CESARINI, Giuliano. — Cardinal, born in 1398, he studied in Perugia and taught canon law in Padua (where his pupils included Nicolò di Cusa and Domenico Capranica). He was presented to Pope Martin V by Cardinal Branda, who, appreciating his outstanding qualities of mind and learning, created him cardinal on 24 May 1426 (though the appointment was not published until 1430). The same Martin V appointed him on 1 January 1431 as legate of the Apostolic See to direct the Crusade against the Hussites, and a month later designated him to preside over the Council of Basel.
It is well known that the Council had been convoked for July 1431, and that Pope Eugenius IV, in December of the same year, ordered its dissolution, suspecting among other things that the Basel assembly was following the conciliar and anti-papal tendencies of Constance. The Pope’s measure was in fact too precipitate and unjustified; on 13 January 1432, in a sincere and fervent letter, C. entreated the Pope to revoke the bull. Would not the Pope’s act have seemed to confirm the idea of a clergy always incorrigible? he wrote among other things; and the Pope did revoke the bull. Five years later, political circumstances (Emperor Sigismund supported the Council against the Pope) and the machinations of the Basel prelates rendered the situation extremely delicate for C., who, after an unsuccessful attempt at reconciliation and the Pope’s order to transfer the Council to Ferrara, left Basel. In the new seat at Ferrara and later at Florence, C. worked with great energy and authority toward the act of union with the Greeks.
The eventful life of C. ended with his direction of the Crusade against the Turks, which he won on 3 November 1443 at Nish; but the lack of coordination between the Hungarians and the Turks at Szegedin (July 1444) placed C. in a difficult position, so much so that the Turks were able to defeat the Christians at Varna (10 November 1444). C. was killed while fleeing after the military disaster. A man of action and a refined humanist, he is one of the most admirable figures of his age, as described by Vespasiano da Bisticci.