One of the Shortest Reigning Popes

Private Tours of the Vatican Museums

Funerary monument to Pope Leo Xl by Alessandro Algardi

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He might only have been pope for 27 days, but Leo XI (April 1st to April 27th, 1605) was still honoured with an impressive marble monument in St Peter's Basilica.

The funerary monument (1633-44) was commissioned by the pope's grand-nephew, Cardinal Roberto Ubaldini, and is the work of Alessandro Algardi (1595-1654), a sculptor from Bologna. Algardi emphasised the pope’s munificence with allegorical figures of Magnanimity and Liberality. 

Leo XI was born (1535) Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici, a member of the famous Florentine family and the great-nephew of Pope Leo X (r. 1513-21). 

The images of roses at the base of the monument, and the inscription 'SIC FLORUI', refer to the brevity of Pope Leo XI's reign. 

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Pope Leo XI by Alessandro Algardi