VINCENTI MARERI, IPPOLITO ANTONIO. — Cardinal, b. at Rieti on 20 Jan. 1738, d. at Paris on 21 Mar. 1811.
In 1785 he was elected by Pius VI titular Archbishop of Corinth and Apostolic Nuncio to Spain; he was then created cardinal on 21 Feb. 1794. The following year he became legate in Bologna and found himself facing the invasion of French troops under Napoleon Bonaparte (1796). During the course of the Jacobin Republic (1798) he was arrested and imprisoned in the Convent prison; while in captivity, he was urged to renounce his scarlet like his colleagues Antici and Altieri, but the virtue and courage of the Marquis Gabriele Vicentini of Rieti, who had followed him into prison by pretending to be his nephew, caused him to refrain from so base an act. The same Vicentini succeeded in securing his release by offering a large sum to General Delamagne and rich gifts to other French officers.
V. M., in 1801, was appointed Prefect of the Economy of the Roman College, then entrusted to the secular clergy following the suppression of the Society of Jesus. In the Consistory of 3 Aug. 1807, he opted for the suburbicarian see of Sabina. Compelled, in Jan. 1810, to go to Paris, he was among the cardinals who attended the marriage of Napoleon to Marie Louise (1811).