Remarkably few documents concerning the early life of Bendinello Sauli have survived. The first member of the second branch of the family to be dedicated to a career in the Church, he was probably born in about 1481, the eldest of the five sons of Pasquale Sauli quondam Bendinelli and Mariola Giustiniani Longhi quondam Giacomi, a member of the largest Genoese popolare family (see Fig. 2).¹ As the eldest son, he would normally have been expected to carry on the family business and there is evidence that his early years were spent in learning to do just that. On 14...

Barbara McClung Hallman defines an ecclesiastical benefice as ‘a sacred office, with or without the care of souls, to which a permanent income is attached’.¹ The fact that benefices were used by popes as the principal source of rewards ‘encouraged churchmen to view benefices first as income and only secondarily as sacred offices’.² How true was this for Cardinal Sauli and, if true, did it necessarily mean that his benefices suffered?

During his fifteen-year ecclesiastical career Sauli held at least thirty-eight benefices, ranging from parish churches to bishoprics and his titular churches.³ Given this relatively large number in such a...

The death of Cardinal Sauli in 1518 precluded any possible sympathy on his part for Lutheran tendencies; discussion of his interest, if any, in reform must thus centre on a school of thought which had developed earlier and is now known as Catholic Reform. It aimed to reform the Church from within whilst maintaining the Church’s teachings and authority. This reforming trend, if such it can be called, was spurred on by the advent of Protestantism and culminated in the Council of Trent (1543-63).¹

There can be little doubt that there were many aspects of ecclesiastical life which required renewal:...

An apparently profligate lifestyle may seem surprising in one who expressed an interest in ecclesiastical affairs and reform, but the role of cardinal was multifaceted. If the degree of spiritual concern with which he ran his benefices was left in practice to his own conscience, the promotion of a cardinal’s reputation and that of the Church was not. Image was important both to those cardinals resident in Rome and to the pope as the head of the Church. Dignitas, as outlined by Paolo Cortesi in his handbook on the cardinalate, De cardinalatu (1510) and in the Lateran Council bull Reformationis...

The honour that Sauli lacked in death was far from missing in life. He and his position as cardinal of the Catholic Church were celebrated, both directly and indirectly, in the works of the humanists of whom he was patron. Such patronage, like that of his household, was part of an established and deliberate pattern of magnificence but was not necessarily of such a fixed nature. A cardinal’s material patronage of a humanist could range from a one-off payment in the form of money or a gift, the use of a cardinal's library or the payment of the publication costs...

If the patronage of humanists allowed a patron, whether a cardinal or not, to demonstrate magnificence and liberality, it also allowed him to be celebrated for posterity in their works. There were also other, more visual, ways for a cardinal to ensure that his name was not forgotten: he could build palaces or endow chapels, churches or monasteries and have them decorated, commemorating his donation through inscriptions, coats of arms or portraits (either painted or sculpted) of himself. In Rome, on the façade of the Palazzo della Cancelleria, is an inscription which proclaims the status and wealth of Cardinal Riario,...

On 19 May 1517 Cardinal Sauli and Cardinal Petrucci were arrested in the papal antechamber of the palazzo apostolico and taken to separate cells in the Castel Sant’Angelo. They were placed in custody ‘it was said because they had planned to poison the pope’.¹

How did Sauli, a young cardinal, petted by Leo and showered with benefices, find himself in prison and in danger of his life? Had he, as some believed and still believe, been set up, or had he really thought that he, Cardinal Riario, Cardinal Soderini, Cardinal Castellesi and others still unidentified could stand by and watch...

Was Sauli a ‘good and innocent man’ or not?¹ Was, there, indeed, a plot at all? Some think that there was and that those implicated were guilty, to whatever degree. These include contemporary observers such as Paris de’ Grassis (but with reservations about the involvement of Riario, which are shared by Sebastiano Branca di Tedallini), Cornelius de Fine, Paolo Giovio and Francesco Guicciardini.²

Others deny that there was a plot. Alfonso Petrucci’s Portuguese manservant regarded Petrucci, Sauli and Riario as innocent victims; in about 1526 Jacob Ziegler blamed everything on Cardinal de’ Medici. Girolamo Garimberto, a sixteenth-century writer, believed in...