Bartolomeo Guidiccioni

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Bartolomeo Guidiccioni
Coat of arms of Cardinal Bartolomeo Guidiccioni

Bartolomeo Guidiccioni (1470 – 4 November 1549) was an Italian Roman Catholic bishop and cardinal. He was one of the closest collaborators of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, both as Bishop of Parma and afterwards when he became Pope Paul III. He served the pope as Vicar of Rome, and Prefect of the Tribunal of the Signature of Justice, as well as a member of several ad hoc commissions of cardinals. He was Bishop of Teramo (1539–1542) and Bishop of Lucca (1546–1549). He was one of the organizers and leading officers of the Council of Trent.

Biography[edit]

Bartolomeo Guidiccioni was born in Lucca in 1470, the son of a patrician family.[1] At the age of nineteen, his father sent him to study at the University of Pisa and the University of Bologna, where he studied civil law for seven years. At the conclusion of his studies, he returned to Lucca, intending to practice law, but the town was oversupplied with lawyers and he could not establish a practice.[2] He therefore went to Rome, where he was disappointed to discover that civil law meant little, in contrast to Canon Law and the rules of the Apostolic Chancery. His lack of funds made study difficult.[3] Finally, through the influence of Felinus Sandaeus, a jurisconsult and Auditor of the Rota, he obtained a position in the household of Cardinal Franciotto Galeotto della Rovere, the nephew of Pope Julius II. Guidiccioni also became the governor of Farfa Abbey between 1506 and 1508, but he was dismissed in 1508 a few months before the Cardinal's death.[4] He studied the human sciences, theology, and law in Rome.[1] He became a Protonotary Apostolic.[5]

Vicar-General of Parma[edit]

At Rome, he entered the household of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, seniore, the future Pope Paul III.[1] On 28 March 1509, Cardinal Farnese was named Bishop of Parma by Pope Julius II. On 8 November 1509 he appointed Guidiccioni to be his vicar general in the diocese.[6][1] His most notable action as vicar came as a result of the condemnation of a witch to be burned at the stake. When she was handed over to the civil government of Parma to carry out the sentence, the Podestà refused, even under threat of excommunication to burn the victim, the Inquisitor of Parma appealed to the vicar general, who supported him. The Podestà appealed to the government in Milan, which supported the Vicar and Inquisitor, and the woman was burned.[7] Guidiccioni also supported the principle of the exemption of the clergy from the jurisdiction of the civil courts. He issued a vigorous decision in October 1513, which the city felt compelled to appeal to the Pope. Pope Leo X firmly supported Guidiccioni.[8] In 1516 Cardinal Farnese came to Parma, and conducted a formal visitation and issued a new set of constitutions. When he returned to Rome, the Vicar General Guidiccioni continued the visitations down through October 1516.[9] Farnese returned in 1519, and held a diocesan synod in November. Guidiccioni held the post of vicar general for a total of nineteen years. In 1528 he returned to Parma, and then retired to a villa in Carignano.[10] In 1529, Cardinal Farnese visited Lucca during a trip to Genoa, and stayed at the house of the Guidiccioni. He also visited the retreat at Carignano several times.[11]

On the election of Cardinal Farnese as Pope Paul III on 13 October 1534, Guidiccioni was sent by the city of Lucca to Rome as one of the members of its congratulatory embassy.[12] He returned to Lucca, but on 3 February 1535 Paul III wrote to him, summoning him to Rome. He was in Rome from March until May, consulting about Paul's plans for a general council of the Church.[13] He returned to Lucca, where he worked on his treatises De bonis et rebus donatis ecclesiae and De annatis, beneficiis ecclesiasticis, spoliis, taxis, compositionibus. This was an important reform work, intended to help the Pope in preparing the agenda for the council.[14] But Pope Paul wanted him in Rome. Guidiccioni wrote to the Pope, Luca vale, revocat nos marcia curia, Paulus sic iubet, en iussus non rediturus.[15] Guidiccioni served as a datary from spring 1536 to 1539.[16] On 23 July 1536, he was appointed, along with Cardinals Sadoleto, Cortese, Fregoso, Giberti and Carafa, to make preparations for the council. In August, however, he asked to resign, and on 17 August the Pope consented.[17]

Bishop and Cardinal[edit]

