in 1782. At the outbreak of the French Revolution he gave hospitality to many fugitive priests. As the Pope’s plenipotentiary, he signed the Treaty of Tolentino (15 Feb. 1797).
In the Conclave from which Pius VII emerged elected, he was among the papabili, supported by Card. Herzan, who saw in him the foremost representative of anti-revolutionary legitimism. He became bishop of Palestrina in 1804. Having refused to attend Napoleon’s wedding to Maria Luisa d'Austria, he was confined by the Emperor at Rethel in the Ardennes, where he wrote a short ascetical treatise on the spiritual exercises according to the method of s. Ignazio. In 1814, after Napoleon’s fall, he returned to Rome and became dean of the Sacred College. D. in Rome on 20 Apr. 1820.