VANNUTELLI, VINCENZO. — Cardinal, born at Genazzano (diocese of Palestrina) on 5 December 1836, died in Rome on 9 July 1930.
Brother of Serafino. Ordained a priest in 1860, he was professor of theology at the Vatican Seminary, then entered the diplomatic service and was sent, in 1865, as auditor of the internunciature in Holland; the following year he went to Brussels with the same title. 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 titular archbishop of Sardis and apostolic delegate to Constantinople in 1880, he had the merit of settling the schism among the Armenian Catholics, who refused obedience to the legitimate patriarch Hassun. Appointed apostolic internuncio in Brazil (1883), he was sent by Leo XIII as his representative to the coronation of Tsar Alexander III; in Russia he negotiated the implementation of the convention established between the Holy See and the Russian government concerning the appointment of bishops and instruction in the seminaries. On his return from his mission, Leo XIII transferred him to the nunciature in Lisbon, where he successfully dealt with the question of royal patronage.
A cardinal in 1891, during his more than forty years in the College of Cardinals he held some of the most important offices in the Curia: he was prefect of the Finances of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide (1892), prefect of the Congregation of the Council (1902), and datary of His Holiness (1914). He also received important assignments abroad: papal legate for the consecration of the cathedral of Cork and for the Eucharistic Congresses of Brussels (1898), Metz (1907), London (1908), Cologne (1909), and Montréal (1910). Archpriest of the Basilica of S. Maria Maggiore from 1897, he opened and closed the Holy Door in the jubilee years 1900 and 1925 and, on 2 April 1899, attended the first Mass of the young priest Eugenio Pacelli, celebrated at the altar of Our Lady «Salus Populi Romani» in the Borghesian Chapel. Bishop of Palestrina from the Consistory of 19 April 1900, on the death of his brother Serafino he became dean of the Sacred College and bishop of Ostia (6 December 1915); in the latter see he had the church of Our Lady «Regina Pacis» built. Favorable, throughout his long life, to a solution of the Roman Question, he had the joy of witnessing, one year before his death, the historic event of the Lateran Pacts.