Camillo Caetani

Camillo Caetani (Gaetano) (Sermoneta (?) 1552 - Rome 6 August 1603) was an Italian aristocrat and Papal diplomat in several European capitals during the early Counterreformation.

Camillo Caetani was the third son of Bonifacio Caetani and Caterina Pio di Savoia. He was destined for a career in the church and took holy orders in 1562. In 1573 he obtained his doctorate in civil and canon law at Perugia. In the following years he lived in family residences in Rome, managing personal and family affairs. He was made commendatory abbot of San Vincenzo al Volturno on 23 April 1573 after the benefice was relinquished by his uncle Cardinal Niccolò Caetani. He was made prior of Valvisciolo Abbey and soon after Pope Gregory XIII gave him a number of other benefices including the Cistercian abbey of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Faenza. In 1580 he became prior of San Andrea in Turin, and on 13 May 1587, of the basilian monastery of Santa Maria di Patano in Capaccio. On 22 August 1588 he was named Patriarch of Alexandria.

In the autumn of 1589 Camillo had his introduction to political life when he accompanied his brother Cardinal Enrico Caetani to France, where he had been appointed Cardinal legate. This mission was sent by Pope Sixtus V to urge the House of Guise, heads of the Catholic League, and Charles IX, who had been proclaimed king after the assassination of Henry III, to pursue the fight against the Huguenots and prevent the accession of Henry of Navarre. His brother soon sent him back to Rome to persuade the Pope to grant immediate subsidies to the Catholic League, to declare unconditionally that Henry could not be king, and to offer papal mediation to help establish an alliance of all the major Catholic powers against the enemies of the faith. Caetani set off from Paris on 3 March 1590, and on his way back to Italy visited the Duke of Nevers, who held himself aloof from the activities of the Catholic League and was eventually to pledge loyalty to Henry IV. Arriving in Rome on 4 April, Caetani was found Sixtus V now preoccupied with how to avoid Spain increasing its influence over affairs in Italy and the rest of Europe, and therefore much less enthusiastic than before about supporting a strategy that risked extending its hegemony over France. At the same time, the Pope did not want to adopt any course of action that might preclude an eventual accommodation with Henry of Navarre, if he were to become King of France. Regardless of the Pope's equivocations, Cardinal Enrico Caetani continued to pursue an uncompromising policy in Paris, openly supporting and funding the House of Guise and the Catholic League. The Pope's displeasure at this disobedience was visited both on the Cardinal himself, who found all payments to his mission from the Vatican stopped, and on Camillo, who was placed under house arrest on 3 June 1590 for three weeks and forbidden to involve himself in any political activities. He was only rehabilitated after the pro-Spanish Gregory XIV become Pope, who then named him nuncio to the Imperial court in Vienna on 22 April 1591.

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