Francesco Vitelli was of the line of Vitelli who had been rich merchants of Città di Castello, who made themselves masters of the town in the early fourteenth century, after civic confrontations with the rival Guelfucci of Brancaleone, and henceforward wielded political and military influence disproportionate to their small territory.
[2] He was in Rome in 1625, where he was appointed a member of the Sacra Consulta, the Congregation of the Boundaries and a votary in the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.
Having thus attained a position of extreme importance, he was appointed commissioner several times: in 1630, to deal with the plague that threatened the Church State and in 1632 to act as diplomat between Ferrara and the Republic of Venice.
[3] In 1643 Pope Urban VIII Barberini appointed him one of four prelati di fiocchetto, with the right to ornament the harness of their horses with violet and peacock-coloured feathers, as honorary Governor of Rome.
[4] Vitelli was a man of great culture, authoring a number of political and historical treatises, also taking care of translating some works and protecting some writers.