Ferry Carondelet was born in
Mechelen,
Flanders, to a rich, bourgeois and influential family originally from
Dole. He grew up in
Burgundy, at the time a Habsburg province under Emperor
Maximilian I, and
matriculated at the
University of Franche-Comté, where he took
clerical orders. In 1504, he was named Archdeacon of the
Besançon church. In 1508 Ferry Carondelet became confessor (church advisor) to
Margaret of Austria, the
regent of the
Spanish Netherlands, and incidentally to her ward, the future
Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. In 1510, he was made
Papal Legate to the court of Emperor
Maximilian. In 1515, he returned to Burgundy and became the abbot of the abbey in
Montbenoît. Ferry Carondelet is known as a major benefactor of the Montbenoît abbey and the
cathedral in
Besançon. He commissioned the Italian painter
Fra Bartolomeo to create the
Carondelet Altar for Besançon, and he completely rebuilt the church for the Montbenoît abbey. He died on 27 June 1528 and is buried in a marble tomb in the Cathédrale Saint Jean in Besançon. ==References==