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| - Francesco was born in Florence to Carlo Barberini and Costanza Magalotti, and studied at the University of Pisa, graduating in canon and civil law in 1623. On October 2 of the same year, his uncle, Maffeo Barberini, newly elected as Pope Urban VIII, made him a cardinal, state secretary and papal legate to Avignon when he was twenty six years old. He held the latter position until 1633. In 1625, he went to Paris as special legate and from March to September, undertook various negotiations with Cardinal Richelieu . Overall, the negotiations were not a political success for the papacy but as a ‘sweetener’ he received a gift of six tapestries from King Louis XVIII, designed by Peter Paul Rubens. In 1625 he travelled to Spain as papal legate and this mission was also unsuccessful. He returned t
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| abstract
| - Francesco was born in Florence to Carlo Barberini and Costanza Magalotti, and studied at the University of Pisa, graduating in canon and civil law in 1623. On October 2 of the same year, his uncle, Maffeo Barberini, newly elected as Pope Urban VIII, made him a cardinal, state secretary and papal legate to Avignon when he was twenty six years old. He held the latter position until 1633. In 1625, he went to Paris as special legate and from March to September, undertook various negotiations with Cardinal Richelieu . Overall, the negotiations were not a political success for the papacy but as a ‘sweetener’ he received a gift of six tapestries from King Louis XVIII, designed by Peter Paul Rubens. In 1625 he travelled to Spain as papal legate and this mission was also unsuccessful. He returned to Rome the following year. From 1628 he effectively led the foreign diplomacy of the Papal States, showing a clear stance favoring France in the war of succession for Monferrato and during the Thirty Years' War. In 1632 he was appointed papal Vice-Chancellor. As the Grand Inquisitor of the Roman Inquisition, a post he held from 1633 until his death, he was part of the Inquisition tribunal investigating Galileo; he was one of three members of the tribunal who refused to condemn Galileo. Hostilities between the papacy and the Farnese Duchy of Parma and Piacenza resulted in the War of Castro in 1641, from which the papacy did not emerge well, and peace was only concluded months before the death of Urban in 1644. Once it had become clear that the Barberini candidate for his successor, Cardinal Giulio Sacchetti, was not going to be elected by the papal conclave, Francesco and Antonio Barberini switched their vote to support Giovanni Battista Pamphili in the hope that he might look more favorably upon them. They were wrong. Pamphili, who took the name of Innocent X (1644- 1655) instigated investigation into their handling of the finances in the War of Castro forcing first Antonio to flee to Paris in 1645, to be followed by Francesco and his brother Taddeo in 1646. Here they remained under the protection of Cardinal Mazarin. Two years later, Francesco was pardoned by the pope who restored confiscated properties to him. On his return to Rome, Francesco resumed his role as a patron of arts although on a reduced scale. In 1666 he became Dean of the College of Cardinals, taking part in the conclaves of 1667, 1669-1670 and 1676. He died in Rome in 1679 at the age of eighty two.
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