Giovanni Battista Maria Pallotta

Giovanni Battista Maria Pallotta (also Palotta or Palotto) (23 January, 1594 – 22 January, 1668) was an Italian Catholic Cardinal.

Early life

Pallotta was born in 1594 in Caldarola to a well respected family. He was the nephew of Cardinal Giovanni Evangelista Pallotta who left him a considerable inheritance which allowed him to be educated and take up an ecclesiastic career in Rome.

Governor of Rome

He was educated in Perugia and then went to Rome during the pontificate of Pope Paul V.

He was appointed Governor of Rome by Pope Urban VIII and was recognised as a particularly pious and strict lawmaker. His contemporary, John Bargrave, detailed the fate of one particular courtesan who flouted Pallotta's edict. He was consecrated bishop on 10 Dec 1628 by Melchior Klesl, Bishop of Vienna.

He was Camerlengo in 1647 for a year. He became bishop of Albano in 1663 and bishop of Frascati in 1666.

He employed the exiled English poet Richard Crashaw as secretary in 1646 to 1649, but the poet came into conflict with other Pallotta supporters who, unlike the Cardinal himself, offended Crashaw with their vice and licentiousness. Pallotta sent Crashaw away to Loreto but he died not long after, leading to suggestions he had been poisoned.

Pallotta himself died in 1668.

Episcopal succession Episcopal succession of Francesco Maria BrancaccioWhile bishop, he was the principal consecrator of: