Oliviero Carafa

Cardinal Oliviero Carafa (detail from a contemporary fresco in Rome)

Oliviero Carafa (born March 10, 1430 in Rome ; † January 20, 1511 there ) was Archbishop of Naples and Cardinal of the Roman Church .

Life and Church Career

Oliviero Carafa was the third son of Francesco Carafa, lord of Torre del Greco . He maintained good relations with the Aragonese royal family and in 1458 became Archbishop of Naples . Pope Paul II accepted him on September 18, 1467 with the titular church of Sant'Eusebio in the college of cardinals . Pope Sixtus IV sent him in 1471 as a legate to King Ferdinand I of Naples and in 1472 appointed him admiral of a fleet equipped to fight the Turks , with which he conquered Smyrna and the port of Satalia in Turkey in the same year . After his return he went to Naples in 1476 as envoy to anoint Beatrix of Aragón , daughter of Ferdinand I of Naples and bride of Matthias Corvinus , to be Queen of Hungary. He was appointed protector of the Dominican Order in 1478. In 1482 he made peace between Sixtus IV and King Ferdinand when Spanish troops were already approaching the papal territory. In 1484 he left the Archdiocese of Naples to his brother Alessandro, but received it again when Alessandro died in 1503.

Filippino Lippi , Annunciation with Thomas Aquinas and Oliviero Carafa (fresco in Rome, Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva , 1488–1493)

From 1476 to 1483 Oliviero Carafa was Cardinal Bishop of Albano , 1483-1503 of Sabina and from 1503 of Ostia . Several times he tried to be able to climb the chair of Peter, and came close to this goal, especially in the 1492 conclave . At least he became a member of Alexander VI's reform commission in 1497 . appointed and suggested in this function, among other things, the abolition of the ability to buy offices and the moral improvement of the curial lifestyle, but did not address the problem of the accumulation of benefices. In 1509 he bought the county of Ruvo di Puglia for his younger brother Ettore and died as cardinal dean on January 20, 1511 at the age of 80 in Rome.

meaning

Oliviero Carafa was a patron of art and architecture in Naples and Rome. Filippino Lippi commissioned him to create the famous frescoes in the Carafa Chapel of the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.

literature

• Franca Petrucci:  Carafa, Oliviero. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 19:  Cappi-Cardona. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1976.
• Anne Reynolds: Cardinal Oliviero Carafa and the early cinquecento tradition of the feast of Pasquilis In: Josef Ijsewijn (Ed.): Roma humanistica. Studia in honorem José Ruysschaert. University Press, Leuwen 1985, ISBN 90-6186-184-5 , pp. 178-208.
• Anne Reynolds: Il cardinale Oliviero Carafa e l'umanesimo a Roma. In: Franco C. Ricci (ed.): Il cristianesimo fonte perenne di ispirazione per le arti. Scientifiche Italiane, Naples 2004, ISBN 88-495-0784-4 , pp. 309-327.
• Diana Norman: The patronage of Cardinal Oliviero Carafa 1430-1511. Dissertation (2 vol.), Open University Press, 1989.

Web links

Commons : Oliviero Carafa  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Carafa, Oliviero. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website), accessed February 1, 2017.
• Entry on Oliviero Carafa on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on February 1, 2017.

predecessor	Office	successor
Giuliano della Rovere	Dean of the College of Cardinals 1503–1511	Raffaele Sansoni Riario
Giuliano della Rovere	Cardinal Bishop of Ostia 1503–1511	Raffaele Sansoni Riario
Giacomo Bacio Terracina	Archbishop of Chieti 1499–1501	Gian Pietro Carafa
Giovanni d'Aragona	Bishop of Cava 1485–1511	Luigi d'Aragona
Giuliano della Rovere	Cardinal Bishop of Sabina 1483–1503	Girolamo Basso della Rovere
Rodrigo Borgia	Cardinal Bishop of Albano 1476–1483	Jean IV Balue
Giacomo Tebaldi	Archbishop of Naples 1458–1484	Alessandro Carafa