Vidoni Sorerna, Pietro

VIDONI SORERNA, PIETRO. - Cardinal, born in Cremona on 2 September 1759, died in Rome on 10 August 1830.

After completing his studies at the Pontifical Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics, he was appointed by Pius VI as supernumerary secret chamberlain, domestic prelate (1781), vice-legate of Ferrara and apostolic protonotary (1784), and ponente of the Consulta (1790). Pius VII wanted him (1801) as apostolic delegate of Ancona and president of the government of Pesaro and Urbino (1806), and V. S., in the dispatch of affairs, demonstrated conspicuous gifts of sagacity and prudence. During the French invasion he paid the public employees dependent on him out of his own funds and sold his precious silverware to provide for the needs of the Holy See. In the offices he held he never wished to accept any emolument; on the contrary, in the government of Pesaro and Urbino, he contributed considerably of his own means to the execution of important public works.

Pius VII, in the Consistory of 8 March 1816, created him cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere. Endowed with profound erudition and a patron of scholars, he had published at his own expense (1826) the work of Antonio Nibby, Q. Verri Flacci fastorum sacrorum reliquiae jam a Fogginio illustratae super veterum subsidii instauratae. He acquired in Rome the Palazzo Stoppani on Via del Sudario, which now bears his name, and the Chapel of the Madonna della Purità, in S. Andrea della Valle, where he wished to be buried.

Mario De Camilli