MEZZABARBA, CARLO AMBROGIO. — Patriarch of Alexandria, legate to China, and cardinal, b. ca. 1685 at Pavia of a noble family, d. at Lodi on 7 December 1741. Having obtained a degree in utroque iure, he subsequently became referendary of both Segnature in Rome. He was later governor of Todi, and subsequently of the Sabina. At the proposal of Propaganda, in the secret Consistory of 18 September 1719 Clement XI appointed him legate a latere to China and patriarch of Alexandria. The legation of Tournon in China had failed to resolve the question of the rites. Certain demonstrations of imperial clemency toward Christians had aroused in Rome the hope of a change favorable to Christianity. The Portuguese government also withdrew the measures issued in 1715 against the implementation of the papal decrees concerning the rites and agreed to the mission of a new legate, on condition that the journey be made via Lisbon.
M.’s mandate was to secure the implementation in China of the decree Ex illa die of 19 March 1715. To prepare the way for the legate, Clement XI wrote numerous briefs to the king of Portugal, to his brother Francesco, to the Emperor, and to the bishops and apostolic vicars of China, and assigned several Barnabites and Servites to accompany M. The legate’s confessor was the Servite Sostegno Viani, who later wrote the Giornale della legazione della China (Cologne 1740). The two Barnabites Onorato Ferrari and Filippo Cesati traveled ahead with a papal brief to prepare the Emperor for the legation. In the spring of 1720 M. traveled to Lisbon, where he presented his credentials, which the Portuguese government modified in certain respects according to the regalistic principles then in use. On 25 March 1720 M. departed from Lisbon and, after a brief stop in Goa, arrived in Macao on 23 September 1720. In December 1720 and in January and February 1721 he was
Foreseeing this outcome, M. had a list of concessions brought from Rome presented to the Emperor before the first audience. These concessions recognized the lawfulness of the rites, provided that they were purely civil and that all superstitious elements had been eliminated. On 19 January 1721 the Emperor replied in an autograph letter, declaring that the restrictive clause was unfounded and deprived the concessions of all value. With gifts for the Pope and the king of Portugal, M. left Beijing on 3 March 1721, arriving in Macao on 17 May 1721. On 7 November 1721 he published a Istruzione pastorale for the bishops, apostolic vicars, and missionaries, declaring that it was not his intention to suspend the constitution of Clement XI or to permit anything that it prohibited. In order, however, to eliminate any doubt in its implementation, he also published the eight celebrated concessions that he had made known to the Emperor Kanghi the previous year. The instruction was intended exclusively for missionaries and, under pain of excommunication, prohibited their translation into the Tartar or Chinese languages; Chinese Christians were permitted to be informed of its contents whenever this seemed necessary or useful. In the constitution Ex quo singulari of 11 July 1742, Benedict XIV revoked all M.’s concessions and reaffirmed Clement XI’s constitution Ex illa die. He then wrote to the king of Portugal that the legate had exceeded his powers, or else that the opponents of the Clementine Constitution had interpreted his decisions too broadly. But it is certain that M. had not acted on his own initiative. Shortly before his departure from Lisbon, he had received from Rome the reply to certain doubts submitted to Rome by the apostolic vicars of China. The eight concessions were contained in this reply. A note on the back of the document expressly stated that the legate could make use of this reply (Letter from M. to Propaganda, dated Lodi, 10 October 1740, in the Archive of Propaganda Fide, Scritture riferite nei congressi. Indie orientali e Cina, 1737-40, vol. XXII, ff. 680–81).
Toward the end of 1721 he left Macao for Europe, taking with him to Rome the remains of his predecessor, Cardinal Tournon (1723). On 13 July 1725 he was appointed bishop of Lodi.