A cardinal-nephew (;Cardinale, Hyginus Eugene. 1976. The Holy See and the International Order. Maclean-Hunter Press. p. 133. ;Burckhardt, Jacob, and Middlemore, Samuel George Chetwynd. 1892. The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy. Sonnenschein. p. 107. ; ; )Signorotto and Visceglia, 2002, p. 114. Modern French scholarly literature uses the term "cardinal-neveu ". was a cardinal elevated by a pope who was that cardinal's relative. The practice of creating cardinal-nephews originated in the Middle Ages and reached its apex during the 16th and 17th centuries. The last cardinal-nephew was named in 1689, and the practice was abolished in 1692.Bunson, Matthew. 1995. "Cardinal Nephew ". The Pope Encyclopedia. Crown Trade Paperbacks. . The word nepotism originally referred specifically to this practice when it appeared in the English language about 1669.The Oxford English Dictionary has, as its first citation, Pepys' writing about a family reading of Gregorio Leti's Il Nipotismo di Roma, or, The History of the Popes Nephews: from the time of Sixtus IV, anno 1471, to the death of the late Pope Alexander VII, anno 1667. September 2003. "Nepotism" From the middle of the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377) until Pope Innocent XII's anti-nepotism bull (a papal charter) Romanum decet pontificem (1692), a pope without a cardinal-nephew was the exception to the rule.Until Innocent XII, the only other exceptions were popes who did not appoint cardinals: Pius III, Marcellus II, Urban VII, and Leo XI, as well as Adrian VI (who appointed one cardinal). Every Renaissance pope who created cardinals appointed a relative to the College of Cardinals, and the nephew was the most common choice.Vidmar, John. 2005. The Catholic Church Through The Ages: A History. Paulist Press. . p. 170. Vidmar gives the exception of Nicholas V, who elevated his half-brother Filippo Calandrini on December 20, 1448 (see: Salvator, 1998, "15th Century (1404–1503) ").
The institution of the cardinal-nephew evolved over seven centuries, tracking developments in the history of the papacy and the styles of individual popes. From 1566 until 1692, a cardinal-nephew held the curial office of the Superintendent of the Ecclesiastical State, known as the Cardinal Nephew, and thus the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. The curial office of the Cardinal Nephew as well as the institution of the cardinal-nephew declined as the power of the Cardinal Secretary of State increased and the temporal power of popes decreased in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The list of cardinal-nephews includes at least fifteen, and possibly as many as nineteen, who became pope themselvesS. Miranda: Consistory of 1127 , citing some older authors such as Alphonsus Ciacconius, says that Pope Anastasius IV (Corrado della Suburra) was probably a nephew of his elevator Honorius II; however, modern scholars (Brixius, p. 36 and 78; Klewitz, p. 128; Hüls, p. 128 and 201; Zenker, pp. 46–48) are in agreement that Corrado was created cardinal by Paschalis II, and deny or do not mention his relationship with Honorius II. (Gregory IX, Alexander IV, Adrian V, Gregory XI, Boniface IX, Innocent VII, Eugene IV, Paul II, Alexander VI, Pius III, Julius II, Leo X, Clement VII, Benedict XIII, and Pius VII; perhaps also John XIX and Benedict IX, if they were really promoted cardinals; as well as Innocent III and Benedict XII, if in fact they were related to their elevators); one antipope (John XXIII); and two or three saints (Charles Borromeo, Guarinus of Palestrina, and perhaps Anselm of Lucca, if he was really a cardinal).
History
Before 1566
The creation of cardinal-nephews predates the hierarchical preeminence of cardinals within the Roman Catholic Church, which grew out of the 1059 decree of Pope Nicholas II, In nomine Domini, which established cardinal bishops as the sole electors of the pope, with the consent of cardinal deacons and cardinal priests.Miranda, Salvator. 1998. "Essay of a General List of Cardinals (112–2006) ". Archived from the original on November 16, 2025. The first known cardinal-nephew is Lottario (), seniore, cousin of Pope Benedict VIII (1012–1024), elected circa 1015. Benedict VIII also elevated his brother Giovanni (the future Pope John XIX) and his cousin Teofilatto (the future Pope Benedict IX) as cardinal-deacons.Miranda, Salvator. 1998. "General list of Cardinals: 11th Century (999–1099) ". The first known cardinal-nephew after 1059 is Anselm of Lucca, the nephew or brother of Pope Alexander II (1061–1073), although until the end of the 12th century the majority of the alleged cases of such appointments are dubious, either because the relationship between the pope and cardinal is not proven, or because the cardinalate of the papal kinsman is uncertain.For the discussion concerning dubious cases see List of cardinal-nephews. However, it is beyond doubt that the promotions of papal relatives to the College of Cardinals were common in the 13th century.
According to historian John Bargrave, "by the Council of Bazill, Session 21, the number of cardinals was not to be above 24, and not any nephew of the Pope or of any cardinal was to be of that number. (Session 23.)"Bargrave, John, edited by James Craigie Robertson, 1867. Pope Alexander the Seventh and the College of Cardinals. Camden Society. p. 3.
Pope Clement VI (1342–1352) created more cardinal-nephews than any other pontiff, including six on September 20, 1342, the greatest number of cardinal-nephews elevated at one time. The capitulation of the 1464 papal conclave limited the pope it elected (Pope Paul II) to appointing one cardinal-nephew, along with other conditions designed to increase the power of the College of Cardinals and reduce the pope's ability to dilute that power.Burke-Young, Francis A. 1998. "The election of Pope Paul II (1464) ".
