The College of Cardinals was divided into three factions: a Spanish one (17 Cardinals headed by cardinals Sforza and Madruzzo), a French one (16 cardinals, led by Ippolito d'Este, de Guise) and an "Italian" one (14 cardinals gathered around Carlo Carafa and Alessandro Farnese).
For Carlo Carafa, choosing the new pope was literally a matter of life and death and so he mainly used the conclave to obtain guarantees that he and his relatives would not be punished for their abuses.