Enciclopedia Cattolica Vol. IX, 1952 History & biography

Pallavicini (Pallavicino), Family

PALLAVICINI (PALLAVICINO), FAMIGLIA

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PALLAVICINI (PALLAVICINO), FAMILY. - The first reliable reports refer to OBERTO, a follower of Henry V, who in 1143 divided among his sons the possessions extending from the Po to Liguria: from this division also derive the two branches of the P. of Genoa and those of Lombardy.

The latter had greater fortune as an ally of the Ghibelline party in upper Italy: Oberto II was imperial vicar of Frederick II, several times podestà in the city. He adhered to Conrad IV and to Manfred, entered into conflict with Ezzelino da Romano and contributed to his downfall in June 1259. He himself in turn fell with the coming of Charles of Anjou, who drove him from Milan where he was captain general (d. 18 May 1269). The "Pallavicino State" did not fall, however, an imperial fief comprised within the territories of Parma, Piacenza, Cremona, with its major nucleus at Busseto, and which fell only with its fragmentation into the various branches and with the overriding of Visconti-Sforza power, when the State became a camera fief in the Milanese State.

The P. of Genoa made their fortune both in the service of the Church and in that of their Republic; in particular in the 17th and 18th centuries they held various diplomatic posts in Spain, France and Austria, as well as in Rome and at The Hague, also taking part in the Congress for the Peace of Aachen.

Bibliography
BIBL.: P. Litta, Famiglie nobili italiane, VI.

Luciano Gulli

To the Genoese branch belonged: ANTONIOTTO GENTILE, cardinal, b. in 1441, d. in Rome on 10 Sept. 1507, who spent the years of his youth in the East, settled in Genoa after the fall of the Byzantine Empire and formed a friendship with Card. Cibo. Sixtus IV appointed him on 15 June 1484 bishop of Ventimiglia. Cibo, elected pontiff under the name of Innocent VIII, appointed him his datary, bishop of Orense on 27 Jan. 1486, then of Lamego in Portugal from 26 March 1492 to 1493; he held in commendam the bishopric of Tournai (1491-May 1494), then that of Pamplona on 31 Jan. 1492, when Cesare Borgia left it to have that of Valencia, and he held it until his death together with other benefices in Spain. Meanwhile Innocent VIII had created him cardinal on 9 March 1489. Alexander VI charged him at the end of 1494 with treating with Charles VIII who was descending against Rome; on 11 May 1494 he sent him as legate together with Bernardino Quiñones to Naples to that same King; and on 27 May, having been left by the Pope as legate in Rome, he conducted that King into the palace of Scossacavalli which he left on 3 June. Julius II,
in 1507, sent him as legate to Savona, when between Louis XII
of France and Ferdinand the Catholic the league
against Venice was being negotiated.

Illustration
Bibliography2 works
BIBL.: Moroni, LI, pp. 48-50; Eubel, II, passim.

Silvio Furlani

CIPRIANO, archbishop of Genoa, b. there in 1510,
d. there in 1586, after having resigned in Nov. 1585.
Protonotary and apostolic secretary, he took part in the Council
of Trent, was collector and nuncio in Naples from 15 May
to 23 Nov. 1566; he received the archbishopric on 14 Nov. 1567.

In the execution of the decrees of the Council, he had jurisdictional controversies with the government of the Republic and
with the Society of Jesus; to settle them, Gregory XIII
sent there as apostolic visitor the bishop of Novara,
Francesco Bosio, who carried out the task severely, taking
measures also against the P. The P. was a protector
of artists and to him is owed the restoration of various churches
of Genoa.

Bibliography
BIBL.: G. B. Semeria, Secoli cristiani della Liguria, I, Torino 1843, pp. 208-10.

Piero Sannazzaro

GIOVANNI BATTISTA, cardinal, nephew of Antoniotto,
was a writer of the Apostolic Letters, abbreviator of the first
vision in 1503, attended the Fifth Lateran Council in
Dec. 1516 as bishop of Cavaillon, a see which he held from
22 Nov. 1507 until his death. He was included in the great
creation of cardinals carried out by Leo X on 1 July
1517; d. in Rome on 13 Aug. 1524.

Bibliography
BIBL.: Eubel, III, passim.

LAZZARO, b. in Genoa in 1603; cleric of the Chamber,
was created cardinal by Clement IX on 29 Nov. 1669.
He was legate in Bologna; he died in Rome in 1680.

Bibliography
BIBL.: G. De Novaes, Elementi della storia dei Sommi Pontefici, X, Rome 1822, p. 201.

