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Leo XI
1605

Alessandro Octavian de' Medici born in 1535

Leo XI was born at Florence in 1535, son of Octavian de' Medici and of Frances, daughter of James Salviati and Lucretia de Medici, sister of Leo X.

As he evinced from youth an inclination for the priesthood, his mother, to dissuade him, placed him at the court of her cousin Cosmo, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who immediately made him a knight of the order of Saint Stephen. On his mother's death he resumed his first intention, and was sent by Cosmo as ambassador to the court of Saint Pius V at Rome, where he spent several years.

In 1573 he was made Bishop of Pistoja, and in 1574 promoted to the archbishopric of Florence. Gregory XIII, in 1583, made him cardinal of the title of Saints Quirico and Giulitta, which he exchanged successively for those Saint Peter in Vinculis, Saint Praxedes, and Saints John and Paul.

As cardinal he took part in the election of Sixtus V, Urban VII, Gregory XIV, Innocent IX, and Clement VIII, the last of whom sent him, in 1596, as legate a latere into France, where he remained two years, to the great satisfaction of Henry IV, who thanked the Holy Father in a letter dated on the 8th of December, 1596.

In 1600 Clement VIII made the Archbishop of Florence suburbican bishop of Albano, and of Palestrina in 1602.

After the funeral of Clement VIII sixty-two cardinals entered into conclave on the 14th of March, 1605. Cardinals Zacchia, Blandrata, and De' Medici were proposed as candidates. A strong party was disposed to elect Cardinal Baronius. Spain was opposed to him, because in his Annals Baronius had combated the claims of the kings of Spain to the monarchy of Sicily; and because, moreover, he had been in favor of absolving Henry IV. Some of the cardinals having left the conclave from illness, only forty votes were required to render the election canonical. Baronius at first obtained twenty, and then thirty-seven, so that only three votes were lacking to enable his friends to congratulate him. But the truthful historian and dispassionate annalist, speaking nothing but what he believed to be true, exempt from every kind of adulation, and utterly free from the use of equivocal language, would not advance his cause by a single smile, or by a politeness not strictly called for by the occasion. He passed amid his brethren in the conclave, thoroughly sincere, seeing nothing and saying nothing, alone with himself in that crowd, as though, pen in hand, he were at work in his study. He left friends and electors to themselves, impartial men to take part according to their individual convictions, and thus to conspire against the repose and the liberty of the historian. He asked nothing, and he repelled nothing.

But Spain labored to exclude from the papacy the friend of order and the friend of truth—he who taught the powerful ones of earth that one day they also would be judged, even on that earth on which they had kindled so many useless wars; and Baronius accordingly was excluded.

Another cardinal had also been named, Bellarmine, who obtained ten votes; but the choice fell upon Alessandro de Medici, who was at length named by adoration. Moved by a sense of duty and honor, Cardinal Alessandro accepted the tiara, and chose the name of Leo XI. He was crowned in the Vatican, and on Low Sunday took possession of Saint John Lateran.

Cardinal Gallo having solicited the suppression of some imposts, he not only readily granted it, but thanked the cardinal for having given him the opportunity instantly to public service.

The Spanish ambassador, the Marquis of Villena, having shown some discontent with the election, Leo said to him "We were well treated in your country; write to your court that we shall be its friend as far as it depends upon us."

Some time after, Leo made Cardinal Cinthius Aldobrandini high penitentiary, and distributed generous aid among poor cardinals. On his return from taking possession of Saint John Lateran, the pope was attacked by a disorder which was speedily aggravated by his age. Fever set in, and having been compelled to take to his bed, the disease increased. All the court entreated the pope to name as cardinal one of his nephews, a man of pure morals, and to whom he was very partial. But he resisted all entreaty, even that of his confessor, to whom he replied: "Do not suggest to us any care for earthly interests; you must speak to us now about things eternal."

Leo died on the 29th of April, having occupied the pontificate scarcely twenty-six days.

He was a prince of grave but agreeable countenance, liberal, affable, type of the good Medici, full of candor, and the enemy of every kind of fraud in either word or deed.

He was interred in the Vatican Basilica; but Cardinal Pompey Ugoni, his nephew, removed his body to a magnificent tomb reared on the left side of that basilica by the celebrated Algardi.

This biographical data is from "The Lives and Times of the Popes" by The Chevalier Artaud De Montor. Published by The Catholic Publication Society of New York in ten volumes in 1911. The pictures, included in the volumes, were reproduced from " Effigies Pontificum Romanorum Dominici Basae."