SANSEVERINO, FEDERICO. - Cardinal, b. in Naples around 1450 to the condottiere Roberto S., d. in Rome in 1516.
Created cardinal by Innocent VIII on 3 July 1489, through the influence of Ludovico il Moro he retained secular attitudes and continued to lead a worldly life. He took part in the Conclave of 1492, in which he voted for the future Alexander VI, having received from him promises of rich benefices. A follower through the shifting fortunes of the powerful Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, he was, together with him, a patron of the pro-French policy, even in opposition to the work of the Pontiff. In 1512, having openly rebelled against Julius II, he was one of the four cardinals who signed the summons of the Conciliabulum of Pisa, in which, however, he did not personally take part, participating instead actively in the military action that Louis XII of France had simultaneously undertaken against the Papal States. Stripped of the cardinalatial dignity and excommunicated, he fell prisoner to the Florentines. Leo X restored him to his former state, after he together with the other three had abjured their errors and retracted the canons of the Pisan Conciliabulum and received a suitable penance.
Under the same Pontiff he was officially the protector of France, whose interests he looked after. Of lavish life, he accumulated the prebends of various bishoprics and canonries, and was esteemed one of the richest cardinals of the curia.
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Piero Sannazzaro