OBIZZO, b. in Genoa on 13 Oct. 1632; he was nuncio in
Tuscany and Cologne; then in Poland in 1680-86, when
the intrigues for the anti-Turkish league so strongly urged
by Innocent XI were at their height; the P. worked there with zeal.
He was created cardinal on 2 Sept. 1686. Bishop of Spoleto on 28 Nov. 1689,
then of Osimo (8 Aug. 1691), d. in Rome on 11 Febr. 1700.

Bibliography2 works
BIBL.: G. De Novaes, Elementi della storia dei Sommi Pontefici, XI, Rome 1822, p. 51; Pastor, XIV, II, p. 88 ff. and passim.

LAZARO-OPIZIO, cardinal, b. in Genoa on 30 Oct.
1719, d. in Rome on 23 Febr. 1785. He was nuncio in Spain
(1760-67), but did not give much satisfaction, because of his excessive devotion to that sovereign. He was created cardinal by Clement XIII
on 26 Sept. 1766. Clement XIV made him cardinal secretary of State on the very day of his election but without afterwards taking
account of his collaboration. Through the influence of Card. de Bernis he retained the office also under
Pius VI, although he was considered a man of little ability. From
Spain he had brought that aversion to the Society of
Jesus which accompanied his acts. In the Conclave of 1775
he was supported by Spain, but without result.

Bibliography
BIBL.: Pastor, XVI, passim.

RANUZIO, cardinal, b. in Piacenza on 17 Oct. 1632.
He was governor of various cities of the Pontifical State, inquisitor in Malta in 1672, secretary of the Congregation
of the Council, then governor of Rome, was created cardinal by Clement XI on 17 May 1706. D. in Rome
on 30 June 1712.

Bibliography
BIBL.: G. De Novaes, Elementi della storia dei Sommi Pontefici, XII, Rome 1822, p. 81.

Pio Paschini

He who most distinguished the family P. in the ecclesiastical field
was certainly PIETRO P. SPORZA, Jesuit,
cardinal, of the Parma branch, b. in Rome on 28 Nov.
1607, d. there on 5 June 1667. Having brilliantly completed his philosophical, juridical and theological studies at the
Collegio Romano and been ordained priest, he entered the administrative career of the Roman Curia, was
referendary of the two Signatures and member of the Congregation of Good Government and of Ecclesiastical Immunity; but having fallen into disfavor with Urban VIII,
in 1632, together with his friend Giovanni Ciampoli, secretary of the Briefs, he had to go as governor

(phot. Frits)
PALLIUM - Pius XII with the fanon and the p. The three pins (aciculae or spinulae), adorned with precious stones and placed at the front, back and on the left shoulder, now have a purely ornamental function.

to Jesi, then to Orvieto and Camerino. Having overcome his father's opposition, on 21 June 1637 he entered the Society of Jesus; and already in 1639 he was professor of philosophy, in 1643 of theology (succeeding his teacher De Lugo) at the Collegio Romano, where he had Paolo Segneri as a disciple. As a theologian he was charged with examining the theory of M. de Barcos, condemned on 24 Jan. 1647 (Denz-U, n. 1091), and from the autumn of 1652 he took part, together with L. Wadding and 11 other consultors, in the sessions concerning the five propositions of Jansenius. The P. sided with the milder current, which judged the propositions merely as erroneous and close to heresy (v. Pastor, XIV, 1, p. 204 ff.).

