He was the formal protector of Rome's artists as patron of the Accademia di San Luca and was a powerful advocate for his favourites. Among the works of modern artists that passed through his hands was the album of drawings by Carlo Maratti that was sold in 1763 to George III and is conserved in the Royal Collection. His worldly manner and his sympathy with the Hanoverian party in Britain- (Clement kept the Stuart pretender as his perennial guest in Rome) was exemplified by his friendship with Baron Philipp von Stosch, who shared many of Alessandro Albani's interests, and his correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, the British envoy at Florence, who caused Clement many occasions of concern. Named papal envoy, with his brother Cardinal Carlo, to Bologna to welcome King Frederick IV of Denmark, he was sent in 1720 to Vienna in an attempt to retain Papal territorial rights in the duchy of Parma and Piacenza, recently awarded to Charles de Bourbon, and to conclude the negotiations for the restitution of Comacchio, in the possession of Habsburg troops since 1707. Sir Horace Mann, a close correspondant with Horace Walpole in England at the request of the Cardinal, arranged for John Chute of 'The Vyne' in Hampshire, who was enjoying the Grand Tour, to spy on the Jacobites, who were in Rome making their plans for an invasion of England from Scotland. Information he collected was passed to Albani and then sent to England. Albani's accommodating manner suited him for diplomatic tasks, such as the successful negotiations with Vittorio Amedeo II over conflicting rights of nomination and investiture, aggravated by the acquisition by the House of Savoy of Sardinia, to which the papacy had long-standing feudal pretensions. Accords were finalised in 1727 during the pontificate of Pope Benedict XIII, for which Vittorio Amedeo expressed his gratitude to Cardinal Alessandro with a rich abbacy and the title of "Protector of the Kingdom". Within the Papal Curia, however, the party of the zelanti considered the terms of the accords too generous. Tensions increased with the accession of Pope Clement XII, who was unsympathetic to Savoy. When a new concordat was arrived at in 1741, Alessandro Albani signed on the part of Savoy. As a cardinal Albani participated in the conclaves of 1724, 1730, 1740, 1758, 1769, and 1774-1775. He announced the elections of Pope Clement XIII (1758), Pope Clement XIV (1769) and Pope