Sixty-two cardinals had entered the conclave on…
April 1605 CE
Sixty-two cardinals had entered the conclave on March 14, 1605, eleven days after the death of Clement VIII.
Prominent among the candidates for the papacy are the great historian Baronius and the famous Jesuit controversialist Robert Bellarmine, but Aldobrandini, the leader of the Italian party among the cardinals, allies with the French cardinals and brings about the election of Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici against the express wish of King Philip III of Spain.
King Henry IV of France is said to have spent three hundred thousand écus in the promotion of Alessandro's candidacy.
Born in Florence, Alessandro's mother, Francesca Salviati, was a daughter of Jacopo Salviati and Lucrezia de' Medici, a sister of Leo X, while his father, Ottaviano, was a more distant scion of the Medici family.
After a late start, he had been ordained priest, and Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, had sent him as an appropriate ambassador to Pope Pius V, a position which he had held for fifteen years.
Gregory XIII had made him bishop of Pistoia in 1573, archbishop of Florence in 1574, and Cardinal-Priest of Santi Quirico e Giulitta in 1583.
A friend and disciple of St. Philip Neri, Alessandro had in 1596 been sent by Clement VIII as legate to France where Marie de' Medici is now queen.
He ascends the papal throne on April 1, 1605, with the Medici name Leo XI, being almost seventy years of age, but is taken ill immediately after his coronation and dies within the month.
He is nicknamed Papa Lampo ("Lightning Pope") for the brevity of his pontificate.
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Southwest Europe
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