The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church

Biographical Dictionary
Pope Clement VII (1523-1534)
Consistory of December 7, 1527 (III)


(14) 1. QUIÑONES, O.F.M., Francisco de los Ángeles (1475-1540)

Birth. 1475 (1), León, Spain. Youngest of the three children of Diego Fernández de Quiñones, count of Luna and merino mayor de Asturias, and Countess Juana Enríquez de Guzmán. His baptismal name was Enrique. He was a relative of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. His last name is also listed as Quignonez; as Quiniones; and as Quignon.

Education. Received his initial education at home and then in the court of Archbishop Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, O.F.M., of Toledo. Entered the Order of the Friars Minor (Franciscans) in 1491 at the convent of Santa María de los Ángeles, Hornachuelos, Sierra Morena, Córdoba; took the name Francisco de los Ángeles; he also studied at the University of Alcalá; and at the University of Salamanca.

Early life. In his childhood, he was a page of Archbishop Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, O.F.M., of Toledo; later he continued to serve in the archbishop's household.

Priesthood. Ordained (no further information found). Custodian of the convent of Los Ángeles in 1512. Elected definitor general of his order in the general chapter celebrated in Rome in 1517. Vicar general of the new Spanish of Los Ángeles province, 1518-1521. By a bull issued on April 25, 1521, Pope Leo X granted him permission and faculties to go as a missionary to America together with Fr. Juan Clapión, confessor of the emperor; Pope Adrian VI, Pope Leo X's successor, confirmed the charge with a bull dated May 9, 1522; the emperor decided that the Franciscans would be the first missionaries of Nueva España; but Fr. Clapión died in that same year and Fr. Quiñones was elected to an important post and had to abandon his project. Commissary general of the Ultramontane province of his order, 1521-1523; visited the Netherlands and other Spanish provinces. Elected minister general of his order in the general chapter celebrated in Burgos (or Barcelona) in 1522; he visited the Spanish, Portuguese, and several Italian provinces; he was reelected in 1526 when, because of humility, he had presented his resignation. He actively supported the missionary activities of his order; wrote instructions for missionary works, in which he stressed the qualities of the missionary and developed standards for missionary method; and in 1523-1524, sent missionaries to México, known as the "twelve Apostles" (2). During the war of the Comunidades in Spain, he mediated between the emperor and the comuneros; when the latter were defeated, he advocated for mercy before the sovereign. He surrounded himself with scholars and humanists, such as Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and Diego López Zúñiga during his stay in Rome as minister general. In 1526 he tried without success to separate Pope Clement VII from the anti-imperial alliance with France and Venice; he was sent by the pope to the emperor in a secret mission and met the latter in Granada on April 20, 1526; returned to Rome in a mission of peace the following month of November; the negotiations with the pontiff failed due to the opposition of the duke of Bourbon and the tumult of the hungry troops; he was sent to the emperor again in 1527 and met him in Valladolid; the sack of Rome took place on May 6, 1527 and the pope became captive of the imperial troops in Castello Sant'Angelo for six months. Named legate before the emperor; in May or June 1527, corsairs (Caesaris adversariis, enemies of the emperor) intercepted the ship in which Father Quiñones was traveling and made him show the documents that he was carrying, believing that he was an imperial agent, and when the corsairs saw that he was a papal envoy disembarked him in the Spanish coast; he finally arrived and met the emperor in Madrid to negotiate with him the freedom of the pope and a complete reconciliation between the two; his legation was successful obtaining the release of the pope on December 6, 1527; the pope had to agree to the occupation of important cities in the Papal State and paid a very large indemnity; the pontiff had to live away from the devasted city at Orvieto and later at Viterbo until October 1528. His diplomatic activities made the government of the order impossible and Father Quiñones resigned the post of minister general in December 1527. He was confessor and counselor of Emperor Charles V.

Cardinalate. Created cardinal priest in the consistory of December 7, 1527 (3); received the red hat and the title of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, September 25, 1528. From July to December 1528, Cardinal Quiñones was at the imperial court working to reach the complete reconciliation between both sovereigns; and finally the signing of the treaties of Barcelona in 1528 and of Cambrai in 1529 took place. On August 10, 1529, he was captured by Napoleone Orsini, abbot of Farfa, and retained in the castle of Bracciani, to demand that the pope pay the abbot 3,000 ducats that the pontiff had previously intercepted; Cardinal Quiñones was freed by the immediate satisfaction from the pope.

