Francesco Ragonesi

infobox cardinalstyles
cardinal name=Francesco Cardinal Ragonesi| dipstyle=His Eminence
offstyle=Your Eminence
See=Mira (titular see)|"His Most Reverend Eminence" Francesco Cardinal Ragonesi S.T.D. J.U.D. (21 December 1850 - 14 September 1931) was a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and was former Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

Francesco Ragonesi was born in Bagnaia, Italy. He was educated at the seminary of Viterbo, and later at the Pio-Roman Seminary, and at the Pontifical Roman Athenaeum "S. Apollinare", where he earned doctorates in philosophy, theology and a "doctorate utroque iuris" (in both canon and civil law).

Priesthood

He was ordained and worked in the diocese of Viterbo where he did pastoral work and for twenty-five years served as a professor of history and Scripture in its seminary as well as being being vicar capitular in the diocese. Between 1885 and 1904 he was vicar general. He was created Domestic prelate of His Holiness on 12 June 1889. He was appointed as Apostolic delegate and extraordinary envoy to Colombia on 7 September 1904; during his delegation, he favored the opening of the Panama Canal in that country.

Episcopate

He was appointed as titular archbishop of Mira on 16 September 1904 by Pope Pius X. He was consecrated on September 25 by Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val, Cardinal Secretary of State. He served as Nuncio in Spain with faculties of legate a latere from 1913 until 1921.

Cardinalate

He was created Cardinal-Priest of "San Marcello" in the consistory of 7 March 1921 by Pope Benedict XV. He participated in the conclave of 1922 that elected Pope Pius XI. He was appointed as Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura by Pope Pius on 9 March 1926.

Death

He died in 1931, in the mother-house of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Poggio a Caiano, Pistoia, where he had gone to recover his health. He is buried, at the Campo di Verano cemetery, Rome.