Giovanni Battista Rinuccini (15 September 1592 – 28 December 1653) was an Italian Roman Catholic archbishop who served as Archbishop of Fermo and Papal nuncio to Ireland during the Irish Confederate Wars.
Biography[]
Giovanni Battista Rinuccini was born in Rome, Papal States in 1592, the son of a Florentine patrician. He was educated by the Jesuits and became an ordained Roman Catholic priest in 1614 and Archbishop of Fermo in 1625. In 1631, he carefully refused an offer to be made Archbishop of Florence, and, in 1645, Pope Innocent X sent him to Ireland to help Confederate Ireland in their war against English Protestant rule. He sent arms and ammunition to the Irish Catholic rebels and also donated over 150,000 livres, and King Charles I of England later attempted to enlist his help in recruiting an army of 20,000 Irish soldiers to assist the Royalist cause against the Parliamentarians in the aftermath of the Battle of Naseby in 1645. However, Rinuccini demanded that Charles reinstate the Catholic Church in Ireland, shut down the Church of Ireland, and remove all Anglican bishops and priests from the country; Charles refused, as this would violate his coronation oath. In 1649, Rinuccini left the country as the Confederates were defeated, and he blamed personal vainglory and tribal divisions for Catholic disunity in Ireland. He died in 1653.