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Bible Encyclopedias
Lorenzo Campeggio
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or LORENZO CAMPEGGIO (1464-1532), Italian cardinal, was born at Milan of a noble Bolognese family. At first he followed a legal career at Pavia and Bologna, and when in 1499 he took his doctorate he was esteemed the most learned canonist in Europe. In 1500 he married Francesca de' Gualtavillani, by whom: he had five children, one of whom, Allessandro, born in 1504, became cardinal in 1551, and another, Gianbaptista, became bishop of Minorca. His wife dying in 1510, he went into the church; on account of his services during the rebellion of Bologna, he was made by Julius II. auditor of the Rota in 1511, and sent to Maximilian and to Vienna as nuncio. Raised to the see of Feltre in 1512, he went on another embassy to Maximilian in 1513, and was created cardinal priest of San Tommaso in Pavione, 27th of June 1517. Leo X., needing a subsidy from the English clergy, sent Campeggio to England on the ostensible business of arranging a crusade against the Turks. Wolsey, then engaged in beginning his reform of the English church, procured that he himself should be joined to the legation as senior legate; thus the Italian, who arrived in England on the 23rd of July 1518, held a subordinate position and his special legatine faculties were suspended. Campeggio's mission failed in its immediate object; but he returned to Rome, where he was received in Consistory on the 28th of November 1519, with the gift from the king of the palace of Cardinal Adriano Castellesi, who had been deposed, and large gifts of money and furniture. He was made protector of England in the Roman curia; and in 1524 Henry VIII. gave him the rich see of Salisbury, and the pope the archbishopric of Bologna. After attending the diet of Regensburg, he shared the captivity of Clement VII. during the sack of Rome in 1527 and did much to restore peace. On the 1st of October 1528 he arrived in England as co-legate with Wolsey in the matter of Henry's divorce. He brought with him a secret document, the Decretal, which defined the law and left the legates to decide the question of fact; but this important letter was to be shown only to Henry and Wolsey. "Owing to recent events," that is, the loss of the temporal power, Clement was in no way inclined to offend the victorious Charles V., Catherine's nephew, and Campeggio had already received (16th of September 1528) distinct instructions "not to proceed to sentence under any pretext without express commission, but protract the matter as long as possible." After using all means of persuasion to restore peace between the king and queen, Campeggio had to resist the pressure brought upon him to give sentence. The legatine court opened at Blackfriars on the 18th of June 1529, but the final result was certain. Campeggio could not by the terms of his commission give sentence; so his only escape was to prorogue the court on the 23rd of July on the plea of the Roman vacation. Having failed to satisfy the king, he left England on the 26th of October 1529, after his baggage had been searched at Dover to find the Decretal, which, however, had been burnt. Returning to Bologna, the cardinal assisted at the coronation of Charles V. on the 24th of February 1530, and went with him to the diet of Augsburg. He was deprived by Henry of the English protectorate; and when sentence was finally given against the divorce, Campeggio was deprived of the see of Salisbury as a non-resident alien, by act of parliament (11th of March 1535); but his rich benefices in the Spanish dominions made ample amends. In 1537 he became cardinal bishop of Sabina, and died in Rome on the 25th of July 1539. His tomb is in the church of S. Maria in Trastevere. (E. TN.)
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Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Lorenzo Campeggio'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/l/lorenzo-campeggio.html. 1910.
