Pompeo Colonna

Pompeo Colonna

Portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo, Galleria Colonna, Rome
Orders
Created Cardinal 1 July 1517
by Leo X
Personal details
Born May 12, 1479
Died June 28, 1532 (aged 53)[1]

Pompeo Colonna (12 May 1479 – 28 June 1532) was an Italian Cardinal, politician and condottiero. Born in Rome, he fought very early against the traditional family enemies, the Orsini.

After he entered an ecclesiastical career, he was protonotarius, the bishop of Rieti, and then abbot of Subiaco and Grottaferrata. When rumours of the imminent death of Pope Julius II spread, he spurred the Roman population to rebel against the Papal authority; however, when the Pope recovered he was condemned. Colonna was later rehabilitated by Leo X, and created cardinal. He then became famous for his banquets and intellectual activities.

He was a protagonist in the Sack of Rome, when, with a group of mercenaries and peasants from its fiefs in the Lazio, he took part in the sack and assumed control of the city while his personal enemy, pope Clement VII, was a prisoner in Castel Sant'Angelo.

He was later legate in Ancona and archbishop of Monreale. In 1530 he was created general lieutenant of the Kingdom of Naples by Emperor Charles V. He was also a poet. His most famous work is De laudibus mulierum, written for his relative Vittoria Colonna.

Pompeo Colonna

References

  1. Bates, Piers Baker (2008). "A Portrait of Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, Rival and Imitator of the Papal Caesars". Papers of the British School at Rome 76: 183–199, 356.

External links