The papal conclave of March–April 1605 was convened on the death of Pope Clement VIII and ended with the election of Alessandro de' Medici as Pope Leo XI on 1 April 1605. It was the first of two papal conclaves in 1605, with Leo dying on 27 April 1605, twenty-six days after he was elected, and the papal conclave to elect his successor being held in May. The conclave saw conflict regarding whether Cesare Baronius should be elected pope, and Philip III of Spain, the Spanish king, excluded both Baronius and the eventually successful candidate, Medici. Philip's exclusion of Medici was announced by Cardinal Ávila after his election to the papacy, and the other cardinals did not view it as valid since Medici had already been elected pope.
Pope Nicholas II had reserved the right to elect the pope to the cardinal bishops, priests, and deacons of Rome in 1059. The cardinal bishops were the highest rank, being the bishops of the ancient suburbicarian dioceses, the priests ranked next, who served as the titular head of historically important churches in Rome, and last ranked the cardinal deacons, who were nominally assigned one of the ancient diaconia where traditionally deacons had administered the temporal property of the Church of Rome. Cardinals were required to have been ordained at least to the rank of their order within the College of Cardinals, but could also be ordained to a higher order as well.
In 1586, Pope Sixtus V mandated that the maximum number of cardinals would be seventy. Of these, the College of Cardinals had sixty-nine total members at the time of Clement VIII's death, but only sixty were present for the first conclave of 1605 when it opened, and sixty-one total electors were present for the election of Leo XI. The electors present had been created by six different popes: Pius IV, Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, Gregory XIV, Innocent IX, and Clement VIII. Of these, Clement's creations were the most numerous, having created thirty-eight of the cardinal electors. Innocent IX had created one of the conclave's electors, Gregory XIV had created five, Sixtus V had created eleven, Gregory XIII had created four, and Pius IV had created one.
Pietro Aldobrandini, the cardinal-nephew of Clement VIII, was the elector who controlled the largest number of votes with twenty-two of Clement's thirty-eight creations following his instructions. Alessandro Peretti di Montalto, the nephew of Sixtus V, controlled eight votes. Thirteen of the cardinal electors were loyal to the Spanish monarchy, and these electors and the faction loyal to Montalto were aligned. In addition to these groups, eight of the electors formed a faction that were loyal to the French crown.
List of cardinal electors
Name RankCreated cardinal by NationalitySourcesTolomeo GallioBishop Pius IV ItalianAlessandro Ottaviano de' Medici Bishop Gregory XIII ItalianFrançois de Joyeuse Bishop Gregory XIII FrenchDomenico Pinelli Bishop Sixtus VItalianGirolamo BernerioBishop Sixtus VItalianAgostino Valier Priest Gregory XIII ItalianAntonio Maria Gallo Priest Sixtus V Italian Antonmaria Sauli Priest Sixtus V Italian Benedetto Giustiniani Priest Sixtus V Italian Giovanni Evangelista Pallotta Priest Sixtus V Italian Federico Borromeo Priest Sixtus V Italian Francesco Maria del Monte Priest Sixtus V Italian Gregorio Petrocchini Priest Sixtus V Italian Priest Sixtus V Italian Paolo Emilio Sfondrati Priest Gregory XIV Italian Ottavio Paravicini Priest Gregory XIV Italian Ottavio Acquaviva d'Aragona Priest Gregory XIV ItalianPriest Gregory XIV Italian Priest Innocent IX Italian Pietro AldobrandiniPriest Clement VIII ItalianFrancesco Maria Tarugi Priest Clement VIII Italian Ottavio Bandini Priest Clement VIII Italian Anne d'Escars de Givry Priest Clement VIII French Giovanni Francesco Biandrate di San Giorgio AldobrandiniPriest Clement VIII Italian Camillo BorghesePriest Clement VIII Italian Caesar Baronius Priest Clement VIII Italian Lorenzo Bianchetti Priest Clement VIII Italian Priest Clement VIII Spanish Francesco Mantica Priest Clement VIII Italian Pompeio Arrigoni Priest Clement VIII Italian Bonifazio Bevilacqua Aldobrandini Priest Clement VIII Italian Alfonso Visconti Priest Clement VIII Italian Domenico Toschi Priest Clement VIII Italian Girolamo Agucchi Priest Clement VIII ItalianPriest Clement VIII Italian Franz von Dietrichstein Priest Clement VIII German Robert Bellarmine Priest Clement VIII Italian François de Sourdis Priest Clement VIII French Séraphin Olivier-Razali Priest Clement VIII French Filippo Spinelli Priest Clement VIII Italian Carlo ContiPriest Clement VIII Italian Carlo Gaudenzio Madruzzo Priest Clement VIII German Jacques Davy Duperron Priest Clement VIII French Innocenzo del Bufalo-Cancellieri Priest Clement VIII Italian Giovanni Delfino Priest Clement VIII Italian Giacomo Sannesio Priest Clement VIII ItalianGirolamo Pamphili Priest Clement VIII Italian Ferdinando Taverna Priest Clement VIII Italian Anselmo Marzato Priest Clement VIII Italian Erminio Valenti Priest Clement VIII ItalianFrancesco Sforza Deacon Gregory XIII Italian Alessandro Peretti di Montalto Deacon Sixtus V ItalianOdoardo Farnese Deacon Gregory XIV Italian Cinzio Passeri Aldobrandini Deacon Clement VIII Italian Bartolomeo Cesi Deacon Clement VIII Italian Andrea Baroni Peretti Montalto Deacon Clement VIII Italian Alessandro d'Este Deacon Clement VIII ItalianGiovanni Battista Deti Deacon Clement VIII Italian Deacon Clement VIII Italian Giovanni Andrea Doria Deacon Clement VIII Italian Carlo Emanuele Pio di Savoia Deacon Clement VIII Italian
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