Francesco Maria Sforza Pallavicino or Pallavicini SJ (28 November 1607 – 4 June 1667), was an Italian cardinal, philosopher, theologian, literary theorist, and church historian.

A professor of philosophy and theology at the Roman College and a fixture of important academies such as the Accademia dei Lincei and the Academy of Prince Maurice of Savoy, Pallavicino was the author of several highly influential philosophical and theological treatises (praised among others by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Benedetto Croce and Eugenio Garin) and of a well-known history of the Council of Trent that remained authoritative until the late 19th century.

He was elected Member of the Accademia degli Umoristi and became friends with the poet Virginio Cesarini and with some of the most prominent personalities of italian baroque, including Agostino Mascardi, Fulvio Testi, John Barclay and Giulio Strozzi.

[7] An ardent supporter of Galileo, on 27 January 1629 Pallavicino became a Member of the Accademia dei Lincei, together with Lucas Holstenius and Pietro della Valle.

[10] According to Pietro Redondi Pallavicino played a part in delaying, or deflecting, Orazio Grassi's attack against the atomistic argument in Galileo's Assayer.

[14] In 1643, when John de Lugo was made a cardinal, Pallavicino succeeded him in the chair of theology,[15] a position he held until 1651 while also fulfilling assignments for Pope Innocent X.

Sforza Pallavicino was a staunch opponent of Jansenism and a vocal supporter of the Jesuit theological tradition, and while he certainly did not oppose probabilism, which he taught in his earlier scholarly career, he did not condone its most radical outcomes either.

As the master of the Jesuit novitiate on the Quirinal Pallavicino was closely involved in planning the church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini from 1658 onwards.

The cardinal was a loyal protector of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's interests in Rome and with the French court, as well as mentor to his oldest son, Pietro Filippo.

[21] Owing to ill health Pallavicino could not participate in the conclave of 1667, which elected Pope Clement IX; he died in his room in the Jesuit house of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale on 5 June 1667, at the age of 59.

Pallavicino is chiefly known by his History of the Council of Trent, a harsh if well researched rebuttal to Paolo Sarpi's Istoria del Concilio Tridentino.

[22] In addition to these sources Pallavicino continued searching the vast holdings of the Roman archives for documentary materials relating to the Council of Trent.

[23] Fabio Chigi, an old friend of Pallavicino, gave him liberal access to the acts of the council and other important documents preserved in the Vatican Apostolic Archive.

It was appreciated even by Protestant scholars: Algernon Sidney, who knew Pallavicino at Rome, commends the work in a letter to his father, Lord Leicester.

[27] Pallavicino's History was translated into Latin by a fellow Jesuit, Giovanni Battista Giattini (Antwerp, 1670–1673), into French by Joseph-Epiphane Darras (Migne series, Paris, 1844–1845); into Spanish by Juan Nepomuceno Lobo, Antolín Monescillo, and Manuel M. Negueruela (Madrid, 1846) and into German by Theodor Friedrich Klitsche de la Grange (1835–1837).

His disdain for deus ex machina characters, personifications of moral and allegorical qualities, supernatural events, and asides, choruses and messengers as devices to provide information, fully represents his belief that the dramatist should build dramatic action on detailed and verisimilar situations.

[41] Pallavicino's treatise Del bene libri quattro, a dialogue in four books between prominent members of the Barberini circles (Rome 1644 and often reprinted), has been praised by the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce for its contribution to the development of modern aesthetics.

[45] Richard Cumberland in his treatise De legibus naturae disquisitio philosophica (London, 1672) borrowed a great deal from Pallavicino's Del bene.

His extensive network of correspondents included Fabio Chigi, the future Pope Alexander VII,[47] the scientist Carlo Roberto Dati,[48] and Philip IV's official historian Virgilio Malvezzi.

Affò’s life was picked up by Francesco Antonio Zaccaria (1714–1795), who included an expanded version of the biography in his edition of the Istoria del Concilio di Trento (1792–1797).

[50] Giordani emphasised the literary qualities of Pallavicino's work, positioning and comparing him to contemporaries such as Virgilio Malvezzi, Daniello Bartoli, Paolo Segneri, Giovanni Battista Doni and Galileo.

[51] Pallavicino was highly praised by Italy's leading historian of philosophy Eugenio Garin, who called him "one of the more lucid minds of the seventeenth century".

[52] When authors like Giovanni Getto, Carlo Calcattera, Guido Morburgo-Tagliabue, Franco Croce, Ezio Raimondi and Mario Costanzo reevaluated Italian baroque literature, Pallavicino's oeuvre emerged as a point of reference for the so called “moderate baroque”, authors who attempted to ground the formal innovations of poets like Giambattista Marino in a more reasoned and religiously inspired approach to literary invention.