PETRUCCI, ALFONSO. — Cardinal, born in Siena in 1492. He was appointed Bishop of Soana by Julius II, then of Massa Marittima (1511), and created Cardinal Deacon of S. Teodoro on 10 March 1511.
He fell out with Leo X and took advantage of the crisis caused by the War of Urbino to attempt the recovery of Siena, from which the Pope had banished his brother, Borghese. Falling under suspicion, he took refuge in the lands of the Colonna family, where it seems certain that he entered into agreements with Francesco Maria della Rovere. Controversial, however, are the details regarding the conspiracy of P. to have the Pope poisoned by the physician Battista da Vercelli. Returning to Rome, P. was arrested on 18 May 1517; found guilty, he was stripped of his 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, a conviction strengthened by P.’s defiant attitude, as he had publicly boasted of freeing the Sacred College from the Pope’s tyranny.