Carlo Emanuele Madruzzo was an Italian Catholic bishop, prince bishop of Trento from 4 January 1629 to 1658. Born as Charles-Emmanuel de Madruce in 1599 in the Castle of Issogne, from the noble family of the Madruzzo, in his youth he studied grammar and rhetoric in Munich Bavaria and philosophy in Ingolstadt at the Jesuits, distinguished by the mild and pious character. Later he moved to Perugia to study law and remained there until 1619, when he was recalled to Trent where he was hired by his uncle cardinal Carlo Gaudenzio Madruzzo as coadjutor and successor.
In 1626 he was promoted to the priesthood. He ruled in a period of crisis for the Thirty Years' War and for the tensions between the Empire and the Papacy. It was the most discussed of the Madruzzo both for the escape during the pestilence of 1630 and for the scandalous relationship with Claudia Particella, daughter of one of her councilors.
In order to regularize his relationship with the noblewoman, he repeatedly tried to ask for the papal dispensation in order to legitimately marry Claudia: it is said that, in spite of the umpteenth refusal immediately, he slapped Pope Alexander VII.
The history of the relationship between the prince bishop of Trento Cardinal Carlo Emanuele Madruzzo and Claudia Particella was the subject of the historical novel The lover of the Cardinal written by Benito Mussolini in 1910; he went out in 57 non-consecutive episodes between January 20 and May 11, 1910 together with the socialist newspaper Il Popolo di Trento, a newspaper directed by Cesare Battisti.
It was his merit to have obtained in 1648 the partial autonomy of the bishop principality of Trent from Austria. He died suddenly on December 15, 1658.