SOGLIA CERONI, GIOVANNI

SOGLIA CERONI, GIOVANNI. - Cardinal. Born at Casola Valsenio on 11 Oct. 1779, died at Osimo on 12 Aug. 1856.

While still young, he served as secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Studies. He then belonged to the Papal household under Pius VII and for this reason suffered long imprisonment at Fenestrelle when the Pope was dispossessed by Napoleon. He followed Pius VII to Savona during the brief occupation of the Papal States by Murat, and under Leo XII was appointed his secret almoner and titular archbishop of Ephesus. Gregory XVI promoted him to patriarch of Constantinople of the Latins, with the office of secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars; on 12 Feb. 1838 he created him a cardinal in *pectore* and published the appointment on 18 Feb. 1839. At the same time he was given the diocese of Osimo and Cingoli, which he governed with great wisdom, especially by establishing there a seminary reputed to be the most modern educational institution in the Papal States, even for its hygienic and gymnastic facilities, which were then quite unusual.

Uninvolved in the political events of the day, he was surprised when called to Rome by Pius IX in June 1848 to assume the offices of Secretary of State and President of the Council of Ministers in place of the resigned Cardinal Orioli. The second position was little more than nominal, for although the Statute required that the direction of the ministry be held by a prince of the Church, in fact the government was run by a layman—in this case, Mamiani.

For this reason, the cardinal-president’s work in government could not assume particular importance. It should be noted that Soglia, in deference to the Pope’s wishes, pursued a policy often independent of that of the ministries he presided over (in order, Mamiani, Fabbri, and Rossi), thus finding himself at odds with the secular minister of Foreign Affairs, especially when Count Marchetti was in office. This led to frequent clashes and conflicts of competence, particularly serious when Mazzini was able to publish in *L’Italia del Popolo* some confidential documents that Soglia had sent to the nuncio in Vienna, contrary to the policy of the Mamiani ministry. On 18 July 1848 he signed a protest to the powers over the Austrian occupation of Ferrara and renewed it at the beginning of August after the bloody clashes in Bologna. On the 12th of the same month he obtained the suppression of the secular Dicastery of Foreign Affairs, thereby regaining full control of the foreign policy of the Holy See and the Roman State. Confirmed in the presidential office even after the assassination of Pellegrino Rossi, when the new government was formed under Muzzarelli, he dissociated his responsibilities from those of the ministers upon the Pope’s departure for Gaeta and returned to his diocese, which he governed until his death.