Rodolfo Pio da Carpi (February 22, 1500 – May 2, 1564) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
Cardinal, humanist and patron of the arts. He formed a great library and was at the center of humanist studies in 16th-century Rome, though serving on the
Roman InquisitionThe Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , previously known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, and sometimes simply called the Holy Office is the oldest of the nine congregations of the Roman Curia. Among the most active of these major Curial...
. He was a trusted advisor to
Pope Pius IIIPope Pius III , born Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini, was Pope from September 22 to October 18, 1503.-Career:...
and helped to establish the
InquisitionThe term Inquisition can apply to any one of several institutions charged with trying and convicting heretics within the Catholic Church...
at Milan.
Born to a distinguished noble family (see below) at Carpi near
ModenaModena is a city and a comune on the south side of the Po valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....
, where his uncle Alberto (c.
Rodolfo Pio da Carpi (February 22, 1500 – May 2, 1564) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
Cardinal, humanist and patron of the arts. He formed a great library and was at the center of humanist studies in 16th-century Rome, though serving on the
Roman InquisitionThe Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , previously known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, and sometimes simply called the Holy Office is the oldest of the nine congregations of the Roman Curia. Among the most active of these major Curial...
. He was a trusted advisor to
Pope Pius IIIPope Pius III , born Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini, was Pope from September 22 to October 18, 1503.-Career:...
and helped to establish the
InquisitionThe term Inquisition can apply to any one of several institutions charged with trying and convicting heretics within the Catholic Church...
at Milan.
Biography
Born to a distinguished noble family (see below) at Carpi near
ModenaModena is a city and a comune on the south side of the Po valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....
, where his uncle Alberto (c. 1475-1531) was lord of Carpi, Rodolfo was sent to study at the
University of PaduaThe University of Padua , located in Padua, Italy, was founded in 1222. It is among the earliest of the universities and the second oldest in Italy...
and at Rome, where he took up a church career under
Pope Clement VIIPope Clement VII , born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, was a cardinal from 1513 to 1523 and was Pope from 1523 to 1534.-Early life:...
, who made him bishop of Faenza in 1528. There Carpi hosted a
synodA synod is a council of a church, usually a Christian church, convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application...
in 1533. He attracted further notice in papal diplomacy and was established at Paris 1535 – 1537 as papal
nuncioNuncio is an ecclesiastical diplomatic title, derived from the ancient Latin word, Nuntius, meaning "envoy." This article addresses this title as well as derived similar titles, all within the structure of the Roman Catholic Church....
at the court of
François IFrancis I , was king of France from 1515 until his death.Francis I is considered to be France's first Renaissance monarch. His reign saw France make immense cultural advances...
, where, assisted by his uncle Alberto, he presided over the peace between François and the Emperor Charles V, who was pleased enough to appoint him "protector of the
Holy Roman EmpireThe Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period under a Holy Roman Emperor. The first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I, crowned in 962. The last was Francis II, who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during...
".
Pope Paul IIIPope Paul III , born Alessandro Farnese, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1534 to his death in 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Reformation...
made him cardinal on December 22, 1536, and sent him, in January 1540, as legate to the
March of AnconaAncona is a city and a seaport in the Marche, a region of central Italy, population 101,909 . Ancona is situated on the Adriatic Sea and is the center of the province of Ancona and the capital of the region....
. Cardinal Carpi, as he now was, made his presence felt in the
curiaA curia in early Roman times was a subdivision of the people, i.e. more or less a tribe, and with a metonymy it came to mean also the meeting place where the tribe discussed its affairs...
as a member of the Roman Inquisition and a defender of the new orders, the
CapuchinThe Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an order of friars in the Catholic Church, among the chief offshoots of the Franciscans...
s and the
JesuitsThe Society of Jesus is a Catholic religious order of clerks regular whose members are called Jesuits.Jesuits are the largest male religious order in the Catholic Church, with 18,815 members—13,305 priests, 2,295 scholastic students, 1,758 brothers and 827 novices—as of January 2008, although the...
