Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle

Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (20 August 151721 September 1586), Comte de La Baume Saint Amour, was a Burgundian statesman, made a cardinal, who followed his father as a leading minister of the Spanish Habsburgs, and was one of the most influential European politicians during the time which immediately followed the appearance of Protestantism in Europe; "the dominating Imperial statesman of the whole century". He was also a notable art collector, the "greatest private collector of his time, the friend and patron of Titian and Leoni and many other artists". Biography He was born in the Free Imperial City of Besançon, now in France, then a self-governing city surrounded by the Imperial territory of the County of Burgundy (Franche-Comté). His father, Nicholas Perrenot de Granvelle (1484–1550), afterwards became chancellor of the empire under Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, held an influential position in the Netherlands, and from 1530 until his death he was one of the emperor's most trusted advisers in Germany. On the completion of his studies in law at Padua and in divinity at Leuven,