Lorenzo Campeggio

Lorenzo Campeggio (7 November 1474 – 19 July 1539) was an Italian cardinal and politician. He was the last cardinal protector of England.

Life Campeggio was born in Milan to a noble family, the eldest of five sons.

Campeggio initially intended to pursue a career in law, obtaining his degree in 1499. In 1510, following the death of his wife, Campeggio began to serve the Catholic Church.

In 1511 and from 1513 to 1517, Campeggio served as nuncio on two separate occasions to Maximilian I. In 1517, during his second period as nuncio to Maximilian I, Leo X made him a cardinal. In 1528, Campeggio returned to England in order to hear the case for divorce between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Due to the mental duress and his affliction with gout, this period of time was particularly unpleasant for Campeggio.

Campeggio wrote his De depravato statu ecclesiae for Adrian VI, which proposed radical reforms for the papal bureaucracy.