Church Politics in Seventeenth-Century Rome highlights the career of Cardinal Decio Azzolino of Fermo (1623-89), one of the most influential figures in the papal administration of his day. From the 1640's he was active within the Secretariat of State, eventually heading this department at the Roman Curia in the late 1660's. He was also the leader of the Squadrone Volante, a faction in the College of Cardinals which promoted the political neutrality of the Papacy in relation to the Catholic sovereign states as a means of strengthening a debilitated papal authority. Queen Christina of Sweden was the royal patron of this small faction, which was active between 1655 and ca. 1676. Finally, Azzolino was a prolific author of politico-ecclesiastical and historical treatises. This biography traces the major phases in Azzolino's career while seeking to describe the role and influence of the Roman cardinals, the Catholic Church's administrative elite, in the Baroque era.

Marie-Louise Roden was educated at the University of Chicago and at Princeton University, where she received a Ph. D. in 1992. From 1989 to 1999 she was a lecturer and researcher at the Department of History, Stockholm University. She is currently Associate Professor of History in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Kristianstad University, Sweden.