Agucchio, John Baptista

, archbishop of Amasia m Natolia, was born at Bologna, Nov. 20, 1570. He had the advantage of being educated under tfee care of Philip Sega, his uncle, who was raised on account of his distinguished merits to the rank of cardinal, by pope Innocent IX; and of Jerom Agucchio, his brother, who was made cardinal by pope Clement VIII. in 1604. His application to study mis early, rapid, and assiduous, but particularly in. the study of polite literature. This recommended him so much to cardinal Sega, that he carried him with him te France, when he went thither as legate from the pope. | After the death of Sega, Agucchio was appointed secretary to cardinal Aldobrandini, nephew to pope Clement VIII. and attended him when he went legate to Henry IV. of France, of which journey he wrote a very elegant account. The cardinal, after his return, committed the management of his house to Agucchio, which province he executed till the death of pope Clement VIII. and of his brother the cardinal Agucchio, when want of health obliged him to retire from the court. But after he had recovered, and had passed some time at Rome in learned retirement, cardinal Aldobrandini brought him again into his former employment, in which he continued till the cardinal’s death. He then became secretary to Gregory XV. which place he held until the death of that pontiff. In 1624, Urban VIII. sent him as nuncio to Venice, where he became generally esteemed, although he maintained the rights of the see of Rome with the utmost rigour. The contagious distemper which ravaged Italy in 1630, obliged him to retire to Friuli, where he died in 1632. He was a man of very extensive learning, but appears in his private character to have been somewhat austere and narrow. His works are: “A treatise upon Comets and Meteors,” “The Life of Cardinal Sega, and that of Jerom Agucchio his brother,” and a letter to the canon Barthelemi Dolcini on the origin of the city of Bologna, “L’Antica fondazione e dominio della citta di Bologna,” Bologna, 1638, 4to. He left also various letters and moral treatises, not published. ¹