PIO II, POPE. - Born at Corsignano in the Sienese territory on 18 Oct. 1405; died at Ancona on 15 Aug. 1464.
I. THE YOUNG HUMANIST
Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, of a noble Sienese family that had fallen into decline and been exiled, devoted himself in his youth to the study of jurisprudence; but he was far more eager to enrich himself with a vast humanistic culture. In 1432 he went to the Council of Basel in the retinue of Cardinal Domenico Capranica; after various vicissitudes, he entered the service of the pious and learned Cardinal Albergati, traveling with him throughout Western Europe and being sent to Scotland, thus acquiring direct knowledge of many different lands. As writer and abbreviator of the Council (1436), he took an active part in opposition to Eugenius IV; he was secretary to the antipope Felix V; and in a Libellus he defended the authority of the Council. Having entered the imperial chancery, however, he followed and encouraged the policy of Frederick III, of neutrality between the Pope and the Council. Up to this point he had been widely appreciated for his learning and eloquence; he loved to call himself a poet, having received the laurel from Frederick (27 July 1442); he displayed, and almost flaunted, a lightness of morals: it was at this time that he wrote the comedy *Christi* and the all-too-famous *De duobus amantibus historia* (1444). But the premonition of an approaching old age, reflection upon the grave problems of Christendom and of Europe, and perhaps new and loftier ambitions, produced in him a radical change; already by October 1444 he declared that he now wished to serve God alone. Humanism itself, of which he continued to be a fervent follower and which he now became an apostle of in Germany, acquired for him a deeper meaning and turned him toward the Roman papacy.II. THE MAN OF THE CHURCH
Aeneas Silvius then perceived more clearly the danger that, by following the path taken by the Council, the universal Church might be split into national churches; and he felt the necessity that the desired reform be promoted by a papacy made stronger. As ambassador of Frederick III to Rome, he was reconciled with the Pope; he received Holy Orders (priest on 4 March 1447), which he had previously refused so as not to be bound to celibacy; he worked to win the German nation for Henry IV; and he played a major part in that “concordat of the princes” (Feb. 1447), which, though favorable to them, was nonetheless a decisive step toward the reunification of the Church around the Pope. He was first bishop of Trieste (19 Apr. 1447), then of his native Siena (23 Sept. 1450), confessing the error of having adhered to the Council, affirming that where the Pope is, there is the Council. He worked for the recognition of Nicholas V by the Germans, while continuing to serve the house of Austria, for which he procured the marriage of Frederick III with Eleanor of Portugal, niece of Alfonso, king of Aragon and of Naples, and conducted difficult negotiations for the imperial coronation.A month after the coronation, on 25 Apr. 1452, in a speech before the Pope and the Emperor, he set forth the task that now urgently confronted Christendom: the war against the infidels. As legate in the transalpine countries, he urged the Pope, the Emperor, and the German diets to avert the danger that threatened Christian civilization and that the fall of Constantinople had revealed in all its gravity. Yet he was already aware of the painful reality: the papacy and the empire were now empty names; Christians, through their inertia and discord, were “procurators of the Turks.” Nevertheless, created cardinal by Calixtus III (17 Dec. 1456) and becoming his advisor, while demonstrating his skill in various negotiations, he insisted above all on the plan for a crusade, inspiring the already zealous Pope to action.
In the conclave of 1458, by a not disinterested defense of the independence of the papacy and of Italy from the transalpine nations, and in particular from France, he succeeded in keeping the tiara from the Frenchman Estouteville; and with the support of the envoys of Milan and Naples, he
Fano and Senigallia, leaving Rimini to Sigismondo Malatesta, he gave strong support to Ferrante of Aragon, securing the kingdom of Naples for him against the plots of the barons and the invasion of John of Anjou. Although it is not possible to absolve him entirely from the reproach of nepotism and excessive concern for temporal interests, it must be recognized that he wished to strengthen the papacy even in temporal matters, so as to enable it to devote itself more effectively to its spiritual mission; and in Italy, which he declared in moving words that he wished to defend against the shame and harm of foreign domination, he saw a bulwark for the freedom of the Church, especially in the face of French interference, the danger of which had been demonstrated by the Avignon exile.
