Vatican Diary / Another Venetian at the top, after more than three centuries

VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

VATICAN CITY, September 2, 2013 – In commenting on the announcement of the appointment of Archbishop Pietro Parolin as the new Vatican secretary of state, almost no one has noted that this is a matter of the first Venetian to occupy the important position for more than three centuries.

And yet the analogy with the present is of a certain interest.

The first, and until now the last, churchman of the Italian northeast to become the closest collaborator of the bishop of Rome in the governance of the universal Church was in fact Giambattista (or Giovanni Battista) Rubini, born in Venice in 1642 and secretary of state from October of 1689 to the summer of 1691. Rubini was also bishop of Vicenza, Parolin’s diocese of origin, from 1684 to 1702.

But the analogy with the present seems to end here, limiting itself to the purely geographical aspect.

Rubini, in fact, was appointed secretary of state, and made a cardinal, by Alexander VIII – whose secular name was Pietro Ottoboni – who promoted him immediately after being elected pontiff on October 6, 1689, in conclave. Well then, Alexander VIII – a Venetian himself, born in Venice to Marco and Vittoria Tornielli – was the brother of Cristina Ottoboni, the grandmother (or mother according to other sources) of Rubini.

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