BAKÓCZ, TAMÁS. - Cardinal, primate of Hungary, archbishop of Esztergom, b. in 1442 at Erdőd to a serf, d. at Esztergom in 1521. A brother of his who was a parish priest had him educated first in his homeland and then at Ferrara and Padua, where he obtained the title of doctor. Having returned to Hungary, he became secretary of the bishop of Eger, the Italian Gabriele Rangoni; then, thanks to his humanistic culture, he entered the good graces of King Matthias, who appointed him first his secretary and then his counsellor. In 1490 he was raised to the rank of chancellor by Ladislaus II. Taking advantage of the illness and weakness of this king, B. was the true ruler of the country, so much so that the Venetian ambassadors at Buda called him, in their reports, "the second king of the country." He was one of the greatest statesmen of his time, and Venice, the emperor and almost all the European sovereigns vied for his support. His greatest diplomatic victory was that of reconciling the emperor with the Pope and with Venice in order to fight the Turks. In 1492 B. obtained the bishopric of Eger; in 1498 he persuaded Ippolito d'Este to exchange with him the archbishopric of Esztergom, the primatial see of Hungary. In 1500, through the intervention of Venice, he was appointed cardinal and in 1507 patriarch of Constantinople. He was the only Hungarian cardinal to be once seriously papabile: a shrewd man of great aspirations, in the Conclave held after the death of Julius II he was one of the most dangerous adversaries of Giovanni de' Medici, because of his ability, his wealth and the support given him by the Most Serene Republic. Leo X appointed him legate for the whole of north-eastern Europe and by a bull authorized him to begin the preparations for a crusade against the Turks. The crusade was in fact proclaimed on 16 Apr. 1514, but it degenerated into a revolt of Hungarian peasants against the magnates. With the death of Ladislaus II the influence of B. finally waned.
Bibliography4 works
Alessandro Alessandrini