Melchior Klesl

His Eminence the Most Reverend

Melchior Cardinal Klesl
Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria della Pace
Melchior Klesl
ChurchCatholic Church
In office1624–1630
PredecessorAlessandro d'Este
SuccessorFabrizio Verospi
Orders
Consecration30 March 1614
by Placido della Marra

Melchior Klesl[1] (19 February 1552 – 18 September 1630) was an Austrian statesman and cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church during the time of the Counter-Reformation. He was minister-favourite of King and Emperor Matthias (1609-1618) and a leading advocate for peace between the empire's different confessional leagues before the Thirty Years' War.

Klesl was appointed Bishop of Vienna in 1602 and elevated to cardinal in December.

  1. ^ He used the spelling Khlesl himself in his German-language correspondence: Victor Bibl, Klesl's Briefe an K. Rudolfs II. Obersthofmeister Adam Freiherrn von Dietrichstein (1583-1589). Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte Klesl's und der Gegenreformation in Niederösterreich, in: Archiv für österreichische Geschichte 88 (1900) 473-580.