Note 81 — VII ROME

Giacomo Buoncompagni, the illegitimate son of the Pope. His mother was a servant in the house of Girolamo, the Pope’s brother, in Bologna, where Giacomo was born in 1548. He was brought up by his father, and his mother was afterwards dowered by Girolamo and married to a Milanese mason. After his education was finished he was appointed to numerous offices, his father having been made Pope in 1572, and the lordships of Vignola, Sora, Arce, Arpino, and Aquino were purchased for him. He was a soldier and a patron of letters, and a favourable example of his kind. He died in 1612.