PALLAVICINI (PALLAVICINO), FAMILY. - The first certain information relates to Oberto, a follower of Henry V, who in 1143 divided the extensive possessions stretching from the Po to Liguria among his sons: from this division also derive the two branches of the P. of Genoa and those of Lombardy.
The latter branch enjoyed greater success as it was allied with the Ghibelline party in Upper Italy: Oberto II was imperial vicar of Frederick II, and served repeatedly as podestà in the city. He adhered to Conrad IV and Manfredi, entered into conflict with Ezzelino da Romano, and contributed to his downfall in June 1259. He himself fell with the arrival of Charles of Anjou, who expelled him from Milan where he was captain general (b. 18 May 1269). The "Pallavicino State," however, did not fall; this imperial fief, comprising territories of Parma, Piacenza, and Cremona, with its main nucleus at Busseto, endured until it was fragmented among the various branches and overwhelmed by the growing power of the Visconti and Sforza, when the State became a chamber fief within the Milanese State.
The P. of Genoa made their fortune both in the service of the Church and of their Republic; in particular, in the 14th and 17th centuries they held various diplomatic posts in Spain, France, and Austria, as well as in Rome and The Hague, participating even in the Congress for the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.
To the Genoese branch belonged: ANTONIOTTO GENTILE, cardinal, b. in 1441, d. in Rome on 10 Sept. 1507, who spent his youthful years in the East, settled in Genoa after the fall of the Byzantine Empire, and formed a friendship with Cardinal Cibo. Sixtus IV appointed him on 15 June 1484 bishop of Ventimiglia. Cibo, elected pope under the name of Innocent VIII, named 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 Aug. 1492, when Cesare Borgia left it to take that of Valencia, and he held it until his death along with other benefices in Spain. Meanwhile, Innocent VIII had created him cardinal on 9 March 1489. Alexander VI tasked him at the end of 1494 with negotiating with Charles VIII as he descended upon Rome; on 11 May 1494 he sent him as legate together with Bernardino Quirónes to Naples to the same king; and on 27 May, left by the Pope as legate in Rome, he conducted that king to the Palazzo di Scossacavalli, which he left on 3 June. Julius II, in 1507, sent him as legate to Savona when Louis XII of France and Ferdinand the Catholic were negotiating a league against Venice.
Silvio Furlani
CIPRIANO, archbishop of Genoa, b. there in 1510, d. there in 1586, after resigning in 1585. Protonotary and apostolic secretary, he participated 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 Council’s decrees, he had jurisdictional disputes with the government of the Republic and with the Society of Jesus; to resolve them, Gregory XIII sent as apostolic visitor the bishop of Novara, Francesco Bosio, who carried out the task severely, taking measures even against P. II. P. was a protector of artists, and to him is owed the restoration of various churches in Genoa.
Giovanni Battista, cardinal, nephew of Antonietto, was 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 he held from 22 Nov. 1507 until his death. He was included in the great creation of cardinals made by Leo X on 1 July 1517; d. in Rome on 13 Aug. 1524.
LAZZARO, b. in Genoa in 1603; chamberlain, was created cardinal by Clement IX on 29 Nov. 1606. He was legate in Bologna; died in Rome in 1680.
OBIZZO, b. in Genoa on 13 Oct. 1632; was nuncio in Tuscany and Cologne; then in Poland in 1680–86, when negotiations for the anti-Turkish league so ardently advocated by Innocent XI were in full swing; P. worked fervently for II. 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 Feb. 1700.
LAZARO-OPIZIO, cardinal, b. in Genoa on 30 Oct. 1719, d. in Rome on 23 Feb. 1785. He was nuncio in Spain (1760–67), but was not very successful due to his excessive devotion to that sovereign. He was created cardinal by Clement XII on 26 Sept. 1766. Clement XIV appointed him cardinal secretary of state on the very day of his election and thereafter did not take his collaboration into account. Through the influence of Cardinal de Bernis, he retained the office even under Pius VI, though he was considered a man of limited ability. From Spain he had brought that aversion to the Society of Jesus which marked his actions. In the Council of 1775 he was supported by Spain, but without result.
RANUZIO, cardinal, b. in Piacenza on 17 Oct. 1632. He was governor of various cities in the Papal State, inquisitor in Malta in 1672, secretary of the Congregation of the Council, then governor of Rome; he was created cardinal by Clement XI on 17 May 1706. D. in Rome on 30 June 1712.
