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Camillo Caetani (Gaetano) (Sermoneta (?) 1552 – Rome 6 August 1603) was an Italian aristocrat and Papal States diplomat in several European capitals during the early Counterreformation.
Arriving in Rome on 4 April, Caetani found Sixtus V now preoccupied with how to avoid Spain increasing its influence over affairs in Italy and the rest of Europe, and therefore much less enthusiastic than before about supporting a strategy that risked extending its hegemony over France. At the same time, the Pope did not want to adopt any course of action that might preclude an eventual accommodation with Henry of Navarre, if he were to become King of France.Nicola Mary Sutherland, Henry IV of France and the Politics of Religion: The path to Rome, Intellect Books, 2002 p.325 Regardless of the Pope's equivocations, Cardinal Enrico Caetani continued to pursue an uncompromising policy in Paris, openly supporting and funding the House of Guise and the Catholic League. The Pope's displeasure at this disobedience was visited both on the Cardinal himself, who found all payments to his mission from the Vatican stopped, and on Camillo, who was placed under house arrest on 3 June 1590 for three weeks and forbidden to involve himself in any political activities. He was only rehabilitated after the pro-Spanish Gregory XIV become Pope, who then named him nuncio to the Imperial court in Vienna on 22 April 1591.
In Madrid, Caetani's main tasks were to ensure that the Tridentine reforms were enacted and the benefit of clergy preserved. He also encouraged Philip to provide generous funding for universities, seminaries, and those afflicted by the Eighty Years' War. He also strove to build an alliance of all Catholic states against the Ottoman Empire. Caetani was assisted in his mission by two papal diplomats: Camillo Borghese in 1594 and Giovanni Francesco Aldobrandini, nephew of the pope, in 1595.Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, Catholic Europe, 1592-1648: Centre and Peripheries, OUP 2015 p.149 His diplomatic efforts were undermined by the rapprochement of Pope Clement VIII with Henry IV of France, who had converted to Catholicism in 1593.Mark Greengrass, France in the Age of Henri IV: The Struggle for Stability, Routledge, 2013 p.75
Caetani was also instructed to take a very cautious line with Spain's aggressive inclinations towards England. He was critical of the Spanish attacks on shipping carrying alum (essential for the cloth industry) from Tolfa, near Rome, and of the restrictions Spain placed on the movement of grain from Sicily to the Papal States. He also worked to secure Spanish support for the incorporation of Ferrara into the Papal States. His most successful initiatives were in the field of censorship through the Index librorum prohibitorum. In 1593 he obtained the arrest and eventual removal to Rome, of Juan Roa Dávila, author of Apologia de iuribus principalibus which argued for the authority of the secular power in church affairs. Not all ecclesiastical matters were easily resolved however: in 1594, Madrid quashed the papal bull De largitione munerum, one of a number of papal bulls rejected by the Spanish government. Likewise, appeals from the clergy in Spain to the Roman Rota against the decisions of secular courts were prohibited, and Caetani had to pursue long and exhausting disputes to preserve Papal rights in Spain, from which substantial revenues accrued – for example, in the case of the rich inheritance of the Cardinal of Toledo. He was eventually successful in reaching a compromise on church matters, approved by Clement VIII in 1599.
As early as 1594 Caetani's position was seriously compromised following a campaign of orchestrated accusations by Spanish circles in Rome and papal diplomats in Spain, accusing him of abuse of power, excessive spending, neglect of his duties, accepting bribes, and abusing his own staff. He was not recalled from his post however, partly because the rivalry between the pope's nephews Cinzio Passeri Aldobrandini and Pietro Aldobrandini was so intense that neither could be appointed to succeed him. Having survived this threat, Caetani was able to secure the position of collector of the diezmo in Spain, and, for a while, in Portugal as well. Caetani needed to draw around 145,000 Italian scudo from his revenue to fund his nunciature, as the debts of the Caetani house were so heavy (330,000 scudi in 1592). These financial circumstances compelled Caetani to constantly ask the court in Madrid for pensions, benefits and offices for his relatives, and this in turn inclined him to be amenable to Spanish diplomatic interests. Through his friendship with Philip III's favourite the Duke of Lerma,Antonio Feros, Kingship and Favoritism in the Spain of Philip III, 1598-1621, Cambridge University Press, 2006 p.110 Caetani was able to secure for his nephew Bonifacio the bishopric of Cassano and the Order of the Golden Fleece for his nephew Pietro in 1600. Caetani's efforts to secure for himself the archbishoprics first of Milan and then of Naples were however unsuccessful.
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