PILEO di PRATA. - Cardinal, b. c. 1320–30, d. 1400. Count of Prata, descended from the noble Porcia family and related to the Carraresi of Padua through his mother Iselgarda, sister of Jacopo II, he embraced an ecclesiastical career while still young.
He was archpriest in Padua when he was promoted bishop of Treviso in 1352, though he was unable to take possession immediately; in 1359 he was bishop of Padua and from 1370 cardinal archbishop of
Ravenna until c. 1385. At first faithful to Urban VI, he was his legate in Germany, Hungary, and England. He then joined the party of the antipope Clement VII, but at the death of Urban VI he returned once more to the obedience of the Roman pontiff Boniface IX. He was therefore called the “Cardinal of the three hats” (cardinalis de tribus pileis). On several occasions he worked to pacify the Friulian regions, from which he originated, and he was also proposed several times, both by the Carraresi of Padua and by the Republic of Florence, through Boccaccio, for the patriarchal see of Aquileia, without ever obtaining II. In Padua he founded the Collegio Pratese for poor students.