Chigi (noble family)

Chigi coat of arms

The Chigi [ 'kidʒi ] are a Roman noble family of princely class, originally from Siena . They provided a pope and several cardinals.

history

Origins

The Chigi were bankers in Siena and attained the nobility at the end of the 14th century, as is typical for many families of the Italian nobility (from northern Italy ). Legend has it that they can be traced back as a younger branch to the lords of Ardengheschi, a family of counts of Lombard origin who had held fiefs in what is now the provinces of Siena and Grosseto since the 10th century and were subjugated by the Sienese between 1151 and 1202 ; such legends of descent are also not atypical for ennobled merchant families. Two family members were beatified as hermits during the Great Plague in the mid-14th century : Giovanni da Lecceto (1300-1363) and Angela.

Economic success

Tomb of Agostino Chigi (1465–1520) in Santa Maria del Popolo

With the banker Mariano Chigi (1439–1504) the family came to great wealth and built the Palazzo Chigi in Siena. Mariano's son Agostino Chigi (1465–1520) moved from Tuscany to Rome in 1487. From 1509 he was head of the Spanocchi banking house and rose to become one of the most important bankers and merchants of his time. He had trade relations with all of Western Europe, trading houses in Lyon, London, Constantinople , Amsterdam and Babylon as well as around a hundred cargo ships and at times had 20,000 employees. He promoted important artists of the Renaissance such as Perugino , Sebastiano del Piombo , Giovanni da Udine , Giulio Romano , Sodoma and Raphael .

Church careers

Pope Alexander VII (Fabio Chigi), 1599–1667

Cardinal Flavio Chigi (1631–1693)

Flavio Chigi (1548–1611), who married into the local branch of the family of Pope Paul V , the Borghese , came from the branch of the family that remained in Siena . His son Fabio (1599–1667) became a theologian and in 1639 became the papal nuncio in Cologne . As the extraordinary envoy of Pope Innocent X , he stayed in Munster from 1644 to 1649 , where he took part in the negotiations for the Peace of Westphalia ; In 1652 he was elected cardinal state secretary and in 1655 the 237th Pope as Alexander VII (until 1667). Bernini's colonnades around St. Peter's Square are a powerful document of the Pope's building policy to this day, as is the Cathedra Petri in St. Peter's Basilica .

Alexander VII was originally considered an opponent of nepotism and for a certain time refrained from preferring his own relatives in the Papal States. In 1656, however, with the approval of the College of Cardinals, he called his brother Mario and his nephews Agostino, Flavio and Sigismondo to Rome. Flavio Chigi (1631–1693) was appointed cardinal in 1657 and took on the role of papal cardinal nepot who had to lead the family business in the Papal States . Between 1659 and 1662, with money from the papal casket, he bought the towns of Campagnano di Roma , Cesano, Formello and Sacrofano, north of Rome, from the heavily indebted Dukes of Bracciano from the Orsini family , whereupon the Pope elevated this area to the Principality of Campagnano. Cardinal Flavio also had Gian Lorenzo Bernini's palace, now known as Palazzo Odescalchi, built in Piazza SS. Apostoli and housed his extensive collection of antiquities in it, which was sold in 1728 to August the Strong , King of Poland and Elector of Saxony and today forms the main part of the collection of the Albertinum in Dresden .

Sigismondo Chigi (1649–1678), cousin of Cardinal Flavio, was also given the cardinal purple in 1667 at a young age shortly before the Pope's death. Agostino Chigi (1634–1705) received the Principality of Campagnano as a secular nepot who founded the Princely Family Chigi, which still exists today, and, due to his marriage to Maria Virginia Borghese in 1658, also the Principality of Farnese west of Lake Bolsen and the Principality of Albano (today Albano Laziale ) and transferred the Duchy of Ariccia on Lake Albano . In addition, in 1659 he bought the Aldobrandini family's palace, today's Palazzo Chigi , which has been the official seat of the Italian Prime Minister since 1961. The Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia (south of Rome) from the second half of the 16th century was inhabited by the family until 1988.

In 1712 Augusto Chigi, 2nd Prince of Farnese and son of Agostino, was appointed (secular) Marshal of the Holy Roman Church and custodian of the conclave ; an inheritance that had become vacant due to the death of Giulio Savelli, Principe di Albano. It was until the Curia reform of Paul VI. Exercised by the family in 1966. Since then it has only been used as an inheritance from the family's firstborn.

Family branches

The family branch there was derived from Benedetto Chigi, who had stayed in Siena in the 15th century and later assumed the name Chigi-Saracini-Lucherini . The papal depository Cardinal Flavio Chigi left his legacy to his nephew Bonaventure, who founded the Chigi-Zondadari branch in Siena. The Chigi Montoro from Viterbo descended from Francesco Chigi, a brother of the banker Agostino .

When the Roman Albani family died out in 1852 , into which the Roman line of Chigi had married in 1735, the Roman Chigi changed their family name to Chigi-Albani . They later added the name of the extinct papal family Della Rovere . The main Roman branch went out with Don Agostino, Principe Chigi Albani della Rovere (1929–2002). Another Roman side branch still owns the castle in Castel Fusano near Rome, the current head of the family is Mario Chigi (* 1929).

The Chigi, along with the Borghese and their Aldobrandini sideline, as well as the Barberini , Caetani , Colonna , Doria-Pamphilj , Lante Montefeltro della Rovere, Massimo , Odescalchi , Orsini , Pallavicini , Riario Sforza , Ruspoli and Torlonia families , are among the most famous royal houses of the high Roman aristocracy and the Italian nobility .