Alberoni Giulio Cardinal

Alberoni, Giulio, ~Cardinal, born in a humble station at Piacenza in 1664. Having entered the Church he went to Rome, and there attached himself to the Duke of Vendome, who took him to Paris and then to Madrid. At the latter court he was appointed agent for Parma, entered into all the intrigues of the palaoe, and procured the marriage of Philip V. with Elizabeth of Parma. Under her patronage he rose to be Cardinal, and Prime Minister in 1715. Vigorous, ambitious, unscrupulous, he did his best to restore Spain to her ancient grandeur. In prosecution of this design he seized Sardinia, then in Austrian hands, supported the Pretender, urged the claims of Philip against the Duke of Orleans as Regent of France, and ultimately provoked the formation of the Quadruple Alliance, which procured his dismissal. Returning to Italy with great wealth he aspired to the Papacy, but spent the last years of his life in his native town, where he died in 1752, leaving a handsome sum to endow the college there which is still named after him.