In November 1539 Guidiccioni was named Papal Vicar, in place of the recently deceased Paolo Capizucchi, and took up the office on 28 November. He served as Papal Vicar of Rome from 1539 to 1542.[18] Guidiccioni was elected bishop of Teramo on 12 December 1539. He was not consecrated a bishop until 1546, and was therefore termed Administrator of the diocese of Teramo.[19] He did not visit the diocese during his episcopacy, but governed through a vicar general, Msgr. Giubbileo Arca, Canon of Narni, assisted by economi and procurators. Arca was succeeded by Giovanni Francesco Corradi. Guidiccioni resigned on 22 March 1542.[20]

One week after he was named Bishop of Teramo, the pope made him a cardinal priest in the consistory of 19 December 1539.[21] He received the red hat and the titular church of San Cesareo in Palatio on 28 January 1540.[22]

In September 1539, he was appointed a member of a congregation of three cardinals to approve the establishment of the Society of Jesus. He was a dissenting voice on the congregation, questioning whether yet another religious order was needed or appropriate, and whether it might lead to strife rather than harmony.[23] But after the pope issued the papal bull Regimini militantis Ecclesiae approving the order, Cardinal Guidiccioni became a strong supporter.[1]

On 17 February 1540, Pope Paul III named Cardinal Guidiccioni to the office of Prefect of the Signature of Justice (a court of appeal in the Roman Curia).[24] On 27 August 1540, he was named along with Cardinal Alessandro Cesarini and Cardinal Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte to a commission to study reform of the Roman Rota.[25]

Offices in the Roman Curia[edit]

On 22 March 1542, he resigned the government of Teramo because his duties in Rome made him unable to visit it.[1] On 21 July 1542, following the issue of his Bull Licet ab initio, Pope Paul named six cardinals, Gian Pietro Carafa, Juan Alvarez de Toledo, Pier Paolo Parisio, Bartolommeo Guidiccioni, Dionisio Laurerio, and Tommaso Badia inquisitors general of the Roman Inquisition.[26]

On 5 January 1543, the pope named him to a commission to study church reform.[1] On 17 March 1543, Cardinal Guidiccioni and twelve other cardinals accompanied the pope to Bologna.[1] He was one of eight cardinals appointed on 11 May 1543 to a commission to manage the affairs of the upcoming Council of Trent.[1]

He opted for the titular church of Santa Prisca on 24 September 1543.[27] He served as administrator of the see of Chiusi from 2 April 1544 until 20 February 1545.[28] On 2 November 1544, the pope officially made him a member of the upcoming Council of Trent.[1] The council officially began on 13 December 1545.

Shortly after the start of the council, on 26 May 1546, Cardinal Guidiccioni was transferred to the see of Lucca.[29] He finally received episcopal consecration from the hands of Cardinal Rodolfo Pio da Carpi in the Sistine Chapel on 28 August 1546,[1] with Cristoforo Spiriti, Bishop of Cesena, and Giovanni Giacomo Barba, Bishop of Teramo, serving as co-consecrators.[30] From 7 January 7, 1547 to 13 January 1548, he was Camerlengo of the Sacred College of Cardinals.[31]

He also served as Major Penitentiary from 1547 to 1549.[32]

Cardinal Guidiccioni died in Rome on 4 November 1549, six days before the death of his friend Paul III.[33] His remains were transferred to Lucca and he was buried in Lucca Cathedral.[1]

