BALUZE, JEAN, a French cardinal who raised himself from a very mean station to dignity and honours. He became almoner to Louis XI., and eventually obtained the whole management of the government; but being detected in a treasonable correspondence with the Duke of Bourgogne, he was shut up by Louis in an iron cage eight feet square, a punishment he richly merited by his crimes. On his release, however, eleven years afterwards, he was loaded with honours by Sixtus IV. He died at Ancona in 1491.