FORTEGUERRI, NICCOLÒ. — Cardinal, born on 7 October 1419 in Pistoia, died on 21 December 1473 in Viterbo. After studying law in Bologna and Siena, he entered the ecclesiastical career. A relative of Enes Silvio Piccolomini, upon the latter’s election to the papal tiara he became bishop of Teano and apostolic treasurer. Created cardinal of the title of S. Cecilia in 1460, four years later he was appointed by Pio II apostolic legate of the Crusade promoted by the Pope against the Turks. Paolo II entrusted him with the pacification of the Papal States, an assignment that he carried out with great energy.
On his death he wished to have his writings burned; nevertheless, under the name of M. Carterònaco, the Ricciardetto was published posthumously in Venice (1738), in which, with Tuscan purity of language, he reworked the subject matter of Puiò, Boiardo, and Ariosto; but in the sarcastic mockery of the world of chivalry he went beyond the work’s original intentions, combining, in the thirty cantos of the burlesque poem, within a single framework, alongside a certain parody of the clergy and the Curia—as already in the Capitoli (Genoa 1765–77)—several motifs drawn from the Church’s liturgy. Forteguerri also composed a sacred drama for music, L'Atalia (Siena 1694), a Latin oration for the translation of the body of a. Leone Magno (Rome 1715), and extracted from the Propaganda Archive the Memorie intorno alle missioni di Asia, Africa e America, published in Rome only in 1831. The Ricciardetto was placed on the Index by decree of 12 January 1739.