Cardinal Mazarin

Cardinal Mazarin was chief minister of France during the minority of Louis XIV and a central political figure in seventeenth-century Europe. He continued Richelieu’s policies, managed war and diplomacy, and survived the Fronde, the aristocratic and parliamentary revolt against royal authority.

Cardinal Mazarin also held the offices or ranks of duke, Prime Minister of France, Roman Catholic Bishop of Metz, and papal vice-legate. Cardinal Mazarin belonged to the Mazzarino and operated within France; Kingdom of Naples. Cardinal Mazarin was born in Pescina and died in Vincennes.

In Umberto Eco’s The Island of the Day Before, Alone aboard the ship, Roberto reconstructs his earlier life during the Thirty Years’ War and his recruitment into Cardinal Mazarin’s search for a practical method of calculating longitude.