Baronius

Baronius, Caesar, born near Naples in 1538, became an Oratorian, and was ultimately superior of the order. Subsequently he was appointed librarian at the Vatican and confessor to Clement VIII. He would probably have been elected Pope but for the intrigues of the Spanish party. In 1596 he received a Cardinal's hat. He spent thirty years in the compilation of his Annales Ecelesiastici, a history of the first twelve centuries of the Church. His death took place in 1607.