He was the author of numerous treatises, which are preserved in manuscript in the Barberini collection. Twenty volumes of his work on civil law and canon law are kept in the Vatican Library.[34]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Salvador Miranda, The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Guidiccioni, Bartolomeo Archived 2018-01-05 at the Wayback Machine; retrieved: 4 February 2019.
  2. ^ Schweitzer, pp. 30, with p. 30 note 6: Anno etatis meae decimo nono...ad grave, vafrum, nodosum, enygmatibus plenum civile ius audiendum me contuli...septem annos partim Pisis partim Bononiae contrivi.
  3. ^ Schweitzer, p. 31, with note 2: premebat patrimonii tenuitas..., nulla opis spes dabatur....
  4. ^ Baudrillart, Alfred, ed. (1988). Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (in French). Vol. 22. Paris: Letouzey et Ané. p. 801. Schweitzer, pp. 33-34. He later wrote a treatise, De beneficiis ecclesiasticis, which has not been published.
  5. ^ Schweitzer, p. 155 note 2.
  6. ^ Schweitzer, p. 36.
  7. ^ Schweitzer, pp. 38-39.
  8. ^ Schweitzer, pp. 39-40.
  9. ^ Schweitzer, p. 41. He later wrote a treatise, De visitatione, in four handwritten folio volumes; it has not been published.
  10. ^ Schweitzer, pp. 42-45.
  11. ^ Schweitzer, p. 49, with note 2.
  12. ^ Schweitzer, p. 47.
  13. ^ Schweitzer, pp. 50-51.
  14. ^ Schweitzer, p. 143.
  15. ^ 'Farewell, Lucca. Curial business summons us back. That's what Paul orders, and see, having been ordered I will not return.'
  16. ^ Schweitzer, p. 146.
  17. ^ Schweitzer, p. 142-143. It was perhaps at this time that he wrote Consilium quatuor delectorum cardinalium, though the earliest reference to it comes in 1538: Schweitzer, p. 152.
  18. ^ Schweitzer, p. 153, with note 1: 22 Novembris [1539] Dominus Bartholoinaeus Guidiccionus Lucensis fuit factus vicarius Papae et adeptus est possessionem officii die 28 [Novembris].
  19. ^ Palma, III, p. 15. Eubel, pp. 27, column 1; 112 with note 5. On 16 December 1539, he was granted the faculty of taking possession of the diocese.
  20. ^ Palma, III, p. 15. Schweitzer, pp. 156-158. Eubel, p. 112.
  21. ^ Eubel, p. 27 no. 34, with note 1. Schweitzer, p. 155, note 3: 17 Decembris [1539] fuit consistorium, quod productum est usque ad primam horam noctis, in quo fuit tractatum de creatione cardinalium cum magna patrum altercatione. — Die 19 Decembris [1539] fuit consistorium, quod productum est usque ad horam secundam noctis, in quo non sine patrum controversia Papa creavit XII cardinales et ex eis publicavit XI, qui fuere . . . Bartholomäus Guidiccionus, electus Aprutinus, vicarius urbis.
  22. ^ Eubel, p. 61 column 2.
  23. ^ Schweitzer, p. 160 note 1, quoting from Guidiccini's De Concilio: Quam sacra est religio et quam laudabilis trium votorum professio profitentiumque multiplicatio, tam improbanda et reprehendenda videtur nimia diversitas et assidua contentio, rixatores magis quam religiosi videntur. Si apostolus, qui Corinthiorum aliquos audiens dicentes: ego sum Christi exclamabat indignus: numquid Paulus cruxifixus est pro vobis? Numquid in nomine Pauli baptizati estis? Quid diceret, si nunc scissuras contentiones, rixas, quo inter eos vigent, videret vel audiret? Deus autor pacis det omnibus idipsum sapere, ut non querant, que sua sunt, sed omnes glorifieent Deum Patrem, qui in celis est.
  24. ^ Schweitzer, p. 189, with note 1: die 17 Februarii [1540] Papa dcdit signaturam iustitiae, quam Cardinalis Campegius et Simonetta habuerant, Guidicciono.
  25. ^ Schweitzer, p. 189, with note 1.
  26. ^ Schweitzer, p. 196. Ludwig von Pastor (1923). The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages. Vol. XII. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company. pp. 504–505.
  27. ^ Eubel, p. 69. column 1.
  28. ^ Schweitzer, p. 158. Eubel, p. 171.
  29. ^ Eubel, p. 229.
  30. ^ Cheney, David M. "Bartolomeo Cardinal Guidiccioni". Catholic-Hierarchy.org. Retrieved 16 June 2018. [self-published]
  31. ^ Eubel, p. 85, column 1. The office, which managed the income of the cardinals as a group, was held for one year, and cardinals served in rotation as Chamberlain, according to the regulations of Pope Leo X: Eubel, p. 81, column 2.
  32. ^ The authority for this statement is the memorial inscription set up in the cathedral of Lucca by Bishop Alessandro Guidiccioni, Cardinal Bartolomeo's nephew and successor. Chacón (Ciaconius), Alfonso; Oldoino, Agostino (1677). Vitae et res gestae pontificum romanorum: et S.R.E. cardinalium ab initio nascentis ecclesiae usque ad Clementem IX P. O. M. (in Latin). Vol. Tomus tertius. Rome: P. et A. De Rubeis. pp. 670–671. Guidiccioni succeeded Cardinal Roberto Pucci (1545-1547). Gaetano Moroni, ed. (1851). Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica (in Italian). Vol. LII. Venice: Tip. Emiliana. p. 64.
  33. ^ Schweitzer, p. 201-202.
  34. ^ Cardella, p. 229. Schweitzer, passim in various notes. Miranda is incorrect in stating that these works are published.

Bibliography[edit]

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Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Bishop of Teramo
1539–1542 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Cardinal-Priest of San Cesareo in Palatio
1540–1543 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Cardinal-Priest of Santa Prisca
1543–1549 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Administrator of Chiusi
1544–1545 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Bishop of Lucca
1546–1549 		Succeeded by
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