Raffaele Riario

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Raffaele Riario (May 3, 1451 - july 9, 1521), was a Roman Catholic Cardinal. he was a famous patron of the arts

Biography

Riario was born in Savona (then part of the Republic of Genoa), a son of Violante Riario and Antonio Sansoni, who preferred to take the surname of his mother, for the connection to Pope Sixtus IV. The latter made him a cardinal in 1477 and bestowed on him numerous disceses (Cuneo, Pisa, Salamanca, Treguier and Osma).

Riario was compromised in the Pazzi conspiracy and a later one against the Medici pope, Leo X that was organized by cardinal Alfonso Petrucci in 1517, for which he had to stand trial. It was Cardinal Riario who called Michelangelo to Rome. He had bought from a Roman banker a sculpture of Cupid that was being passed off as a Roman antique, but which riario recognized as a fake, but tracked down the brilliant young sculptor who had produced it. Riario's headquarters were in an old palazzo belonging to Pope Martin V (1417-1431), which he partially refurbished in 1470s and 1480s, and passed to Cardinal Giuliano Della Rovere (later Pope Julius II); it was rebuilt as Palazzo Colonna.

He died in Naples as bishop of Ostia.

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