Innocenzo Ciocchi Del Monte
Innocenzo Ciocchi del Monte (c. 1532 – 1577) was a notorious
Cardinal Giovanni del Monte was elected pope in 1550, taking the name
Early life
Innocenzo was born in Borgo San Donnino (now Fidenza) to a beggar-woman and an unknown father. As a boy he was illiterate but vivacious and good-looking.[3] He left home at an extremely early age and made his way to Piacenza, where, at around 13 or 14, he found a position in the household of the city governor, Baldovino Ciocchi del Monte, as a valero, a menial role combining the offices of footman and dogsbody. His father may have been a soldier who had served with Baldovino, which would explain how he came into the household; although alternative stories were told that he had been picked up in the streets by Baldovino's brother, Cardinal Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte.[4] He certainly quickly became a favourite of Giovanni Maria, who placed him in charge of his pet monkey and appointed him provost of the cathedral chapter of Arezzo, a title involving only nominal duties but with certain rights of income.[5]
Favourite of Pope Julius
In February 1550 Cardinal Giovanni del Monte was elected pope as Julius III, and immediately made the boy a cardinal. Two years later, faced with hostility to Innocenzo from the other cardinals and a gathering move to have his position annulled on the basis of his illegitimacy and age, Julius had him adopted into the Del Monte family and decreed his year of birth as 1532, although this had previously been unknown.[6]
Attempts to give the boy an education which could have prepared him for ecclesiastic office had already proven useless: "a few social graces, a few bits of knowledge, perhaps about the glories of the Classical world, and Innocenzo's formal education was over."[7]
The new cardinal was given numerous important and lucrative positions, including commendatary abbot of the abbeys of Saint-Michel du
Cardinals who were more sensitive to the need to reform the mores of the Church in order to combat the
Innocenzo's affair with his future sister-in-law, the noted poetess and favorite in the papal court, Ersilia Cortese, resulted in scandal. Julius considered demoting him from the cardinalate after having compromised the pope's credibility.
In 1562 he was given the titular church of San Callisto.[11]
Crimes and banishment
After the death of Julius, Innocenzo took part in the two
He also participated in the conclave of 1565–1566, which elected Pope Pius V; because of his aura of mischief, the guards searched him and discovered a note hidden in his cloak which contained forbidden information; this discovery caused an incredible stir and from that moment until the end of the conclave, Innocenzo and his conclavists were guarded more closely than any other cardinal in the conclave.
In 1567, Innocenzo was accused of raping two low-class women in Brevia, near
Death and burial
Innocenzo died in Rome on 2 November 1577 and was buried within a few hours, in complete anonymity, beneath an unmarked slab in the Del Monte family chapel at the church of San Pietro in Montorio, Rome. "His burial was unattended. There was no commemoration of his cardinalate, and no prayers for the repose of his soul. Shunned and ignored in life, he was forgotten in death."[7]
References
- ^ Burkle-Young & Doerrer 1997, pp. 77–80.
- ^ Burkle-Young & Doerrer 1997, pp. 122–124.
- ^ Aldrich, Robert; Garry Wotherspoon. Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History. p. 278.
- ^ Burkle-Young & Doerrer 1997, p. 77-80.
- ^ Aldrich, p. 211
- ^ Burkle-Young & Doerrer 1997, p. 122-124.
- ^ OCLC 53276621. Retrieved 12 May 2016.
- ^ Pierre-Paul Laffleur de Kermaingant (1880). Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Saint-Michel du Tréport (in Latin). Paris.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ P. Messina (1990). "Del Monte, Innocenzo". Dizionario biografico degli italiani (in Italian). Vol. 38. Rome.
{{cite encyclopedia}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Joachim Du Bellay, Les Regrets, Sonnet CV (Paris, 1555), cited in Robert Aldrich, Garry Wotherspoon, eds, Who's who in gay and lesbian history: from antiquity to World War II (Routledge, 2002), page 278.
- ^ "Cardinal Title S. Callisto". GCatholic.org. Retrieved 12 May 2016.
Bibliography
- Burkle-Young, Francis A; Doerrer, Michael Leopoldo (1997). The Life of Cardinal Innocenzo del Monte: A Scandal in Scarlet. Edwin Mellen Press.