Campeggio (Campegi, Campeggi, Campegius), Lorenzo

CAMPEGGIO, cɑ̄m-ped´jō (CAMPEGI, CAMPEGGI, CAMPEGIUS), LORENZO: Italian cardinal and statesman; b. at Milan Nov. 7, 1474; d. at Rome July 25, 1539. His father was a noted professor of law at Pavia, Padua, and Bologna, and the son, adopting his father's career, became lecturer on imperial and papal law and the Decretals at Bologna after 1499. He participated in the political life of the university town and won the attention of the Curia by his ardent advocacy of the papal cause against the imperial family of Bentivogli. The loss of his wife hastened his entrance into the priestly state, for which he had long cherished a strong inclination. Julius II. made him representative for Bologna at the tribunal of the Rota in Rome in the early part of 1511. In August he went as nuncio to the court of the emperor Maximilian to win that ruler away from 373his support of the Pisan council and for the pope's scheme of a Lateran council. Returning successful in 1512 he was made bishop of Feltre and sent as nuncio to the court of Maximilian Sforza at Milan, but was recalled to be entrusted with a second mission to the imperial court with the object, this time, of furthering the papal plan for the reestablishment of general peace in Europe. At this post he remained till 1517, when on account of his "preeminent services to the Apostolic chair" and for a fee of 24,000 ducats he was created cardinal in company with thirty others. Once more Campeggio was sent on a mission of universal peace, this time to England, where he shared the dignity of papal legate with Cardinal Wolsey and participated in the formation of the General League of Peace concluded in October, 1518. In the same year he returned to Rome, bearing with him many royal gifts and the promise of the succession to the bishopric of Salisbury. He became bishop of Bologna in 1523, but resigned the office two years later on acquiring possession of the promised English see and retained it till 1535. He enjoyed at the same time the profits from a Spanish bishopric and from other churches, though it is difficult to determine precisely which. Alone among the cardinals he seems to have won the confidence of Adrian VI. and to him (not to Egidio of Viterbo) must be attributed the authorship of the reform memorial addressed to the pope. After the ill success of the papal cause at the first diet of Nuremberg, Campeggio was sent to Germany to work for the enforcement of the Edict of Worms. At the second Nuremberg diet he met the demands of the German princes with insulting pride, but by all his efforts could not prevent the assembly from expressing the demand for a meeting of the representatives of the German nation to consider means for the settlement of the religious question. It was Campeggio who was primarily responsible for the league concluded at Regensburg in the summer of 1524 by the enemies of the Reformation, the first of the partizan confederations that were to result in the dismemberment of the nation. At Regensburg, too, a scheme of reform for the clergy was formulated by Campeggio with the aid of Nausea and Cochlæus, a scheme, however, which never attained practical effect. An unsuccessful mission to England in 1528–29 in the matter of the divorce of Henry VIII. was followed by an appointment to the imperial court, where he is known to have advised Charles V. in case a policy of conciliation toward the Protestants proved ineffective "to eradicate the poisonous growth with fire and sword." At the same time he did not disdain to attempt the milder means of bribery, notably in the case of Melanchthon. In 1532 Campeggio returned to Rome. His last phase of activity was in connection with the plans of Paul III. for a general council. A memorial on the Centum gravamina Germanorum, written in 1536, shows that by that time Campeggio had arrived at a different view of the claims and rights of the German nation.

(T. Brieger.)

Bibliography: C. Sigonius De vita Laurentii Campegii, Bologna, 1581, republished in Sigonii Opera omnia, iii. 531–576, Milan, 1733; S. Ehses, römische Dokumente zur Geschichte der Ehescheidung Heinrichs VIII., 1527–34, pp. xvi.–xxxi. Paderborn, 1893.