Oliviero Carafa (10 March 1430-20 January 1511) was an Italian cardinal during the Renaissance era.
Biography[]
Oliviero Carafa was born in 1430 in Naples, Kingdom of Naples to an illustrious family, and he became the Archbishop of Naples on 18 November 1458 at the young age of 28. His career was mainly that of a statesman rather than an ecclesiastic, and he served as Archbishop until 1484. In 1467, he became Cardinal of Santi Marcellino e Pietro, and Pope Sixtus IV appointed him Papal legate to King Ferdinand I of Naples in 1471. He was also named Admiral of the Papal fleet, which conquered Smyrna from the Ottoman Empire; he became known as an able military leader. In 1476, he succeeded Rodrigo Borgia as Bishop of Albano, upgrading his standing in the Roman Curia. From 1484 to 1494, he served as Bishop of Salamanca, and he served as Naples' ambassador to the Holy See. After Pope Innocent VIII's death in 1492, he failed in his bid to become Pope, and he supported Giuliano della Rovere as the next Pope, seeing the Aragonese Rodrigo Borgia as a threat to Naples, which was rivals with Aragon. In 1494, he gave the See of Chieti to his nephew, the future Pope Paul IV, and he returned to the Archbishopric of Naples on the death of his brother in 1503. Carafa was famed as a patron of the arts during his tenure as a cardinal, and he became known as a wise councillor of the church under Pope Julius II. He died in 1511.