AGUZZONI, (UGUCCIONI), FRANCESCO

AGUZZONI (UGUCCIONI), FRANCESCO. — Cardinal, born in Urbino, doctor of canon and civil law. He was appointed Bishop of Faenza in 1378 by Urban VI, who in 1380 sent him as nuncio to Castile and Aragon (Reg. Vatic., vol. 310, ff. 223, 279, 283). A report to the commissioners of the King of Aragon survives, in which he sets out the true causes of the Great Western Schism, which had broken out two years earlier, namely the opposition of the cardinals to the reforms of Urban VI and their nationalist blindness (Bibl. Vatic., cod. 4927, ed. L. Pastor, in Ungedruckte Akten zur Geschichte der Papste, I: 1376–1464, Freiburg in Br. 1904, pp. 10–15). Perhaps in reward for his services in Urban’s favour and against the Avignon antipope as nuncio, Urban VI transferred him in 1383 to the see of Benevento and shortly afterwards (28 Aug. 1384) to that of Bordeaux. Innocent VII created him cardinal with the title of Ss. Quattro Coronati on 12 July 1405. Yet three years later (1408) he deserted Gregory XII, Innocent’s successor, to join the group of cardinals who sought the resignation of both popes, the Roman and the Avignonese. Gregory XII deposed him, together with the other rebel cardinals, on 28 Sept. of that year. He took part in the Council of Pisa, where the schism was not ended but widened by the election of Alexander V (1409). He died on 14 July or 6 Aug. 1412.