Episcopate. Elected bishop of Coria, December 5, 1530. Consecrated, Thursday December 21, 1531, Sistine Chapel, Rome, by Pope Clement VII, assisted by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, seniore, bishop of Ostia e Velletri, by Cardinal Antonio Ciocchi del Monte, bishop of Porto e Santa Rufina, and by Cardinal Andrea della Valle. In the same ceremony were also consecrated Cardinals Antonio Sanseverino, Francesco Cornaro and Giovanni Domenico de Cupis. Resigned the government of the diocese in 1532. Governor of Veroli and Campagna. By order of Pope Clement VII, he reformed the Roman Breviary (4); Diego de Meila and Gaspar de Castro were also charged with the reform of the breviary; the work lasted from 1529 to 1534. Participated in the conclave of 1534, which elected Pope Paul III. Camerlengo of the Sacred College of Cardinals, January 8, 1535 to January 1, 1536. Legate before King Ferdinand of the Romans to promote the celebration of a general council at Mantua, January 9, 1536. Administrator of the see of Acerno, June 9, 1539.

Death. November 5, 1540, Veroli. Transferred to Rome and buried in the basilica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, in a tomb that he had built for himself (5).

Bibliography. Cardella, Lorenzo. Memorie storiche de' cardinali della Santa Romana Chiesa. Rome : Stamperia Pagliarini, 1793, IV, 100-103; Chacón, Alfonso. Vitæ, et res gestæ Pontificvm Romanorum et S. R. E. Cardinalivm ab initio nascentis Ecclesiæ vsque ad Vrbanvm VIII. Pont. Max. 2 volumes. Romae : Typis Vaticanis, 1630, II, col. 1466-1467; Eubel, Conradus and Gulik, Guglielmus van. Hierarchia Catholica Medii et Recentioris Aevi, Münich : Sumptibus et Typis Librariae Regensbergianae, 1935; reprint, Padua : Il Messagero di S. Antonio, 1960, III, 20, 62, 93 and 160; García, I. "Quiñones, Francisco de los Angeles." Diccionario de historia eclesiástica de España. 4 vols. Dirigido por Quintín Aldea Vaquero, Tomás Marín Martínez, José Vives Gatell. Madrid : Instituto Enrique Flórez, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1972-1975, III, 2037-2038; Guitarte Izquierdo, Vidal. Episcopologio Español (1500-1699). Españoles obispos en españa, América, Filipinas y otros países. Rome : Instituto Español de Historia Eclesiástica, 1994. (Publicaciones del Instituto Español de Historia Eclesiástica; Subsidia; 34), p. 42; Lenhart, J.M. "Quiñones' Breviary, a Best Seller". Franciscan Studies, New Series, VI (1946), 468-ff.; Meseguer Fernández, J. "Contenido misionológico de la Obediencia e Instrucción de Fray Francisco do Los Ángeles a los Doce Apóstoles de México". Americas, XI (1954-1955), 473-500; Messeguer Fernández, J. "El P. Francisco de los Ángeles de Quiñones, OFM, al servicio del Emperador y del Papa", Hispania, LXXIII (1958), 1-41; Meseguer Fernández, J. "Quiñones, Francisco". Gran Enciclopedia Rialp. 24 vols. Madrid : Ediciones Rialp, 1979, XIX, 570-571; "Quiñones (Francisco de)." Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana. 70 vols. Madrid : Espasa-Calpe, 1958, c1907?-1930, XLVIII, 1407; Tellechea Idígoras, Ignacio; Sánchez Gil, F. Víctor "Testamento del Cardenal Quiñones, protector de la Orden Franciscana (OFM) y gobernador de Veroli (d. 1540)". Annals of Franciscan History, XCVI (2003); Weber, Christoph and Becker, Michael. Genealogien zur Papstgeschichte. 6 v. Stuttgart : Anton Hiersemann, 1999-2002. (Päpste und Papsttum, Bd. 29, 1-6), VI, 797.

