PALEOTTI, GABRIELE. — Cardinal, born in Bologna on 4 Oct. 1522 to Alessandro and Gentile Volta; he earned his doctorate in law on 14 May 1546; became a canon in Bologna in 1549, stayed in Rome with Cardinal Verallo, and was appointed auditor of the Rota in 1556. Pius IV wished him to accompany the legate cardinals to the Council of Trent; Paleotti followed its proceedings until its conclusion. Of this period he left a *Diarium* (printed by S. Merkle, *Concilii Tridentini diariorum*..., Freiburg in Br. 1801, p. 235).
Created cardinal on 12 March 1565, he received the see of Bologna on 30 Jan. 1566, where from the outset he was one of the most zealous executors of the Tridentine reforms, establishing new ordinances, assiduous in pastoral visits, in the celebration of synods, in preaching, and in the dissemination of the catechism. A friend of Cardinals Borromeo and Sirleto, of Burali and Aldobrandini, under Pius V he took a large part in the reforms of the Curia, especially in reorganizing the Penitentiary and the Index. When Bologna was elevated to an archdiocese (10 Dec. 1582), Paleotti soon celebrated the provincial council there (1586). Having become bishop of Albano (8 Nov. 1589) and then of Sabina, he had as coadjutor with right of succession his cousin Alfonso P. in Bologna (13 Feb. 1591). He died in Rome on 23 July 1597.
In 1550 he published a juridical treatise, *De nothis et spuris*; in 1596, *De sacri consistori consultationibus*; and numerous orders, instructions, letters, a *Rituale Sacramentorum* and an *Episcopale* (1580) for the governance of the diocese; he also held synods in his two suburbicarian sees. A treatise in three books, *De bono senectutis* (Rome 1595), won wide renown; in it, as he says, he had before him as a “living exemplar” St. Philip Neri.