Leo XI

Pope (Alessandro de Medici), a descendant of the house of the Medici, was born at Florence in 1535. After representing Tuscany for some years at the court of pope Pius V, he was made bishop of Pistoia in 1573, and archbishop of Florence in 1574. Made cardinal in 1583, he was sent by his predecessor, Ckment VIII, legate a latere to France to receive Henry IV into the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church. He was very old when elected, on the 1st of April, 1605, by the utmost exertions of the French, against the wishes of the Spanish. He died on the 27th of the same month, it is said. from the fatigue attending the ceremony of taking possession of the patriarchal church of St. John the Lateran. See Artaud de Montor, Histoire des Sourerains Pontifs; Bower, History of the Popes, 7:476; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 30:725; Engl. Cyclop. s.v.