Francesco Borgongini Duca

Styles of Francesco Borgongini Duca

Reference style	His Eminence
Spoken style	Your Eminence
Informal style	Cardinal

Francesco Borgongini Duca (26 February 1884 – 4 October 1954) was an Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as Apostolic Nuncio to Italy from 1929 to 1953, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1953 by Pope Pius XII.

Borgongini Duca was born in Rome, and studied at the Pontifical Roman Seminary, from where he obtained his doctorates in theology and in canon and civil law. He was ordained to the priesthood on 22 December 1906, and then taught theology at both the Pontifical North American College and the Pontifical Urbanian Athenaeum De Propaganda Fide from 1907 to 1909. He was favorably impressed by a young American seminarian named Francis Spellman, whom Duca would later assist in consecrating as auxiliary bishop of Boston in 1932.

Borgongini Duca entered the service of the Roman Curia upon being made an official of the Apostolic Penitentiary in 1909, of which he became Secretary on 24 February 1917. He was raised to the rank of Privy Chamberlain of His Holiness on 2 March 1917, and was named Pro-Secretary of the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs on 28 June 1921, rising to become full Secretary on 14 October 1922 (the Pope was the nominal head of that dicastery). He was made an Domestic Prelate of His Holiness (7 July 1921) and apostolic protonotary (January 11, 1927) before being named to the commission to negotiate the Lateran Treaty.