Gaetano Cicognani

Gaetano Cicognani (26 November 1881 – 5 February 1962) was an Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura from 1954 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1953 by Pope Pius XII. To date, he and his brother, Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, are the last pair of brothers to serve simultaneously in the College of Cardinals.

Cicognani was born in Brisighella to Guglielmo Cicognani and his wife Anna Ceroni. His brother, Amleto, was born over a year later in 1883. To support Gaetano and his brother, their widowed mother ran a general store. Cicognani studied at the seminary in Faenza, and was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Gioacchino Cantagalli on 24 September 1904. He then went to Rome to attend the Pontifical Roman Athenaeum S. Apollinare and was, like his brother, summoned to the elite Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy.

After working in the Roman Rota and Apostolic Signatura, Cicognani taught at the Pontifical Roman Seminary and later entered the Secretariat of State in 1915. He became secretary of the Spanish nunciature on 1 February 1916, and a Privy Chamberlain of His Holiness on 9 March 1916. He was made auditor of the nunciature to Belgium on 3 February 1920.