Webgraphy. Biography by Hermenegildo Zamora Jambrina, O.F.M., DB~e, Diccionario Biográfico Español; biography by Livarius Oliger, in English, The Catholic Encyclopedia; biographies, in Spanish, Directorio Franciscano, Enciclopedia Franciscana; his image and biography, in Spanish, Wikipedia; biographical data, in Spanish, Biografías y Vidas, La Enciclopedia Biográfica en Línea; biography in English, Franciscan Authors, 13th - 18th Century: A Catalog in Progress, by Maarten van der Heijden and Bert Roes; biography, in Spanish, Los Barrios de Luna, León, España; biography by Livarius Oliger, in Spanish, EC Wikie, Enciclopedia Católica on Line; essay, in Spanish, on the date of his birth by Mr. Francisco Vázquez, Valencia, Spain; his sepulchral monument by Jacopo Tatti, called Sansovino, basilica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome, Requiem Datenbank; Los Señores de a Fortaleza de Luna, in Spanish.

(1) This is according to Guitarte, Episcopologio Español (1500-1699), p. 42; his biographical data in Spanish, linked above; his second biography in English, also linked above; García, "Quiñones, Francisco de los Angeles." Diccionario de historia eclesiástica de España, III, 2038; and "Quiñones (Francisco de)." Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana. 70 vols. Madrid : Espasa-Calpe, 1958, c1907?-1930, XLVIII, 1407; his first biography in English, linked above; and his biography in Spanish, linked above; and his biographical profile in Spanish, linked above, say that he was born ca. 1482; Meseguer Fernández, J. "Quiñones, Francisco". Gran Enciclopedia Rialp. 24 vols. Madrid : Ediciones Rialp, 1979, XIX, 570, says that he was born in 1480 in León?.
(2) Among them was Father Juan Juárez, who later became the first bishop within the present territory of the United States; according to Zephyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M., "Florida's first bishop, Rt. Rev. Juan Juarez, O.F.M." (The Catholic Historical Review, IV, 1918-1919), 479-485, he arrived in México in 1524 and was guardian of the convent of Huexocingo, near Puebla; he returned to Spain in 1526 to bring more missionaries and was named commissary of the friars who were to go in the expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez to Florida. Emperor Charles V named him bishop of Florida and Río de las Palmas, Pánuco; the appointment gave him full episcopal jurisdiction over the territory claimed by Spain north of the Gulf of México; the confirmation of the appointment by Rome did not arrive before the expdition left and Fr. Juárez did not receive the episcopal consecration but had the episcopal jurisdiction; he arrived in Florida on April 14, 1528; the expeditionaries started the journey to México by land from the west coast of Florida on May 1, 1528; all but four of the members died in the trip, including the bishop-designate.
(3) According to Cardella, Memorie storiche de' cardinali della Santa Romana Chiesa, IV, 100, this consistory took place on December 7, 1527, or more probably in 1528 in Viterbo.
(4) The title of the new breviary was Breviarium Romanum ex Sacra potissimum Scriptura et probatis sanctorum historiis collectum et concinnatum and its first edition appeared in 1535; it was revised in 1536; it had over 100 editions in spite of strong criticism by La Sorbonne University and the fathers of the Council of Trent; its general use was prohibited by the Holy See on August 10, 1556 and it was finally suppressed on July 9, 1568. The reformed breviary was only for private recitation by the secular clergy; it was also adopted by some cathedral chapters; it suppressed almost entirely the choral sections of the Divine Office (antiphons, versicles, responsories, etc.); distributed the psalms weekly in order to avoid repetition of its recitation and to allow the use of the entire psalter; arranged the matines in only one nocturn with three psalms and three lections, ordered the latter in a form that Holy Scripture could be read in its entirety during the liturgical year. The work had an impact on the English Book of Common Prayer.
(5) This is the text of the inscription on his tomb transcribed by Ferdinando Ughelli, Cist., in his addition to Chacón, Vitæ, et res gestæ Pontificvm Romanorum et S. R. E. Cardinalivm, II, col. 1467: FRANCISCVS. QUIGNONES. CARDINALIS. S. CRVCIS. DE. MORTE. ET. RESVRRECTIONE. COGITANS. VIVENS. SIBI. POSVIT. ESPECTO. DONEC. VENIAT. IMMVTATIO. MEA.

       This is the inscription on his monument in the basilica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome, taken from the photograph linked above:

FRANCISCVS ­ QVIGNONIUS ­ TIT ­ S ­ CRVCIS
IN ­ HIERVSALEM ­ S ­ R ­ E ­ PRESBYTER ­ CARDINALIS
NATIONE ­ HISPANVS ­ PATRIA ­ LEGIONENSIS
SANCTISSIMO ­ CHRISTI ­ CORPORI ­ DICAVIT
ANNO     MDXXVI     KAL IVLI

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