Cardinal electors for the March–April 1605 papal conclave

The papal conclave of March–April 1605 was convened on the death of Pope Clement VIII and ended with the election of Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici as Pope Leo XI on 1 April 1605. It was the first of two papal conclaves in 1605, with Leo dying on 27 April 1605, twenty-six days after he was elected, and the conclave to elect his successor being held in May. The conclave saw conflict regarding whether Cesare Baronius should be elected pope, and Philip III of Spain, the Spanish king, excluded both Baronius and the eventually successful candidate, Medici.^[2][3] Philip's exclusion of Medici was announced by Cardinal Ávila after his election to the papacy, and the other cardinals did not view it as valid since Medici had already been elected pope.^[4]

Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici, the cardinal-bishop of Palestrina, was elected Pope Leo XI on 1 April 1605.^[1]

Pope Nicholas II had reserved the right to elect the pope to the cardinal bishops, priests, and deacons of Rome in 1059.^[5] The cardinal bishops were the highest rank, being the bishops of the ancient suburbicarian dioceses, the priests ranked next, who served as the titular head of historically important churches in Rome, and last ranked the cardinal deacons, who were nominally assigned one of the ancient diaconia where traditionally deacons had administered the temporal property of the Church of Rome. Cardinals were required to have been ordained at least to the rank of their order within the College of Cardinals, but could also be ordained to a higher order as well.^[6]

In 1586, Pope Sixtus V mandated that the maximum number of cardinals would be seventy.^[7] Of these, the College of Cardinals had sixty-nine total members at the time of Clement VIII's death, but only sixty were present for the first conclave of 1605 when it opened, and sixty-one total electors were present for the election of Leo XI.^[1][8] The electors present had been created by six different popes: Pius IV, Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, Gregory XIV, Innocent IX, and Clement VIII. Of these, Clement's creations were the most numerous, having created thirty-eight of the cardinal electors. Innocent IX had created one of the conclave's electors, Gregory XIV had created five, Sixtus V had created eleven, Gregory XIII had created four, and Pius IV had created one.^[9][i]

Pietro Aldobrandini, the cardinal-nephew of Clement VIII, was the elector who controlled the largest number of votes with twenty-two of Clement's thirty-eight creations following his instructions. Alessandro Peretti di Montalto, the nephew of Sixtus V, controlled eight votes. Thirteen of the cardinal electors were loyal to the Spanish monarchy, and these electors and the faction loyal to Montalto were aligned. In addition to these groups, eight of the electors formed a faction that were loyal to the French crown.^[10]

List of cardinal electors

Caesar Baronius was one of the leading candidates in the March 1605 conclave, but was excluded by the Spanish monarchy.

Name	Rank[11][ii]	Created cardinal by[9]	Nationality	Sources
Tolomeo Gallio	Bishop	Pius IV	Italian	[12]
Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici[iii]	Bishop	Gregory XIII	Italian	[1]
François de Joyeuse	Bishop	Gregory XIII	French	[13]
Domenico Pinelli	Bishop	Sixtus V[iv]	Italian	[14]
Girolamo Bernerio	Bishop	Sixtus V[iv]	Italian	[14]
Agostino Valier	Priest	Gregory XIII	Italian	[15]
Antonio Maria Gallo	Priest	Sixtus V	Italian	[14]
Antonmaria Sauli	Priest	Sixtus V	Italian	[16]
Benedetto Giustiniani	Priest	Sixtus V	Italian	[17]
Giovanni Evangelista Pallotta	Priest	Sixtus V	Italian	[16]
Federico Borromeo	Priest	Sixtus V	Italian	[16]
Francesco Maria del Monte	Priest	Sixtus V	Italian	[16]
Gregorio Petrocchini	Priest	Sixtus V	Italian	[18]
Mariano Pierbenedetti [it]	Priest	Sixtus V	Italian	[18]
Paolo Emilio Sfondrati	Priest	Gregory XIV	Italian	[19]
Ottavio Paravicini	Priest	Gregory XIV	Italian	[19]
Ottavio Acquaviva d'Aragona	Priest	Gregory XIV	Italian	[19]
Flaminio Piatti [it]	Priest	Gregory XIV	Italian	[20]
Giovanni Antonio Facchinetti de Nuce [it][v]	Priest	Innocent IX	Italian	[21]
Pietro Aldobrandini	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[22]
Francesco Maria Tarugi	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[22]
Ottavio Bandini	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[22]
Anne d'Escars de Givry	Priest	Clement VIII	French	[22]
Giovanni Francesco Biandrate di San Giorgio Aldobrandini	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[23]
Camillo Borghese	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[23]
Caesar Baronius	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[23]
Lorenzo Bianchetti	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[23]
Francisco de Ávila [es]	Priest	Clement VIII	Spanish	[23]
Francesco Mantica	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[23]
Pompeio Arrigoni	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[23]
Bonifazio Bevilacqua Aldobrandini	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[23]
Alfonso Visconti	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[24]
Domenico Toschi	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[24]
Girolamo Agucchi	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[1]
Paolo Emilio Zacchia [it]	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[25]
Franz von Dietrichstein[vi]	Priest	Clement VIII	German[vii]	[24][26]
Robert Bellarmine	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[24]
François de Sourdis	Priest	Clement VIII	French	[24]
Séraphin Olivier-Razali	Priest	Clement VIII	French	[27]
Filippo Spinelli	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[24]
Carlo Conti	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[24]
Carlo Gaudenzio Madruzzo	Priest	Clement VIII	German[viii]	[27]
Jacques Davy Duperron	Priest	Clement VIII	French	[24]
Innocenzo del Bufalo-Cancellieri	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[24]
Giovanni Delfino	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[24]
Giacomo Sannesio	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[1]
Girolamo Pamphili	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[1]
Ferdinando Taverna	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[1]
Anselmo Marzato	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[1]
Erminio Valenti	Priest	Clement VIII	Italian	[1]
Francesco Sforza	Deacon	Gregory XIII	Italian	[13]
Alessandro Peretti di Montalto	Deacon	Sixtus V	Italian	[28]
Odoardo Farnese	Deacon	Gregory XIV	Italian	[29]
Cinzio Passeri Aldobrandini	Deacon	Clement VIII	Italian	[22]
Bartolomeo Cesi	Deacon	Clement VIII	Italian	[23]
Andrea Baroni Peretti Montalto	Deacon	Clement VIII	Italian	[23]
Alessandro d'Este	Deacon	Clement VIII	Italian	[24]
Giovanni Battista Deti	Deacon	Clement VIII	Italian	[24]
Silvestro Aldobrandini [it]	Deacon	Clement VIII	Italian	[22]
Giovanni Andrea Doria	Deacon	Clement VIII	Italian	[1]
Carlo Emanuele Pio di Savoia	Deacon	Clement VIII	Italian	[1]

Notes

1. Pastor lists Gregory XIII as having six electors, attributing Bernerio and Pinelli to him, and Sixtus V as having nine. Eubel counts them as being created by Sixtus V, and gives specific dates for their creations as cardinals.
2. Refers to rank within the College of Cardinals, and is not reflective of whether or not the individual had been ordained or consecrated to other Holy Orders
3. Elected Pope Leo XI
4. Pastor lists as a creation of Gregory XIII, but Eubel lists as created by Sixtus V.
5. Not Pope Innocent IX, born Giovanni Antonio Facchinetti, who died in 1591
6. Entered the conclave on 19 March 1605
7. Dietrichstein had a Spanish mother; some sources also describe him as Czech.
8. Madruzzo was bishop of Trent, in modern Italy. Gauchat classifies him as German, and does not simply list the city as he does for Italians.