Roman Catholic Cardinal. A native of Rieti, Nicola Canali was the son of a marquis and a countess. Moving to Rome to further his studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Roman Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, Canali was ordained priest there in March 1900. Appointed member of the staff of secretariat of State and secretary to Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val on September 1, 1903, in the years which followed he was named substitute at the secretariat of State and secretary of Ciphering on March 21, 1908, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Ceremonies on September 24, 1914, and assessor of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office on September 15, 1926. Pope Pius XI created him cardinal deacon in the consistory of December 16, 1935, receiving the deaconry of San Nicola in Carcere three days later. Appointed president of the Pontifical Commission for the State of Vatican City on March 20, 1939 and cardinal protector of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem on July 16, 1940, Pope Pius XII named him grand master of the order on December 25, 1949, a post which he occupied until his death. Named major penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary on October 15, 1941, and cardinal protodeacon in November 1946, in virute of this position, he announced Pope John XXIII election to the world and later crowned him in 1958. Grand prior commendatario in Rome of the Sacred and Sovereign Military Order of Malta and camerlengo of the Sacred College of Cardinals between March 16, 1950 until May 28, 1951, Cardinal Canali succumbed to pneumonia inside his Vatican apartment and was interred in the church of the Sant'Onofrio on the Janiculum Hill, under the care of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. By the time of his death, Canali was the last living Cardinal who was never consecrated bishop. Less than a year after his death, Pope John issued the motu proprio 'Cum gravissima' providing that all cardinals should receive the episcopal consecration.