Giovanni Stefano Donghi


Giovanni Stefano Donghi was an Italian Catholic cardinal.

Early life

Donghi was born in Genoa in 1608, the son of Bartolomeo Donghi and Giacoma Bernardi. After completing his undergraduate work in the Humanities and Philosophy, he began his university studies at the University of Bologna and completed them with a degree from the University of Salamanca.

Ecclesiastic career

Throughout the 1630s, Donghi was employed in a number of administrative positions in Rome including referendary of the Tribunals of the Apostolic Signature of Justice and of Grace. On 15 June 1635 he was appointed Protonotary Apostolic de numero participantium and Cleric of the Apostolic Camera. He rose to the post of President of the Apostolic Chamber.
In 1643 he acted as commissary-resident for the three legations held by Cardinal Antonio Barberini over regions in which he did not reside - effectively operating as the cardinal's representative in those regions when the cardinal was not there. He was also sent by the pope as legate to Lombardy during the First War of Castro to reach a peace agreement with the Dukes of Parma after the pope renounced the peace agreement negotiated by Cardinal Bernardino Spada. He was then named Protonotary Apostolic at the Datary.

Cardinal

Donghi was created a cardinal-deacon by Pope Urban VIII in the consistory of 13 July 1643, and assigned the Deaconry of San Giorgio in Velabro on 31 August 1644. Urban died a year later, on 29 July 1644, and Donghi was one of the fifty-seven cardinals who participated in the papal conclave of 1644. The Conclave opened on 9 August, and resulted in the election of Pope Innocent X on 15 September 1644. Donghi was openly a part of the Spanish faction of the College of Cardinals.
Thereafter he was named plenipotentiary of Pope Innocent during the Second War of Castro,

Books