page_title: Pope Marcellus II
section_title: Cardinalate
hierarchical_section_title: Pope Marcellus II / Biography / Cardinalate
context_page_description: Pope Marcellus II, born Marcello Cervini degli Spannochi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 April 1555 until his death 22 days later on 1 May 1555.
  He succeeded Pope Julius III. Before his accession as pope he had been Cardinal-Priest of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. He is the most recent pope to choose to retain his birth name as his regnal name upon his accession, as well as only the second and most recent pope to date to take the name "Marcellus" upon being elected. After his death, it would be 423 years before another pope would choose a name with an ordinal number less than IV.
  Cervini was the maternal uncle of Robert Bellarmine. Cervini's father and Pope Clement VII were personal friends. Cervini served in the household of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. When Farnese became Pope, Cervini served as his secretary and was employed on some diplomatic missions. On 10 April, 1555, he was elected to succeed Pope Julius III. He died of a stroke twenty-two days later.
context_section_description: In 1534, after Farnese had become pope Pope Paul III, Cervini was appointed a papal secretary (1534–49) and served as a close advisor to the pope's nephew Alessandro Farnese. He was made a papal Protonotarius. He travelled in the suite of the Pope during the papal visit to Nice, where Paul III was promoting a truce between François I and Charles V. He then accompanied the young Cardinal Farnese on a trip to Spain, France and the Spanish Netherlands to help implement the terms of the truce. Paul III later appointed him bishop of Nicastro, Italy in 1539. Cervini was not, however, consecrated bishop until the day he himself was elected pope. While he was still on the embassy to the Netherlands, Paul III created him the Cardinal-Priest of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme on 19 December 1539.
  When, almost immediately after, Cardinal Farnese was recalled to Rome, Cervini stayed on as Nuntius. Over the course of next decade Cervini also became the apostolic administrator of the dioceses of Reggio and Gubbio. His house in Rome became a center of Renaissance culture, and he himself corresponded with most of the leading humanists
  During the Council of Trent he was elected one of the council's three presidents, along with fellow cardinals Reginald Pole and Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte (the future Pope Julius III). He continued to serve in that role throughout the remainder of Paul III's papacy after which he was replaced to placate the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1519–56). He was credited not only with defending orthodoxy and Church discipline, but also the universal claims of the Papacy in spiritual and temporal affairs, and with such vigor that the Emperor was affronted. In 1548 (or 1550) he was granted the supervision of the Vatican Library, with the title of Protettore della Biblioteca Apostolica.
  The Apostolic Brief of his appointment, however, came from the new pope, Julius III, on 24 May 1550, and he was named not Vatican Librarian, but Bibliothecarius Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae because he was the first cardinal to be in charge of the library. During his administration, he employed the services of Marcello and Sirleto, as well as Onuphrio Panvinio (who was especially consulted in matters of Christian archaeology). He added more than 500 codices to the holdings of the Library, including 143 Greek codices, as his own entry book (which still survives as Vaticanus Latinus 3963) testifies.
  In the conclave of 1549–50 to elect a successor to Paul III,  fifty-one cardinals, including Marcello Cervini, participated at the opening on 3 December 1549. The initial candidates included Cardinals Pole, Sfondrati, Carpi and Ridolfi (who died on the night of 31 January). Pole, the favorite of the Emperor Charles V, came within two votes of being elected in the first scrutinies, but he could not attract any additional votes. Juan Álvarez de Toledo (Bishop of Burgos), another Imperial favorite, was proposed, and he too failed, because of strong opposition from the faction of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, nephew of the late Pope Paul III and from the French.
  On 12 December, five more French voters arrived, and though they could not advance the candidacy of their favorite, Ippolito d' Este, they did have Cardinal Cervini on their list of possible candidates. Farnese and his faction were also positively inclined toward him. Unfortunately, the Imperial faction was not. Worst of all, on 22 December, Cardinal Cervini left the Conclave, suffering from a quartan fever. Finally, on 7 February 1550, the cardinals chose Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte, who took the name Julius III.
caption: Coat of Arms of Pope Marcellus II
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