. His friend Pius III assigned him his choice of sees; he preferred the delightful see of
FrascatiFrascati is a town and commune in the province of Rome in the Latium region of central Italy. It is located 20 km south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills close to the ancient city of Tusculum. Frascati is the location of some international scientific laboratories, a science town.Frascati is...
to Faenza (1553 – 1555). Only the intractable resistance of his feudal superior, cardinal d'Este prevented his being made pope at the conclave of 1559.
His broader modern interest for historians centers on his collection of classical sculpture and other antiquities, which formed one of the prominent
museumA museum is a building or institution which houses a collection of artifacts.Museums collect and care for objects of scientific, artistic, or historical importance and make them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary...
s of Rome (
Roma nihil possidet magnificentius, nihil admirabilius one guidebook remarked: "Rome possesses nothing more magnificent, nor to be more admired") and the Greek and Latin library, dispersed after his death, that brought scholars and humanists, not invariably good Catholics, to his palazzo in the Campo Marzio— the
Campus MartiusThe Campus Martius , was a publicly owned area of ancient Rome about in extent. In the Middle Ages it was the most populous area of Rome...
of Antiquity— and his suburban
villaA villa was originally an upper-class country house, though since its origins in Roman times the idea and function of a villa has evolved considerably. After the fall of the Republic, a villa became a small, fortified farming compound, gradually re-evolving through the Middle Ages into luxurious,...
, on the site of the
gardens of SallustThe Gardens of Sallust were Roman gardens developed by the Roman historian Sallust in the 1st century BC using his wealth extorted as governor of the province of Africa Nova...
, on the flank of the
Quirinal HillThe Quirinal Hill is one of the Seven Hills of Rome, at the north-east of the city center. It is the location of the official residence of the Italian Head of State, who resides in the Quirinal Palace; by metonymy "the Quirinal" has come to stand for the state bureaucracy of modern Italy.- History...
. In the 1550s the Flemish medallist and epigrapher Antoine Morillon studied the Latin inscriptions in the Cardinal's gallery. Even the dry inventories furnish materials for the historian of taste (i.e. C. Franzoni
et al.,
Gli inventari dell'eredità del cardinale Rodolfo Pio da Carpi Pisa, 2002, for the Musei Civici, Comune di Carpi.) The semi-public collections of princes and cardinals made Rome a museum-city, memorialized by
Ulisse AldrovandiUlisse Aldrovandi was an Italian naturalist, the moving force behind Bologna's botanical garden, one of the first in Europe. Carolus Linnaeus and the comte de Buffon reckoned him the father of natural history studies...
's guidebook
Delle Statue antiche che per tutta Roma si veggono, 1556 (in international French,
Les Antiquités de la cité de Rome, 1576). Aldrovandi praised the delights of the Carpi antiquities in their rustic suburban setting. Even after Cardinal Carpi's death, the collections drew sculptors and artists.
Among the antiquities that belonged to Cardinal Carpi:
- The bronze bust called the Capitoline Brutus
Lucius Junius Brutus was the founder of the Roman Republic and traditionally one of the first consuls in 509 BC. He was the primary ancestor of the Junius family in Ancient Rome, including Marcus Junius Brutus.- Background :...
that Pio da Carpi bequeathed to the City of Rome, now in the Capitoline Museums. (Haskell and Penny, cat. 14).
- The ecstatic marble head called the Dying Alexander
Alexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
, in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence by 1579; often copied in plaster, bronze and marble. (Haskell and Penny, cat. 2)
- Bronze and marbles bought from Duke Alfonso II d'Este some of which disappeared after they belonged to Rudolf II
Rudolf II , Holy Roman Emperor as Rudolf II , King of Hungary as Rudolf , King of Bohemia as Rudolf II and Archduke of Austria as Rudolf V...
at Prague.
- A 5th-century manuscript of the complete works of Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works—the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the Aeneid—although several minor poems are also attributed to him.The son of a farmer, Virgil came to be...
, called the MediciThe House of Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house who first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside, gradually rising until...
Virgil after it was purchased for the Laurentian LibraryThe Laurentian Library in Florence, Italy is famous as a repository of more than 11,000 manuscripts and 4,500 early printed books...
, Florence.
