PETRUCCI, ALFONSO. - Cardinal, born at Siena in 1492. He was appointed bishop of Soana by Julius II, then of Massa Marittima (1511), and was created cardinal deacon of S. Teodoro on 10 March 1511.
He fell out with Leo X and took advantage of the crisis brought about by the war of Urbino to attempt the recovery of Siena, from which the Pope had expelled his brother Borghese. Having come under suspicion, he took refuge in the lands of the Colonna, where it seems established that he made agreements with Francesco Maria della Rovere. The details concerning P.’s conspiracy to have the Pope poisoned by the physician Battista da Vercelli are, however, disputed. Having returned to Rome, P. was arrested on 18 May 1517; found guilty, he was deprived of the cardinalate (22 June) and handed over to the secular arm; on 16 July he was killed in prison. Leo X was fully convinced of his guilt, and this conviction was strengthened by P.’s defiant attitude, for he had publicly boasted that he would free the Sacred College from the Pope’s tyranny.