ALBERTO III di BAVIERA-MONACO (ALBRECHT), called the Pious. — He died on 1 March 1460 in Munich. The eldest son of Duke Ernesto, in his youth he was very warlike and distinguished himself first in the struggles waged against his cousin Luigi il Barbuto, Duke of Baviera-Ingolstadt, and against the nobility, also running serious risks; and then, above all, in the struggle against the Hussites, who threatened Upper Palatinate and had penetrated into the province of Straubing. He took part in the great crusade promoted against them in 1427 and was in that army which fled so ignominiously before the enemy, and in which Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini was also present. Much has been debated as to whether his relationship with the daughter of a barber from Augsburg, Agnese Bernauerin, was legitimized by a clandestine marriage: what is certain is that his father, Duke Ernesto, jealous that the Baviera-Monaco line should die out with his son, rid him of her by having her drowned in the Danube. Later, having married Anna of Brunswick (1436) and become duke (1438), he came very close to succeeding Alberto II in the kingdom of Bohemia and Hungary, having been elected by the Bohemian Estates to succeed him on that throne; but he took time to reflect and finally renounced it in favor of the posthumous son of the deceased king. For this act of magnanimity, Alberto is highly praised by Enea Silvio Piccolomini. Turning to the government of his
State, he proved prudent and moderate. He was an excellent prince: he founded churches and monasteries (the famous Andechs, a Benedictine monastery, with the burial place of the ducal house), and promoted the monastic reform of Tegernsee, in collaboration with the papal legate, Cardinal Nicola di Cusa.