Cardinal Carpi did not neglect the moderns; among his paintings:
- Madonna of the Divine Love, school of Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings...
, which Vasari said had been commissioned by the cardinal's father, Leonello da Carpi; it passed to the FarneseThe Farnese family was an influential family in Renaissance Italy. Its most important members included Pope Paul III and Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and the titles of Duke of Parma and Piacenza and of Castro were held by various members of the family....
and in now at the Capodimonte Museum, NaplesNaples in Italy, is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples. The city is known for its rich history, art, culture, architecture, music and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,800 years old...
.
- History of the Madonna of Loreto and Saint Jerome in his study by Lorenzo Lotto
Lorenzo Lotto was a Northern Italian painter draughtsman and illustrator, traditionally placed in the Venetian school. He painted mainly altarpieces, religious subjects and portraits...
.
- Portrait of a Man, originally attributed to Sebastiano del Piombo
Sebastiano del Piombo , byname of Sebastiano Luciani, was an Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter of the early 16th century famous for his combination of the colors of the Venetian school and the monumental forms of the Roman school.- Biography :Sebastiano del Piombo belongs to the Venetian...
; now thought to be by Francesco SalviatiFrancesco de' Rossi was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence, also active in Rome. He is known by many names, prominently the adopted name Francesco Salviati or as Il Salviati, but also Francesco Rossi and Cecchino del Salviati.-Biography:Salviati was born and died in Florence...
, at the Kunsthistorisches MuseumThe Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, crowned with an octagonal dome, is one of the premier museums of fine arts and decorative arts in the world...
, Vienna.
Cardinal Carpi is interred in Rome at Santa Trinità dei Monti, above the
Spanish StepsThe Spanish Steps are a set of steps in Rome, Italy, climbing a steep slope between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the church of Trinità dei Monti...
, where there is a sepulchral monument erected to his memory by
Pope Pius VPope St. Pius V , born Antonio Ghislieri , was pope from 1566 to 1572 and is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church...
.
The Family of Pio di Savoia da Carpi
The Lords of Carpi first made a position for themselves in the 14th century. From the house of Este they received the lordship of Carpi, and in 1518, through the influence of
Pope Leo XPope Leo X was Pope from 1513 to his death. He was the last non-priest to be elected Pope. He is known primarily for the sale of indulgences to reconstruct St. Peter's Basilica and his challenging of Martin Luther's 95 theses. He was the second son of Lorenzo de' Medici, the most famous ruler of...
they acquired the subsidiary fiefs of Meldola and Sassuolo, with which Rodolfo Pio da Carpi was invested. Many members of the family continued in the family tradition as condottieri: Alberto Pio obtained from the
house of SavoyThe House of Savoy was formed in the early eleventh century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy until the end of the Second World War...
in 1450 the privilege of adding "di Savoia" to his name, as a reward for his military services. Others beside Cardinal Carpi made careers in diplomacy: the Alberto Pio (1475-1531) who was French ambassador in Rome, won fame as a man of learning. Ascanio Pio (d. 1649) was a dramatic poet. Spain conferred the title of prince on the family, and one branch of the family is to this day established in Spain.
Further reading
- Manuela Rossi, edior. Alberto III e Rodolfo Pio da Carpi collezionisti e mecenati Atti del seminario internazionale di studi Carpi, 22 e 23 novembre 2002 Includes articles by A. Sarchi ("Sulle tracce di una collezione: percorsi colezionistici e dinastici dei Pio"), M. Zanot ("La carriera di un ecclesiastico alla corte di Roma"), G. Vagenheim ("Pirro Ligorio
Pirro Ligorio was an Italian architect, painter, antiquarian and garden designer.-Biography:Ligorio was born in Naples. In 1534 he moved to Rome, where he developed his interest in antiquities, and was named superintendent to the ancient monuments by the Popes Pius IV and Paul IV...
e le false iscrizioni della collezione di antichità del cardinale Rodolfo Pio di Carpi") E. Zatti ("Il restauro dell'opera di Vincenzo Catena raffigurante l'Annunciazione" etc. ISBN 88-86550-87-1
External links