The Fifth Council of the Lateran declared in 1514 that the care of relatives was to be commended, and the creation of cardinal-nephews was often recommended or justified based on the need to care for indigent family members. A cardinal-nephew could usually expect profitable appointments; for example, Alessandro Farnese, cardinal-nephew of Pope Paul III (1534–1549), held 64 benefices simultaneously in addition to the vice-chancellorship.Ekelund et al., 2004, p. 703.
Pope Paul IV (1555–1559), in his old age, was said to have "fallen almost completely under the cardinal-nephew's influence";Setton, 1984, p. 639. Paul IV's cardinal-nephew, Carlo Carafa, was accused in August 1558 by a Theatine of seducing a Roman noblewoman, Plautila de' Massimi, who had come into possession of an inordinate amount of money and jewelry, but the accusations were dismissed by the pontiff.Setton, 1984, p. 711. Saint Charles Borromeo, cardinal-nephew of Pope Pius IV (1559–1565), had ensured the subordination of the secretarius intimus to the Cardinal Nephew, which came to be sometimes known as the secretarius maior.Chadwick, 1981, p. 289. Pius IV was notorious for nepotism: between 1561 and 1565 he transferred more than 350,000 scudi to his relatives.Ekelund et al., 2004, p. 702.
1566–1692
Following the Council of Trent (1563), Pope Pius V (1566–1572) drew up the terms for the office of the Superintendent of the Ecclesiastical State, who was to handle the temporal affairs of the Papal States and the foreign relations of the Holy See. After abortively attempting to divide the duties of the Superintendent among four non-familial cardinals, Pius V acceded to the urgings of the College of Cardinals and his Spanish ambassador, and appointed his grandnephew, Michele Bonelli, as Superintendent, demarcating his duties with a papal bull of March 14, 1566. However, Pius V relentlessly avoided delegating any real autonomous power to Bonelli.Signorotto and Visceglia, 2002, p. 141.
The Cardinal Nephew (also called cardinale padroneLaurain-Portemer, Madeleine, Levillain, ed., 2002. "Superintendent of the Ecclesiastical State", p. 1467–1469. or Secretarius Papae et superintendens status ecclesiasticæ: "Superintendent of the Ecclesiastical State", Reinhard, Wolfgang, Levillain, ed., 2002. "Nepotism", p. 1031–1033.) was an official legate of the Roman Curia, approximately equivalent to the Cardinal Secretary of State, which absorbed its functions after the office of Cardinal Nephew was abolished in 1692. The office has been likened by historians to a "prime minister", "alter ego", or "vice-pope".Hsia, 2005, p. 102. The Cardinal Nephew was generally among a pope's first cardinal creations, and his creature was traditionally accompanied by a salute from the guns of Castel Sant'Angelo.Pirie, Valérie. 1965. "The Triple Crown: An Account of the Papal Conclaves: Preliminary Chapter ". Spring Books.
Following the Avignon Papacy, the Cardinal Nephew was responsible for the spiritual and temporal governance of the Comtat Venaissin, where the Avignon Popes had resided; in 1475, Pope Sixtus IV raised the Diocese of Avignon to the rank of an archbishopric, to the benefit of his nephew Giuliano della Rovere.
The terms of the office of Cardinal Nephew were established by a papal brief developed and refined by Pius V's successors to Paul V (1605–1621). The Cardinal Nephew was also the correspondence liaison for all papal nuncios and gubernatorial legates, and the prefect for two congregations: the Consulta and the Congregazione del Buon Governo. The Cardinal Nephew was also the captain-general of the papal army and a "channel through which flowed benefices one way and gold the other".
However, these formal functions only came into force during the pontificates of unusually weak popes; most Cardinal Nephews were the de facto rubber stamp of the pontiff himself.
Although Pope Leo XI (1605) died before he was able to elevate his nephew, Roberto Ubaldini, Ubaldini was elevated by Leo XI's successor, Pope Paul V, in 1615.Signorotto and Visceglia, 2002, p. 144.
Some historians consider Scipione Borghese, cardinal-nephew to Pope Paul V, to be the "prototypical representative" of a cardinal-nephew, unlike those before him, created to "provide for and oversee the permanent social and economic ascent of the reigning papal family into the ranks of the high Roman aristocracy".Bireley, Robert. 2004. Book Review of Bürokratie und Nepotismus unter Paul V. (1605–1621): Studien zur frühneuzeitlichen Mikropolitik in Rom by Birgit Emich. The Catholic Historical Review. 90, 1: 127–129. For example, in 1616, 24 of the 30 abbeys belonging to Borghese were rented out, a practice the Council of Trent had attempted to eliminate. A thorough financial analysis of Borghese's cardinalate by Volker Reinhardt (based on a series of extant account books) examines the strategies Borghese used to build up wealth during his uncle's pontificate and non-ecclesiastical assets before his uncle's death, which Volker considers to be exemplary of Baroque papal families.Osheim, Duane J. "Review of Kardinal Scipione Borghese, 1605–1633: Vermögen, Finanzen und sozialer Aufstieg eines Papstnepoten". The American Historical Review. 90, 4: 971–972. It is estimated that Paul V Borghese had transferred to his family approximately 4% of the total income of the Holy See during his pontificate.Thomas Munck. Europa XVII wieku. Warszawa 1999, p. 341 Borghese's personal revenues in 1610 were 153,000 scudi compared to the mere 4,900 scudi that constituted his entire family's income in 1592.Baumgartner, 2003, p. 142.