VANNUTELLI, VINCENZO. - Cardinal, b. at Genazzano (diocese of Palestrina) on 5 Dec. 1836, d. at Rome on 9 July 1930.
Brother of Serafino. Ordained priest in 1860, he was professor of theology at the Vatican Seminary, then moved to a diplomatic career and was sent, in 1865, as auditor of the internunciature of Holland, and passed the following year with the same rank to Brussels. Called to Rome as substitute of the Secretariat of State (1875), he was an effective collaborator of Cardinals Antonelli and Simeoni and remained in that office until the beginning of the pontificate of Leo XIII, when (1878) he became auditor of the Rota. Elected in 1880 titular archbishop of Sardi and apostolic delegate at Constantinople, he had the merit of composing the schism among the Armenian Catholics, who refused obedience to the legitimate patriarch Hassun. Appointed (1883) apostolic internuncio in Brazil, he was sent by Leo XIII as his representative to the coronation of Tsar Alexander III and in Russia negotiated the execution of the convention established between the Holy See and the Russian government on the appointment of bishops and on teaching in the seminaries. On his return from his mission, Leo XIII transferred him to the nunciature of Lisbon, where he successfully handled the question of the royal patronage.
A cardinal in 1891, in his more than forty years of cardinalate he held some of the most important offices of the Curia: he was prefect of the Economy of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide (1892), prefect of the Congregation of the Council (1902), datary of His Holiness (1914). He also held important assignments abroad: pontifical legate at the consecration of the cathedral of Cork and at the Eucharistic Congresses of Brussels (1898), Metz (1907), London (1908), Cologne (1909) and Montreal (1910). Archpriest of the basilica of St. Mary Major from 1897, he opened and closed the Holy Door in the jubilee years 1900 and 1925 and assisted, on 2 Apr. 1899, at the first Mass of the young priest Eugenio Pacelli, celebrated at the altar of the Madonna "Salus Populi Romani" in the Borghesian Chapel. Bishop of Palestrina from the Consistory of 19 Apr. 1900, he became, on the death of his brother Serafino, dean of the Sacred College and bishop of Ostia (6 Dec. 1915), and in this last see he had the temple of the Madonna "Regina Pacis" built. Favorable, in the course of his long life, to the solution of the Roman Question, he had the joy of witnessing, a year before his death, the historic event of the Lateran Pacts.
Bibliography
Mario de Camillis