VINCENTI MARERI, IPPOLITO ANTONIO. - Cardinal, b. at Rieti on 20 Jan. 1738, d. at Paris on 21 March 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 confronting the invasion of the French troops commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte (1796). During the Jacobin Republic (1798) he was arrested and confined in the prison of the Convertite and, while he was in captivity, decided to renounce the purple, like his colleagues Antici and Altieri; but the virtue and courage of the Rieti nobleman Marchese Gabriele Vicentini, who had followed him into prison by passing himself off as his nephew, caused him to abandon so cowardly an act. Vicentini himself succeeded in obtaining his release by offering a large sum to General Delamagne and rich gifts to other French officers.
In 1801 V. Collegio Romano, then entrusted to the secular clergy because of the suppression of the Compagnia di Gesù and, in the Consistory of 3 Aug. 1807, opted for the suburban see of Sabina. Compelled in Jan. 1810 to go to Paris, he was among the cardinals who attended Napoleon's marriage to Maria Luisa (1811).