ALDOBRANDINI, CARDINAL PIETRO

(1571-1621)

   Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini was the nephew of Pope Clement VIII. He was educated in the Oratory of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome and elevated to the cardinalate in 1593. Under his uncle's regime, Cardinal Aldobrandini became papal secretary of state. In 1598, he was instrumental in recovering the city of Ferrara for the papacy, a deed he celebrated by building the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati as a refuge from his daily obligations at court. In 1602, Carlo Maderno built the Water Theater behind the villa, adding an inscription to its hemicycle that hailed the cardinal as the restorer of peace to Christendom and the one to have recovered Ferrara for the Papal States. The cardinal was also the patron of Annibale Carracci who, along with assistants, painted for his private chapel a series of lunette landscapes, the most famous of which is the Rest on the Flight into Egypt (1603; Rome, Galleria Doria-Pamphili).