ALBERGATI, Niccolò, Blessed. - Cardinal, b. in Bologna in 1375 to Pier Nicola, of a noble local family, d. in Siena on 9 May 1443. In 1395, after having been enrolled at the Studium, he embraced the Carthusian religious life, at St. Jerome of Casara, where in June 1404 he became a priest. Elected in 1407 prior of the same charterhouse in his city, he was in 1412 visitor of the monasteries of Italy, and worked for the reunion of the Order under a single obedience. On 4 Jan. 1417, by acclamation of the council of the Six Hundred and and the subsequent confirmation of the chapter, he was designated bishop of Bologna. Ratified by the metropolitan of Ravenna, the election was confirmed the following year by the new pontiff Martin V.
In the diocese he vigorously undertook the reform of the clergy and the people, and induced the Commune to restore the episcopal lands of Cento and della Pieve. Entrusted by his fellow citizens with negotiating with the Pontiff concerning the political condition of Bologna with regard to the Holy See, he obtained agreed chapters, by means of which the rights and franchises of the Commune were determined, in exchange for the recognition of pontifical sovereignty (Jan.-Feb. 1419). When the city rebelled in 1420, the bishop interposed himself once again to restore obedience, which was nevertheless not re-established except by arms (July 1420). In 1422, in the capacity of legate "a latere", he was sent by Martin V to France to conduct peace negotiations between that nation and England, which had been at war for many years; and he labored in that mission until Feb. 1423. In May 1426 he received the appointment as cardinal of the title of S. Croce in Gerusalemme. In Sept. of the same year he was entrusted with another political legation, aimed at procuring peace in Italy by quelling the discords among the Milanese, Venetians and Florentines; and he succeeded in the endeavor, through numerous journeys and negotiations, persuading the belligerents to a settlement (May 1428). Having returned to Bologna, he tried in vain to avert a new revolutionary uprising, which indeed broke out on 1 Aug. 1428; when the pontifical governor Cardinal Aleman was imprisoned, he himself was forced to leave the city, to which he returned in Sept. 1429, only to depart from it not long afterward. He was then appointed pontifical legate (Jan. 1431) to negotiate the agreement of Bologna with the Church and to settle new disputes between the Venetians on one side and the Visconti on the other. Eugenius IV, who succeeded Martin V in March 1431, confirmed him in that mission; which was nevertheless interrupted by another. In July 1431, in fact, he was sent again to France, to resume negotiations between the French and the English. He had repeated meetings with Charles VII of France and Henry VI of England and their ambassadors and arranged subsequent congresses for peace at Auxerre, at Seine-Port and at Corbeille; but his efforts, prolonged for two years, were not crowned with success. By order of the Pope he therefore left France, and repaired to the Council of Basel, to assume its presidency in the name of the Apostolic See (Sept. 1433): before that turbulent assembly, A. courageously upheld the rights of the Roman Pontiff. Having rejoined Eugenius IV at Florence, where the latter had withdrawn because of the rebellion of the Romans, he received from him some months later, once again, the mission of legate in France, for the congress of Arras (Aug. 1435), at which the reconciliation between the two Christian Western nations was again treated in vain. What was instead obtained was that between the duke of Burgundy and the king of France, chiefly through the merit of A. Who, having returned to Florence, was a short time later invested with a new legation for the Council of Basel; but, despite the efforts he exerted there (Apr.-May 1436), he could not overcome the obstinacy of the conciliar members, stubborn in their anti-Roman resistance.
In this harsh doctrinal struggle, he continued to assist Eugenius IV, by whom in Jan. 1438 he was appointed president of the Council transferred to Ferrara; and in large measure to his labors is attributed the victory that the doctrine of the primacy won there. After a last mission beyond the Alps, to preside over the diet of the German princes at Nuremberg (Oct. 1438), he returned to Florence, the new seat of the council. From there, in March 1443, he set out for Rome, in the retinue of Eugenius IV on his return journey; but, having arrived at Siena, he was seized by the final crisis of the stone disease from which he suffered; shortly afterward he died there, holily closing his austere and laborious life, spent entirely in the apostolic ministry and in faithful service of the Holy See. The Supreme Pontiff himself wished to take part in the solemn funeral. The body was transported to Florence and buried in that charterhouse of Monte Acuto. A. enjoyed widespread fame for sanctity among his contemporaries; but the processes, drawn up in 1651-52, did not reach completion, for extraneous causes. Resumed through the solicitude of the Bolognese Benedict XIV, beatification was reached on 25 Sept. 1744.
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