After the election to the pontificate of his friend from youth Fabio Chigi (7 Apr. 1655), the P. was created cardinal in pectore on 9 Apr. 1657 and published on 10 Nov. 1659. How close his personal relations with Alexander VII were, throughout the whole pontificate, is shown by the lively correspondence exchanged with him (the originals in Cod. Chig. C III 63 of the Vatican Library; an opinion of the P. on the benefices of the Pope's nephews in Pastor, XIV, II, pp. 518-19). The fruit of the P.'s philosophical doctrine are the four books Del Bene (Rome 1644; in Latin with the title: Philosophia moralis, Cologne 1646); of his theological doctrine the Observationes Theologicae (8 vols., Rome 1649-52) and the Disputationes in Primum Secundae s. Thomae (ibid. 1653). At the same time the P. composed a tragedy: Ermenegildo (ibid. 1644) and a work of stylistics: Considerazioni sopra l'arte dello stile e del dialogo (ibid. 1646). Against the accusations of the former Jesuit Clemente Scotti he defended his Order with great skill in the Vindiciae Societatis Jesu (ibid. 1649). These manifold proofs of his as a writer, and not works of history, induced the General, at the beginning of 1652, to entrust him with the confutation of the history of the Council of Trent by the Servite Paolo Sarpi, which had appeared in 1619. Material for such a confutation had already been gathered from as early as 1625 by the Jesuit Terenzio Alciati, but the latter died on 12 Nov. 1651, without having completed the drafting. The P. took Alciati's collection, enlarged it with material drawn from the manuscripts of the Barberini, Borghese, Spada, Medici Libraries and from others placed at his disposal, and obtained from Innocent X a glance at the Acts of the Council, kept at Castel S. Angelo. In three years of work the framework of the work was already ready; the P. spent one more year polishing it to perfection and finally in 1656 the Istoria del Concilio di Trento came out in 2 folio vols. with the dedication to the new pope Alexander VII. The work had an extraordinary success; in 1663-64 a second edition became necessary (3 vols., in 4°) and in 1666 a compendium in Latin appeared, under the name of his secretary, p. Giampietro Cataloni, in which the polemical parts are omitted and therefore the reading becomes easier. A version of the complete work in Latin appeared at Antwerp (1670) under the name of p. G. B. Giattino; versions in French, Spanish and German appeared, for the first time, in the 19th century. The best edition of the Italian text is that edited by F. A. Zaccaria (6 vols., Faenza 1792-99). The same P., in a letter to the Marquis Durazzo of 2 June 1657, defined his work as a «history mixed with apology; or rather more truly an apology mixed with history». He wished, in fact, to defend the papacy from the calumny launched by Sarpi, that it had made use of the Council of Trent only to restore its power and expand it. As means of demonstration the P. uses simply the historical facts drawn from the sources; he feels like a lawyer, who must set out a defense, but he refrains from any voluntary distortion, and he speaks so openly even of unpleasant facts, that a reproach was made of his frankness. The very numerous and better sources, which he uses, made it possible for him to demonstrate many errors of Sarpi: nevertheless he did not succeed in freeing the field from his work, because Gallicans and Protestants and, later, also the liberals, had made its fundamental conceptions their own. The artistically refined and sententious style of the P. did not attain the cutting concision of Sarpi.

The P. also wrote from 1656 to 1659 a life of Alexander VII, left however unfinished and remaining long unpublished; the complete edition was made in 2 vols. at Prato in 1839, reprinted at Milan in 1843 and more correctly, but only partially, by O. Gigli (Rome 1849 [cf. Pastor, XIV, II, pp. 523-27]).

In the P. manifold talents were united with great diligence, but also with a profound humility and a sincere pursuit of perfection. Still two years before his death he published an ascetical work: Arte della perfezione cristiana (Rome 1665). But what can properly be called the work of his life and which has assured him fame for centuries remains the Istoria del Concilio di Trento, which he himself declared: «a living portrait of me». He died in the novitiate of S. Andrea al Quirinale, where a plaque on the floor commemorates him.

Bibliography6 works
BIBL.: opere: 33 vols., Rome 1844-48; Lettere, ibid. 1848; bibl. in Sommervogel, VI, coll. 120-43; Hutter, IV, coll. 192-96. The best biography is that of Ireneo Affo: Memorie della vita e degli studi del card. Sforza P., published for the first time in F. A. Zaccaria, Istoria del Concilio di Trento, L. Faenza 1792, pp. 17-52. A modern biography is lacking; L. Pallavicino Mossi, Sforza P., Bologna 1933. Studi: H. Jedin, Der Quellenapparat der Konzilsgesch. Pallavicino, Rome 1940 (Miscellanea hist. pontif., IV, 6); id., Das Konzil von Trient. Ein Überblick über die Erforschung seiner Gesch., ibid. 1948, pp. 95-145.

Hubert Jedin

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By Luciano Gulli, Silvio Furlani, Hubert Jedin, Piero Sannazzaro, Pio Paschini

How we know Luciano Gulli: signed in print; Silvio Furlani: signed in print; Hubert Jedin: signed in print; Piero Sannazzaro: read from the page scan; Pio Paschini: read from the page scan

Translated from the Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IX (1952), coll. 642–646.

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More by Luciano Gulli: Pardo de Tavera, Juan · Parker, Matthew · Ordelaffi, Family · Pepoli, Family · Obregón, Bernardino

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Chicago

Gulli, Luciano, et al. “Pallavicini (Pallavicino), famiglia.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IX, coll. 642–646. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1952. https://azioneromana.com/article/pallavicini-pallavicino-famiglia.

MLA

Gulli, Luciano, et al. “Pallavicini (Pallavicino), famiglia.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IX, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1952, coll. 642–646. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/pallavicini-pallavicino-famiglia.

BibTeX

@incollection{ec9_pallavicini_pallavicino_famigl,
  author    = {Gulli, Luciano and Furlani, Silvio and Jedin, Hubert and Sannazzaro, Piero and Paschini, Pio},
  title     = {Pallavicini (Pallavicino), famiglia},
  booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
  volume    = {IX},
  pages     = {642--646},
  note      = {Cited by column},
  publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
  address   = {Città del Vaticano},
  year      = {1952},
  url       = {https://azioneromana.com/article/pallavicini-pallavicino-famiglia}
}

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