CALLISTUS III, Pope. - Alfonso di Borgia (Borja), b. at Canals near Xàtiva (Valencia) on 31 Dec. 1378, studied at the University of Lérida in Catalonia, where he received a doctorate in both laws and then a canonry from Benedict XIII (Peter of Luna) and many favors from King Alfonso of Aragon, whose wise counselor he was. Having broken with that obstinate antipope, together with the king, in the wake of the trial at the Council of Constance, he intrepidly defended the cause of Pope Martin V. Twenty years later, as a reward for a successful legation between the shrewd King Alfonso and Pope Eugene IV, finally recognized by the former against the antipope Felix V, he obtained the cardinal's hat, which he bore with the utmost dignity, and in the Conclave of Apr. 1455 he succeeded Nicholas V under the name of C. III.
Three principal questions occupy this pontificate: the Crusade against the Turks, the defense of the Papal State chiefly against King Alfonso of Naples, and the maintenance of Catholic doctrine. It is above all the first aspect that more than any other distinguishes the pontificate of C. III. He was not a great patron of the arts and sciences, like his predecessor; but neither can he be called an enemy of the humanists. To Pope Borgia, who had lived in an environment of seven centuries of struggle against the Crescent, everything that did not serve to ward off the Turkish threat, made more dangerous by Mehmed II, seemed of no account. Moreover, there was no lack of grounds for grave concern. On 29 May 1453 Constantinople had fallen under Turkish power, and the fear of all Christian nations was extreme, for they now saw the routes to the West open and the conquest of the Catholic countries easy. Mehmed indeed proposed to attack Hungary at once. Faced with so tremendous a threat, C. III had emitted a public and solemn oath to employ all his forces, and if necessary even his life, in the struggle against the Turks, until they should be vanquished and the road to the Holy Land opened. He set about preaching a Crusade, sending cardinals and other legates to the principal princes of Europe to form a Christian league, and he appointed as preachers of the great enterprise the Franciscans Giovanni da Capestrano and Giacomo della Marca, the celebrated orator Roberto da Lecce and still others. But the great powers did not listen to him; Venice and Genoa wanted peace with the Porte; from other nations little could be hoped. The aged Pontiff, however, was not dismayed, and having fitted out a fleet at his own expense, he entrusted it to Card. Trevisan, while he encouraged the individual Crusaders. To him is due in part the double victory, naval and land, of Belgrade obtained in July 1456 by the three Johns, that is the warrior Hunyadi, the legate Carvajal and the saint of Capestrano. C. wished to exploit that great triumph, but unfortunately the internal divisions of Hungary and the death of the two heroes, G. Hunyadi and G. da Capestrano, prevented any success in central Europe, and the Pope had to content himself with helping Scanderbeg, invited as chief of the Albanian Catholics, and the Genoese defenders of the Crimea, while he did not cease to spur the king of Castile to vanquish the Moors of Granada.
If C. gave too much influence to the "Catalans" in the government of the Papal State, it must be recognized that he kept his authority firm before all, procuring a sincere understanding with the other lords of the peninsula, also in order to avoid internal wars capable of diminishing the Crusade against the Turk. For this reason he willingly responded to the call of the Republic of Siena, invaded by the discontented Count Piccinino, sending the crusading army against the audacious condottiere. But since the excommunicated warrior was protected by King Alfonso of Naples, a clash arose between the latter and the Pope. Moreover, the old friendship between the two had cooled considerably since the time of C.'s election, the latter showing himself a defender of the rights of the Church over the Neapolitan kingdom and Alfonso claiming to rule it on his own account and to extend his hegemony over the other Italian States. Yet, since the Pope needed that king for the outcome of the Crusade, he tolerated many abuses; but when Alfonso's ill will later became clear, and, on the other hand, C. refusing the renewal of the investiture of Naples, Terracina and Benevento, as well as the recognition of a possible succession of the bastard Ferrante, matters came almost to a rupture.
Great was C.'s zeal for the preservation and propagation of Catholic doctrine, and to his prudence it is due that certain currents caused by the "Pragmatic Sanction" and by the anti-papal decrees of the Council of Basel did not become more pronounced in France and chiefly in Germany. The situation of Catholics in Bohemia was most delicate, through the fault of the Hussites, especially when in 1457 the Utraquist George Poděbrady obtained the throne. The Pope sought to win him over by means of his legate Card. Carvajal, and in truth the king kept his word during C.'s pontificate not to favor heretics and schismatics; unfortunately things changed under Pius II.
He died on 6 Aug. 1458, the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, which he had instituted. His body rests in a poor tomb in the church of S. Maria di Monserrato in Rome. His memory would perhaps be more venerated had he not called too many Borgia relatives to Rome, among them his nephew Rodrigo, created cardinal by him in 1456, and later become Alexander VI.