Vincenzo Cardinal Vannutelli

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Cardinal Vannutelli (sitting) and Mgr. Bruchesi, 1910
Credit: Canada. Patent and Copyright Office / Library and Archives Canada / PA-029742

Vincenzo Cardinal Vannutelli (December 5, 1836 - July 9, 1930) was an Italian prelate, Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church for over forty years.

[edit] Biography

Vannutelli was born in Palestrina, Lazio.

Ordained a priest in 1860, he was never a pastor in his almost seventy years of priesthood: his career began as a faculty member in seminaries and continued in the Roman Curia. Most of his early career was in Roman and foreign postings of the Secretariat of State, aside from two years starting in 1878 when he was an Auditor of the Roman Rota.

In 1880 he became a titular archbishop and Apostolic Delegate to the Ottoman Empire, and after further postings was named a cardinal in pectore in December 1889 and publicly announced in the consistory of 1890. His elevation, along with that of Pope Leo's older brother Giuseppe Pecci in 1879, was a special exception to a rule in effect since 1586 barring the elevation of anyone whose brother was in the College of Cardinals, as Vincenzo's brother Serafino Cardinal Vannutelli (1834-1915) had been elevated in 1887 and was still living. No further exceptions would be made until the time of Pope John XXIII.

After serving in various administrative appointments, he became a Cardinal Bishop in the Holy Year of 1900. In 1915 he succeeded his brother Serafino as Dean of the College of Cardinals, and in the 1925 Holy Year he served as Papal legate for the opening and closing of the holy doors at the Patriarchal Liberian Basilica, as he had in 1900.