Alessandro Albani (15 October 1692 – 11 December 1779) was a Roman Catholic cardinal remembered as a leading collector of antiquities, dealer and art patron in Rome.
As a cardinal (from 1721) he furthered the interests of the governments of Austria, Savoy and Britain against those of France and Spain; he was a noted jurist and papal administrator in his earlier career.
He used both ancient and modern art as a form of cultural capital," Seymour Howard observed,[3] "giving away acquisitions as favours and selling them for perpetually needed funds or when they lost efficacy for him."
Among the works of modern artists that passed through his hands was the album of drawings by Carlo Maratti that was sold in 1763 to George III and is conserved in the Royal Collection.
[5] His worldly manner and his sympathy with the Hanoverian party in Britain[6]- (Clement kept the Stuart pretender as his perennial guest in Rome) was exemplified by his friendship with Baron Philipp von Stosch, who shared many of Alessandro Albani's interests, and his correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, the British envoy at Florence,[7] who caused Clement many occasions of concern.
Albani's 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, to which the papacy had long-standing feudal pretensions.
Accords were finalised in 1727 during the pontificate of Pope Benedict XIII, for which Vittorio Amedeo expressed his gratitude to Cardinal Alessandro with a rich abbacy and the title of "Protector of the Kingdom".
Building began in 1751 according to Giuseppe Vasi and celebrated as complete in 1763,[8] to house his evolving, constantly replaced and renewed collections of antiquities and ancient Roman sculpture, which soon filled the casino that faced the Villa down a series of formal parterres.
Cardinal Alessandro Albani had another villa and park at Porto d'Anzio, that was finished in February 1732,[10] but was habitable for a few weeks only in spring because of malaria.