UBALDINI, Ottaviano, Cardinal. - Born certainly after 1210, died in 1273. He came from the Ghibelline family that long held sway in Mugello and in Tuscan Romagna; he was the uncle of Archbishop Ruggeri of Pisa (cf. Dante, Inf., XXXIII, 14).
He was archdeacon of Bologna, subdeacon and apostolic chaplain, when the Chapter postulated him as bishop (21 February 1240); but since he was not yet 30 years old, Gregory IX on 17 June 1240 appointed him administrator in temporalibus et spiritualibus. He was created cardinal deacon of St. Mary in Via Lata on 28 May 1244 by Innocent IV, who sent him as legate to Lombardy in 1247; he favored Ottone Visconti of Milan; after the defeat of Frederick II near Parma (18 February 1248) he entered that city; but having fallen into discord with the other legate, Gregory of Montelongo, a Guelph, he moved on to Romagna; and with the forces of the Bolognese, from May onward, he held Forlì, Forlimpopoli, Cesena, Imola, Cervia, Ravenna and, in June, Ferrara and Rimini. In May 1251 he was in Genoa and was persuading Innocent IV to remain in Lombardy. He succeeded in dominating the mind of Alexander IV, who in May 1255 appointed him legate to lead the expedition against Manfred: he occupied Barletta and Monopoli, but, besieged in Foggia by Manfred, he concluded with him a treaty that the Pope could not accept, for which U. was accused of having betrayed the cause of the Church. He was a friend of Brancaleone degli Andalò, senator of Rome, who worked in favor of Manfred; he did not hesitate to sacrifice the Church itself to the interests of his family or of a group of Ghibellines of Florence, and he had a part in arranging that military expedition which procured for the Ghibellines, with the help of Siena and of Manfred, the victory of Montaperti (1260) and the dominion of Florence (cf. Dante, Inf., X, 83 ff.). After the victory of Charles of Anjou at Benevento (1266) he did not hesitate to support in Rome the party of the senator Henry of Castile against Charles; but after the defeat of Conradin (1268) and during the long vacancy of the papacy his machinations no longer had any success. He was a "worldly man," indeed "epicurean," so that it could be said that he did not believe in the immortality of the soul, and the saying was attributed to him: "If there is a soul, for the Ghibellines I have lost it" (ibid., X, 120). Fra Salimbene did not spare him bitter reproaches.
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