Lorenzo Pucci (18 August 1458 – 16 September 1531) was an Italian cardinal and bishop from the Florentine Pucci family. His brother

Roberto Pucci Roberto Pucci (Florence, 1463 – Rome, 17 January 1547) was an Italian cardinal from the Florentine noble family of the Pucci. Life One of the Medici's keenest supporters, he nevertheless advised Pope Clement VII against starting the siege of F ...

and his nephew Antonio Pucci also became cardinals.

Biography

Pucci was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

. He began his career as a professor of law at the Studio di Pisa. On becoming a clergyman, he was elected Bishop-Coadjutor of Pistoia in 1509, assuming the diocese in September 1518 but resigning it that November in favour of his nephew Antonio Pucci. He was also bishop-administrator of the diocese of Melfi from 1513 to 1528 and participated in the Fifth Lateran Council.

Pope Leo X Pope Leo X ( it, Leone X; born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, 11 December 14751 December 1521) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 March 1513 to his death in December 1521. Born into the prominent political an ...

made him a cardinal in the 23 September 1513 consistory (with the titulus of Santi Quattro Coronati) and chose him as his personal secretary, in which role he was sent on several ambassadorial missions, especially to Florence, where the pope wanted

gonfaloniere The Gonfalonier (in Italian: ''Gonfaloniere'') was the holder of a highly prestigious communal office in medieval and Renaissance Italy, notably in Florence and the Papal States. The name derives from ''gonfalone'' (in English, gonfalon), the t ...

-for-life

Piero Soderini Piero di Tommaso Soderini (March 17, 1451 – June 13, 1522) also known as Pier Soderini, was an Italian statesman of the Republic of Florence. Biography Soderini was born in Florence to Tommaso di Lorenzo Soderini, a member of an old family w ...

to retire from office. On 10 August 1521, Leo made Pucci the Commendatore of the monastery of San Giovanni in Fiore. He also served as administrator of the Diocese of Vannes (1513–1514), of the Archdiocese of Amalfi (in 1516 – 1519), the Diocese of Montefiascone (March – April 1519) and the Diocese of Capaccio (September 1522 – June 1523). From 1514 he was the Holy See's protector of the Poles and from 1520 to 1529

Major Penitentiary The Apostolic Penitentiary (), formerly called the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary, is a dicastery of the Roman Curia and is one of the three ordinary tribunals of the Apostolic See. The Apostolic Penitentiary is chiefly a trib ...

. He was a patron of the arts, notably of

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was ins ...

and

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual ...

, whilst in 1520 he also became the dedicatee of

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...

' edition of the ''Works of St. Cyprian''. Under pope Adrian VI, Pucci was accused of fraud in connection with the sale of indulgences, but he escaped punishment thanks to the intercession of Cardinal Giulio Medici, who after his election to the papacy in 1523 as

Pope Clement VII Pope Clement VII ( la, Clemens VII; it, Clemente VII; born Giulio de' Medici; 26 May 1478 – 25 September 1534) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 November 1523 to his death on 25 September 1534. Deemed "the ...

cleared Pucci of all charges. In 1526 Clement entered on the War of the League of Cognac against Charles V, in which Clement was defeated and captured and Rome sacked. Upon the post-war rapprochement which Clement and Charles soon reached, Pucci was one of the keenest advocates of quickly reconquering Florence from Republican rebels. He then served as Cardinal-Bishop of Albano (1524) and

Palestrina Palestrina (ancient ''Praeneste''; grc, Πραίνεστος, ''Prainestos'') is a modern Italian city and ''comune'' (municipality) with a population of about 22,000, in Lazio, about east of Rome. It is connected to the latter by the Via Pre ...

(1524–1531). He died in Rome on 16 September 1531, shortly after the siege of Florence which definitively restored the Medici to power in Florence.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pucci, Lorenzo 1458 births 1531 deaths Lorenzo Clergy from Florence Bishops in Tuscany 16th-century Italian cardinals Major Penitentiaries of the Apostolic Penitentiary