Decio Azzolino
Encyclopedia
Decio Azzolino generally known as the Younger, was an Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 cardinal
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...

.

He was born at Fermo
Fermo
Fermo is a town and comune of the Marche, Italy, in the Province of Fermo.Fermo is located on a hill, the Sabulo with a fine view, on a branch from Porto San Giorgio on the Adriatic coast railway....

, the son of Pompeo Azzolino and Giulia Ruffo, and great-nephew of Cardinal Decio Azzolino the Elder. He received doctorates in philosophy, juridics and theology from Fermo University. These skills among others led to him becoming the principal Vatican decoder, the person who cracked the ciphers most high-profile people used in their letters. In 1654 because of this service he rendered to the pope he was created a Cardinal of Sant'Adriano al Foro
Sant'Adriano al Foro
Sant'Adriano al Foro was a church formerly in the Curia Julia in the Forum Romanum. It was built by Pope Honorius I in 630. Its name refers to the martyr Adrian of Nicomedia. Its structure was modified multiple times before it was demolished in the 1930s to recover the ancient structure of the...

 (Curia Julia
Curia Julia
The Curia Hostilia was one of the original senate houses or 'curia' of the Roman Republic. It is believed to have begun as an Etruscan temple where the warring tribes laid down their arms during the reign of Romulus . During the early kingdom, the temple was for the use of the Senators who acted as...

), Rome.

He was the leader of the liberal movement
Cultural movement
A cultural movement is a change in the way a number of different disciplines approach their work. This embodies all art forms, the sciences, and philosophies. Historically, different nations or regions of the world have gone through their own independent sequence of movements in culture, but as...

 Squadrone Volante
Squadrone Volante
The so called Squadrone Volante was a seventeenth-century independent and liberal cardinal movement within the Catholic Church. The Squad, protected by Christina of Sweden and led by Cardinal Decio Azzolino, was highly involved in European politics in the second half of the century...

 as well as Christina of Sweden
Christina of Sweden
Christina , later adopted the name Christina Alexandra, was Queen regnant of Swedes, Goths and Vandals, Grand Princess of Finland, and Duchess of Ingria, Estonia, Livonia and Karelia, from 1633 to 1654. She was the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustav II Adolph and his wife Maria Eleonora...

's representative within the Catholic Church. After her death, Azzolino inherited numerous of her artworks, including Correggio's Danaë
Danaë (Correggio)
Danäe is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Correggio, executed around 1531 and housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.-History:...

and Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...

's Venus and Adonis
Venus and Adonis (Titian, Rome)
Venus and Adonis is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Titian, executed around 1560. It is currently housed in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Rome. It is one of the numerous version of the same subject....

.
He died in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 and is buried in the oratorium of the Church of Santa Maria in Vallicella
Santa Maria in Vallicella
Santa Maria in Vallicella, also called Chiesa Nuova, is a church in Rome, Italy, which today faces onto the main thoroughfare of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele...

.

It is thought that he and Christina were in love with one another although their relationship was never made public.


The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK