Luigi Lippomano (Aloisius Lipomanus Lippomano) (1500 – 15 August 1559, Rome) was an Italian cardinal and hagiographer.
Illegitimate son of a Venetian patrician, Lippomano was destined for an ecclesiastical career.[1] He studied at Padua and eventually entered into service at the papal court in Rome. Due to his illegitimate birth and some say also opposition from German cardinals, he never became a cardinal. Devout servant of the popes he held several bishoprics in Italy, including that of Bergamo and Verona. Distinguished for his piety and integrity of character, he was among the first in Rome to join the "Oratorio della Carità" founded by St. Cajetan of Tiene, and composed of distinguished men, who in the Roman Curia were the leaven of Church reform, and afterwards took a prominent part in the Council of Trent. He was consecrated titular Bishop of Methone (1538), and appointed coadjutor to his uncle Pietro Lippomano, Bishop of Bergamo, who was also active in Catholic reform.
When Pietro was transferred to Verona (1544), Luigi accompanied him and succeeded him in that see in 1548, whence he was transferred to Bergamo in 1558. In 1542 Pope Paul III sent him as nuncio to Portugal to announce the convocation of the Council of Trent, where he arrived in 1547 and was commissioned to present to the pope the reasons for transferring the council to Bologna.
In 1548 he was sent with Bertano and Pighi to Germany. From 1551 he was one of the presidents of the Council until its suspension (25 April 1552), during that period the dogmatic decrees on the Eucharist, penance, and extreme unction were published, as well as several decrees on reform.
In 1555 Pope Paul IV sent him as nuncio to Poland, where, on account of his lively opposition to the pretensions of the Protestant nobility, his reception was mixed. Tired and sick he returned to Verona in February 1557, and later, after recovery to Rome, where he stayed until his death on Agusut 15, 1559.[2]
Amid his numerous official duties, he did not neglect his studies, which, however, he directed towards spiritual edification. Thus he wrote "Catenae in Genesin" (Paris, 1546), "In Exodum" (Paris, 1550)—both works republished at Rome in 1557; Confirmatione et stabilimento di tutti i dogmi Catholici, con la subuersione di tutti i fondamenti, motiui & ragioni de i Moderni Eretici sino al numero (Venice, 1553). His chief work was Sanctorum priscorum patrum vitae (8 vols., Venice, 1551–60; 2 vols., Louvain 1564), for which he engaged the services of many learned men, and himseIf, on his travels, searched libraries and archives. This collection gave a great impulse to scientific hagiography, and opened the way for Surius and the Bollandists.