Albani was born in
Urbino. His education at
La Sapienza University in Rome was towards a degree in
jurisprudence, but early in life he was prepared too for a military career. He was made an honorary member of the military brotherhood of justice of the
Knights of St. John, Rome, on
August 26, 1701, at the age of nine, and a colonel of a regiment of
dragoons in the pontifical troops, in 1707.
Albani was the nephew of
Pope Clement XI Albani, who convinced him to set aside his budding military career, for which the weakness of his eyesight, that led to blindness in his advanced age, did not recommend him, and become a cardinal, effected on
July 16, 1721, for which he required numerous special dispensations, not least because his brother
Annibale Albani had been made a cardinal in 1711 and still sat in the
Sacred College
Albani developed into one of the most astute antiquarians of his day, an arbiter of taste in the appreciation of
Roman sculpture, and "a powerful and enterprising collector of Roman antiquities and patron of the arts... He used both ancient and modern art as a form of cultural capital," Seymour Howard observed, "giving away acquisitions as favours and selling them for perpetually needed funds or when they lost efficacy for him."His first apprenticeship in this area was served under the papal antiquary and curator
Marcantonio Sabatini. He was the formal protector of Rome's artists as patron of the
Accademia di San luca and was a powerful advocate for his favourites.
His worldly and undisciplined customs, and his sympathy with the Hanoverian party in
Great Britain—whereas Clement kept
the Stuart pretender as his perennial guest in Rome— exemplified by his friendship with Baron
Philipp von Stosch, who shared many of Cardinal Albani's interests, caused Clement many occasions of concern. Named papal envoy, with his brother Cardinal
Carlo, to
Bologna to welcome King
Frederick IV of Denmark, he was sent in 1720 to
Vienna to uphold papal rights in the
duchy of Parma and Piacenza, recently awarded to
Charles de Bourbon, and to conclude the negotiations for the restitution of
Comacchio, in the possession of
Habsburg troops since 1707.
His accommodating manner suited him for diplomatic tasks, such as the successful negotiations with
Vittorio Amedeo II over conflicting rights of nomination and investiture, aggravated by the acquisition by the
House of Savoy of
Sardinia, over which the papacy had long-standing
feudal pretensions. Accords were finalized in 1727, for which Vittorio Amedeo thanked him with a rich abbacy and the title of "Protector of the Kingdom". Within the
Curia, however, the party of the
zelanti considered the accords too generous in their terms. Tensions increased with the pontificate of
Clement XII, unsympathetic to Savoia. When a new
concordat was arrived at in 1741, Albani signed on the part of Savoia.
As a cardinal he participated in the conclaves of 1724, 1730, 1740, 1758, 1769, and 1774-1775. His consistent stand against French interests brought him closer to those of the Habsburgs; Cardinal Albani represented Hapsburg Austria at the
Holy See, from 1756 until his death. He was appointed Librarian of the Holy Roman Church on
August 12, 1761.
From the time of the pontificate of
Pope Clement XIV he realigned himself with the
zelanti against the interference of the European monarchs in the diplomacy that surrounded the expulsion and
Suppression of the Jesuits from most Catholic countries.
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