ABSTRACT
The Pope from 1623 to 1644 was Maffeo Barberini, Urban VIII. 1 His elder nephew Francesco enjoyed the largest share of his patronage with the post of vice-chancellor and the control of four abbeys as the basis of a large fortune. Such endowment appeared to flout Tridentine prohibitions of pluralism and nepotism. But Cardinal Francesco Barberini, erudite, a discerning patron of the artists who employed their talents to serve the faith, somewhat given to melancholy, was a hard-working, if maladroit politician of blameless private life. His younger brother, Antonio, by contrast, Cardinal at the age of twenty, another grand pluralist, was, for all his charm and generosity, an embarrassment to his father and brother. Though he would eventually bestir himself to lead the Papal army in an unfortunate war against Parma (1642–4) he was disinclined to serious business. Contemporaries might shrug their shoulders at stories of his infatuation with Leonora Baroni, the celebrated singer. Posterity should not complain that he had a major hand in the building of the palazzo Barberini. He fostered the growth of opera and encouraged experiments in production which his client was later to introduce to the French. But the influence which this engaging aesthete could exert on Papal policy, soon to be exploited by Mazarini, who was to find in him a more manageable patron than Francesco, illustrates the critical flaw in the Papacy at this time.
