page_title: Cardinal-nephew
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Cardinal-nephew / Legacy
context_page_description: A cardinal-nephew 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. The word nepotism originally referred specifically to this practice, when it appeared in the English language about 1669. From the middle of the Avignon Papacy until Pope Innocent XII's anti-nepotism bull, Romanum decet pontificem, a pope without a cardinal-nephew was the exception to the rule. Every Renaissance pope who created cardinals appointed a relative to the College of Cardinals, and the nephew was the most common choice, although one of Alexander VI's creations was his own son.
  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.
context_section_description: Nepotism is a common feature in the history of governance, particularly in cultures where identity and loyalty are determined more at the level of the family than that of the nation-state. The use of nephews, rather than direct descendants, is a product of the tradition of clerical celibacy within the Catholic Church, although hereditary descent from uncles to nephews is also seen in the patriarchate of the Assyrian Church of the East.
  The creation of relatives and known-allies as cardinals was only one way in which medieval and Renaissance Popes attempted to dilute the power of the College of Cardinals as an "ecclesiastical rival" and perpetuate their influence within the church after their death. The institution of the cardinal-nephew had the effect both of enriching the Pope's family with desirable benefices and of modernizing the administration of the papacy, by allowing the pontiff to rule through a proxy which was more easily deemed fallible when necessary and provided a formal distance between the person of the pontiff and the everydayness of pontifical affairs.
  Gregorio Leti's Papal Nepotism, or the True Relation of the Reasons Which Impel the Popes to make their Nephews Powerful (1667) is one example of contemporary criticism of the institution of the cardinal-nephew; Leti holds the rare distinction of having all of his publications on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books"). The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913 defended the institution of the cardinal-nephew as a necessary countermeasure to the intrigue of the old Church. According to Francis A. Burkle-Young, 15th century Popes in particular found it necessary to elevate their relatives to the College of Cardinals due to their distrust of the crown-cardinals, Roman baronial families, and Italian princely families who also populated the college.
  According to Thomas Adolphus Trollope, a famed papal historian, "the evil wrought by them in and to the church has been well nigh fatal to it; and it continued to increase until increasing danger warned the Pontiffs to abstain. The worst cardinals, providing, of course, the material for the worst Popes, have been for the most part cardinal nephews, the temptation to the creation of such having been rendered too great to be resisted by the exorbitant greatness of the power, dignity, and wealth attributed to the members of the Sacred College. The value of these great "prizes" was so enormous, that the "hat" became an object of ambition to princes, and it was the primary object with a long series of Popes to bestow it on their kinsmen."
caption: Ippolito de' Medici, cardinal-nephew of Pope Clement VII and illegitimate son of Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici
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