Federico Visconti

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Portrait of Cardinal Visconti

Federico Visconti (* 1617 in Milan , † January 7, 1693 in Milan) was an Italian cardinal and Catholic archbishop .

Life

Family background

Federico Visconti was born in Milan in 1617 as the eldest of six sons of the noble Visconti von Carbonara family, who are related to the Duke of Milan. His father was Carlo Visconti, Count of Carbonaro and General Treasurer of Milan, while his mother was Francesca Perrone, Countess of San Martino. Other of his brothers were Alessandro, Girolamo , Pierluca, Gianluigi and Giovanni. Federico was in turn nephew of Francesco Visconti , the bishop of Cremona .

Early years

He studied at the Jesuit- directed Academy of Brera in Milan, where he received a doctorate in philosophy, and then moved to the University of Bologna , where he received his doctorate in law in 1639 and then joined the Almo Collegio Borromeo . He began his curious career in Rome as a consistorial advocate . On his return to Milan he was head of the Capitolo Metropolitano (1646).

He returned to Rome in 1658 and became Vice-Governor of Tivoli in June 1664 before becoming Governor of Città di Castello (1665) and Montalto (from July 9, 1666). In 1667 he became an auditor of the Roman Rota .

Archbishop of Milan

Relief of Cardinal Federico Visconti in the Scurolo di San Carlo in the Milan Cathedral

Federico Visconto was elected Archbishop of Milan on July 23, 1681 . The episcopal ordination took place on September 22nd of the same year in Rome by Cardinal Gaspare Carpegna ; Co- consecrators were Egidio Colonna , Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem , and Archbishop Francesco Casati . In Milan, Visconti devoted himself, among other things, to construction by completing the work on the doors of the Milan Cathedral and having the staircase and the square completed.

On September 1, 1681 he was by Pope Innocent XI. elected to the rank of cardinal priest in the consistory . On the following September 4th he received the cardinal's hat and the titular church Santi Bonifacio e Alessio .

With zeal he made numerous pastoral visits to his archdiocese and celebrated a diocesan synod on September 3, 1687. He devoted special attention to the liturgy and the sacred rites: In 1682 he reminded all canons of the Milan cathedral officially about how important it is the hour prayers properly celebrate and recite and ordered their presence in the choir. In 1685 he introduced the celebration of the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the Archdiocese of Milan . In 1687 he published the Rituale Sacramentorum and reprinted the Pontificale Ambrosiano in 1689 .

Cardinal Federico Visconti's grave in Milan Cathedral

Cardinal Visconti also paid great attention to the seminaries. In 1682 he opened the seminary in Pollegio , which had been closed by the Swiss authorities in 1673, founded the advanced seminar in 1682 and proposed seminars in theology, philosophy and logic, re-establishing the chairs for philosophy and theology. He completed the construction of the portals on the facade of the Milan Cathedral and redesigned the apartments of the Archbishop's Palace and used them not only as a winter residence, as was the case with his predecessors. In this renewal process, he also had the archbishop's villa of Groppello restored.

In 1688 he dismissed and condemned a group of mystical astrologers for terrifying the Milanese people with threats of major calamities. He was on good terms with the political authorities. On August 7, 1682, he asked the clergy for a clear interpretation of the right of asylum, and the following year the Congregation for Ecclesiastical Immunity gave him the right to remove deserters from safe places. He was attentive to the needs of the military and was generous with the soldiers who had taken part in the siege of Vienna on June 14, 1683 fighting the Turks.

Cardinal Visconti was a keen guardian of the discipline of the Milanese nuns and, in 1686, ordered vocations to be considered on the basis of the provisions established by the Council of Trent . In the same year he repeated the regulations of his predecessors on women's fashion in the church.

He took part in the conclave of 1689 , which Pope Alexander VIII elected. He entered the conclave of 1691 , which later became Pope Innocent XII. chose, but had to leave it on June 19, 1691 halfway through the festivities and leave Rome because of a sudden fever, so he could not take part in the last ballot.

Federico Visconti died on January 7, 1693 at four in the afternoon at the age of 75 in the Archbishop's Palace of Milan. His body was laid out in the cathedral and buried in front of the altar of the Madonna dell'Albero .

With a legacy from his will, he made a considerable sum available for the completion of the statue of Sancarlone by Arona .

Art collection

His passion for art is partly due to his kinship with Federico Borromeo , a great art lover. His sister Isabella had married Federico Visconti's grandfather, Girolamo. In 1689 Federico Visconti donated a large part of his collection of paintings to the cafeteria of the archdiocese. Some of these come from the legacy of his brother Alessandro Visconti, who, among other things, left a collection of 316 paintings from his Milanese residence in 1685. In addition to this, there were paintings left by his cousin Francesco Visconti in 1667 and those from the legacy of his uncle Giulio Cesare Visconti, Primicerius des Doms and executor of Federico Borromeo's will.

literature

  • Gaetano Moroni: Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica da San Pietro sino ai nostri giorni . Tip. Emiliana, Venice 1879 (Italian, google.at ).
  • Alberto Maria Ghisalberti, Massimiliano Pavan: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani . Ed .: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. Milan 1960 (Italian).
  • Lodovico Antonio Muratori: Annali d'Italia, dal principio dell'era volgare sino all'anno MDCCL . (Italian).
  • Annalisa Albuzzi: "Per compire l'apparato che suole farsi ogn'anno nel Duomo di Milano" - I più tardi teleri sulla vita di san Carlo: dal progetto alla realizzazione . Editrice Pliniana, Perugia 2009, ISBN 978-88-904421-2-4 ( academia.edu ).
  • Luigi Pionni, Federico Agnelli , Marco Antonio Pandolfo Malatesta: Milano consolato nell'elettione a questo arciuescouado, e promotione alla sagra porpora dell'eminentissimo Federico Visconti: colla sua solennissima entrata seguita a '11. genaro 1682 e fontioni antecedenti . Nella Regia Ducal Corte, Milan 1682 (Italian, archive.org ).

Web links

Commons : Federico Visconti  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Albuzzi, p. 123