Alfonso Visconti, a Diplomat in the Service of the Holy See at the Court of Zsigmond Báthory

Abstract

Abstract This research focuses on the life of Cardinal Alfonso Visconti reconstructing the years of his religious formation until his arrival in Rome: from the activity carried out at the Congregation of the Oratory founded by San Filippo Neri, to the diplomatic career conducted in the service of the Holy See. After serving in Portugal and Prague, at the court of Rudolf II, between 1595 and 1598 he was sent on a diplomatic mission, as nuncio, to the Prince of Transylvania Zsigmond Báthory. His mission took place in a dramatic historical phase for Danubian-Balkan Europe, threatened by the power of the Turkish “infidel”. The article aims to reconstruct the main phases of Visconti’s difficult mission, which had been sent to this peripheral part of the continent, but very important on a geopolitical level, with the aim of creating the anti-Turkish crusade so much desired by Pope Clement VIII