The one who most distinguished himself in the ecclesiastical field within the P. family was certainly PIETRO P. SFORZA, Jesuit, cardinal, of the Parma branch, b. in Rome on 28 Nov. 1607, d. there on 5 June 1667. After completing brilliantly his studies in philosophy, law, and theology at the Collegio Romano and being ordained priest, he entered the administrative career of the Roman Curia, becoming referendary of both Signatures and member of the Congregation for Good Government and Ecclesiastical Immunity; but having fallen into disfavor with Urban VIII in 1632, together with his friend Giovanni Ciampoli, secretary of the Briefs, he was obliged to serve as governor in Jesi, then in Orvieto and Camerino. After overcoming 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 as a pupil Paolo Segneri. As a theologian he was tasked with examining the theory of M. de Barcos, condemned on 24 Jan. 1647 (Denz-U, no. 1091), and from autumn 1652 he took part with L. Wadding and eleven other consultors in the sessions concerning the five propositions of Jansenius. P. aligned himself with the more moderate current, which judged the propositions only as erroneous and proximate to heresy (v. PASTORE, XIV, I, p. 204 ff).
After the election as pope of his childhood friend Fabio Chigi (7 Apr. 1655), P. was created a cardinal in pectore on 9 Apr. 1657 and published on 10 Nov. 1659. How close their personal relations were throughout the pontificate is shown by the lively correspondence exchanged with him (the originals in Cod. Chig. C III 63 of the Vatican Library; a judgment by P. on the papal nephews’ benefices in Pastor, XIV, II, pp. 518–19). The fruit of P.’s philosophical doctrine are the four books Del Bene (Rome 1644; in Latin under the title Philosophia moralis, Cologne 1646); of his theological doctrine the Observationes Theologicae (8 vols., Rome 1649–52) and the Disputationes in Primam Secundae s. Thomae (ibid. 1653). At the same time P. composed a tragedy, Ermenegildo (ibid. 1644), and a work on style: Considerazioni sopra l’arte dello stile e del dialogo (ibid. 1646). In reply to the accusations of the ex-Jesuit Clemente Scotti he defended his Order with great skill in the Vindiciae Societatis Jesu (ibid. 1649). These manifold proofs of his ability as a writer, rather than historical works, led the General, at the beginning of 1652, to entrust him with the refutation of the servite Paolo Sarpi’s history of the Council of Trent, published in 1619.
Material for such a refutation had already been collected since 1625 by the Jesuit Terenzio Alciati, but he died on 12 Nov. 1651 without having completed the draft. P. took up Alciati’s collection, enriched it with material drawn from the manuscripts of the Barberini, Borghese, Spada, Medici libraries and others made available to him, and obtained from Innocent X permission to examine the Acts of the Council kept in Castel S. Angelo. In three years of work the scaffolding of the work was ready; P. spent another year polishing it to perfection, and finally in 1656 the Istoria del Concilio di Trento appeared in 2 vols. in-folio, dedicated to the new pope Alexander VII. The work was an extraordinary success; a second edition became necessary in 1663–64 (3 vols., in 4°), and in 1666 a compendium in Latin appeared under the name of his secretary, Fr. Giampietro Cataloni, in which the polemical parts were omitted, making it easier to read. A complete Latin version was published at Antwerp (1670) under the name of Fr. G. B. Giattino; French, Spanish and German translations first appeared in the 19th cent. The best edition of the Italian text is that edited by F. A. Zaccaria (6 vols., Faenza 1792–99). P. himself, in a letter to the marquis Durazzo of 2 June 1657, defined his work as a “mixed history of apology; or rather more truly an apology interspersed with history.” He wished, in fact, to defend the papacy from the calumny launched by Sarpi, that it had used the Council of Trent solely to restore and extend its power. As means of proof P. simply used the historical facts drawn from the sources; he felt like a lawyer who must present a defence, but refrained from any deliberate distortion, and spoke so openly even of unpleasant facts that his frankness drew reproach. The very numerous and better sources he used enabled him to demonstrate many errors of Sarpi; yet he did not succeed in removing Sarpi’s work from the field, because Gallicans and Protestants, and later also liberals, had made its fundamental conceptions their own. P.’s refined and sententious artistic style did not attain the trenchant conciseness of Sarpi.
P. also wrote, from 1656 to 1659, a life of Alexander VII, left unfinished and long unpublished; a complete edition in 2 vols. was issued at Prato in 1839, reprinted at Milan in 1843, and more correctly, though only partially, by O. Gigli (Rome 1849 [cf. Pastor, XIV, 11, pp. 523–27]).
In P. manifold talents were united with great diligence, but also with deep humility and sincere striving for perfection. Even two years before his death he published an ascetical work: Arte della perfezione cristiana (Rome 1665). But what may properly be called the work of his life and which has secured him fame for centuries is the Istoria del Concilio di Trento, which he himself declared to be “a living portrait of myself.” He died in the novitiate of S. Andrea al Quirinale, where a slab on the floor commemorates him.