SANTACROCE PUBLICOLA, FAMILY. - Recorded as very ancient already in the 13th century in the registers of Innocent IV. They were created princes by Clement XI, who erected their fief of Oliveto into a duchy.
The most illustrious among the ecclesiastics was PROSPERO (b. 24 Sept. 1513, d. 8 Nov. 1589), auditor of the Rota, bishop of Chissamo (22 March 1548: he resigned it on 10 Dec. 1572), was sent as nuncio to King Ferdinand (5 Apr. 1548-25 Apr. 1550); then he was nuncio in France in 1552-54, in Spain in 1560, then again in France (Oct. 1561-1566). In the meantime he was created cardinal on 12 March 1564 and held in administration the archbishopric of Arles (17 June 1566), which he kept until 15 March 1574. Of the civil struggles he witnessed he speaks in his De civilibus Galliae dimensionibus commentariorum libri III, which run from the death of Francis I to 1562. ANTONIO, archbishop of Seleucia and nuncio in Poland, was created cardinal by Urban VIII on 19 Nov. 1629; he became archbishop of Chieti (10 March 1631), then of Urbino (9 June 1639, resigned in 1639). Died in Rome at the age of 43 on 25 Nov. 1541.
MARCELLO, referendary of the Segnatura, was created cardinal by Innocent X on 19 Febr. 1652 and then bishop of Tivoli on 14 Oct. 1652; d. in Rome on 19 Dec. 1674. Also to be remembered is PIETRO, who at the beginning of the 16th century was governor of Castel S. Angelo, served in the ranks under Ferdinand the Catholic in the Kingdom of Naples and then in the service of the Church under Leo X. The family died out with ANTONIO in the 19th century.