Cicognani was born in
Brisighella to Guglielmo Cicognani and his wife Anna Ceroni. His brother,
Amleto, was born over a year later in 1883. To support Gaetano and his brother, their
widowed mother ran a
general store. Cicognani studied at the
seminary in
Faenza, and was
ordained to the
priesthood by Bishop
Gioacchino Cantagalli on 24 September 1904. He then went to
Rome to attend the
Pontifical Roman Athenaeum S. Apollinare and was, like his brother, summoned to the elite
Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy. After working in the
Roman Rota and
Apostolic Signatura, Cicognani taught at the
Pontifical Roman Seminary and later entered the
Secretariat of State in 1915. He became
secretary of the
Spanish nunciature on 1 February 1916, and a
privy chamberlain of his holiness on 9 March 1916. He was made
auditor of the nunciature to
Belgium on 3 February 1920. On 10 January 1925 Cicognani was appointed
Apostolic Internuncio to Bolivia and
Titular Archbishop of Ancyra. He received his
episcopal consecration on the following 1 February from Cardinal
Pietro Gasparri, with Archbishops Rafaello Rossi,
OCD, and Giovanni Zonghi serving as
co-consecrators, in the
chapel of the Pontifical
Collegio Pio-Latinoamericano in Rome. Archbishop Cicognani was later named
Apostolic Nuncio to Peru on 15 June 1928, to
Austria on 13 June 1936, and to
Spain on 16 May 1938. In April 1934, when Nuncio to Peru, he visited his brother, the
Apostolic Delegate to the United States, whom Gaetano had not seen in seven years.
Pope Pius XII created him
Cardinal-Priest of
Santa Cecilia in his second and last
consistory of 12 January 1953. Cardinal Cicognani returned to work in the
Roman Curia upon his appointment as
prefect of the
Congregation of Rites on 7 December of that same year. He was appointed as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura on 18 November 1954 and was one of the
cardinal electors who participated in the
1958 papal conclave that selected
Pope John XXIII. That December, his brother, Amleto, by a special
dispensation of
canon law, was also elevated to the
College of Cardinals. This law had so distressed Gaetano, as he felt it curbed his brother's career, that he once came close to tears when someone jokingly said "Because of you, your brother cannot become cardinal". On 14 December 1959 he was named
Cardinal Bishop of Frascati by Pope John. He died in Rome, at age 80, and is buried in the
collegiate church of
S. Michele in his native Brisighella. == References ==