IV. THE CHAMPION OF PAPAL AUTHORITY
In the more strictly spiritual sphere he emerged as a champion of the supreme authority of the Pope. Even before making amends with the bull *Retractationis* (26 Apr. 1463) for his former antipapal doctrines, he had condemned, in the bull *Execrabilis*, dated Mantua, 18 Jan. 1460, as an execrable abuse the practice of appealing from the Pope to a council. After difficult negotiations, he obtained that Louis XI of France repeal the *Praemunire* (27 Nov. 1461) and render solemn obedience to the Pope (16 Mar. 1462): the event was celebrated, as it truly was, as a triumph of the papacy, although the king, disappointed in his hope of seeing the Pope change his stance on the question of Naples and of bringing the most important French benefices under his control, rendered the repeal practically null through a series of ordinances.In the German lands, where anti-Roman tendencies were very strong, he excommunicated and declared Sigismund, Duke of the Tyrol, a heretic for the violence he committed to prevent Cardinal Cusanus from carrying out ecclesiastical reforms in his diocese of Brixen; the duke appealed to a council in a most violent tract by his advisor Gregory of Heimburg, one of Rome’s most bitter enemies; and the conflict was not resolved until after the Pope’s death. He was able, however, to compel Diether von Isenburg, archbishop of Mainz and leader of the antipapal movement, whom he had excommunicated and deposed, to submit. In Bohemia he initially helped to consolidate the authority of the national king George of Podiebrad; but, despite the king’s insistence, he declared the Basel Compacts null and void (31 Mar. 1462); and when the king, after long equivocation, declared himself favorable to Utraquism, he began a process against him, which remained suspended upon the Pope’s death. If the plans of Cusanus and Domenico Domenichi, bishop of Torcello, for a radical reform of the Church were not carried out because of the difficulties of the times, Pius II nonetheless removed abuses, restored monastic discipline in many places, promoted the reform of religious orders, and encouraged the missions; he supported, as a defense against usury, the establishment of the Mounts of Piety; the solemn canonization of Catherine of Siena (29 June 1461) was an homage by Pius not only to the virtues of the great towns-woman but to her courageous work for the purification of morals.
V. THE PROCLAIMER OF THE HOLY WAR
But Pius wished his pontificate to be above all directed to the grave task of rallying the forces of Christendom for the holy war: it was at once a necessity of defense against the Turkish threat and a means of restoring to the *respublica christiana* the sense of unity that was being lost. And since, of the two heads of the Christian world, one—the empire—was unfit for the great enterprise, both because of the decline of the imperial institution and because of the mediocrity of its incumbent, Pius, accentuating a tendency already revealed under some of his predecessors and looking to the future, wished that, above the variety of now independent nations, allChristians gather around the Pope for religious interests. With the bull *Vocavit nos* of 13 October 1458, he summoned representatives of the Christian states to a diet, which was to be presided over by him; and, overcoming opposition and difficulties, he opened it in Mantua on 1 June 1459. Only on 26 September did negotiations begin; several months were spent trying to extract some promise from the Christian powers, divided and concerned only with their own interests, indifferent to the terrible common danger. Venice, the most threatened and at the same time the most ardently urged, hesitated out of well-founded fear of being left alone against the enemy. Finally, even before obtaining universal consent, P. on 14 January 1460 proclaimed a three-year crusade, granting indulgences and imposing a tithe on clerical revenues, a thirtieth on lay revenues, and a twentieth on Jewish property. And the Diet adjourned (18 January) without having achieved anything.
The Pope, to whom religious divisions, political intrigues, and the coldness of the Christian states dashed his hope of undertaking the enterprise for the time being, dreamed of seeing in Mehmed II a new Constantine made Christian and enthroned with papal consecration in the East; and he addressed a long letter to him, almost a dogmatic treatise, to induce him to convert. But the dream, not unlike one that had already been entertained regarding the Tartars, was short-lived.
VI. THE CRUSADING POPE
P. returned to his old plan when Venice was drawn by the Turks themselves into war and Hungary under Matthias Corvinus, also threatened, was willing to fight effectively at his side, and among the princes of the West at least one, the chivalrous Duke of Burgundy, announced his participation in the Crusade. But he thought that more than eloquent speeches, example would avail; that the Vicar of Christ, by making himself the Godfrey of Bouillon of the new Crusade, could draw the world after him. When the holy war was proclaimed anew (22 October 1463), he set out, old and infirm, for Ancona. But the troops gathered there with false hopes had dispersed, the Venetian galleys were delayed; he could barely see them from the hill of Ancona before he died, a death that moved men as that of a martyr. He was buried in Rome, first in St Peter’s, then transferred to S. Andrea della Valle.Not free from doctrinal and moral failings in his youth, nor ever from ambition and vanity, at times almost childish, too devoted to his own, too easily carried away by enthusiasms not always restrained by a vigilant sense of reality, Pius II was nonetheless, by intellect, culture, and industry, one of the greatest men of his age; by piety, charity, simplicity of life, and complete dedication to his duty as head and defender of Christendom, he was among the noblest figures of a pope.