Porta, Ardicino II Della - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IX, p. 1064

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

PORTA, ARDICINO II della. - Cardinal, nephew of the preceding, b. at Suno (Novara) c. 1434, d. at Rome on 4 March 1493.

He entered the ecclesiastical career at a young age and was governor of various cities of the Papal States. He was appointed bishop of Aleria (Sardinia) in 1475. Sixtus IV sent him to King Matthias of Hungary (1478) and then to Emperor Frederick III. On returning to Rome he held various offices, including that of negotiating with foreign ambassadors. Cardinal of the title of SS. Giovanni e Paolo (9 March 1489) and administrator of Olmütz (1489), he had a chance of being elected pope at the Consistory of 1492, because he was supported by the duke of Milan. Weary of active life, he wished to renounce the cardinalate in order to become a friar, but the Sacred College opposed this. His sarcophagus is in the Vatican Grottoes.

BIBL.: L. Cardella, Mem. stor. dei cardinali, III, Rome 1793, pp. 231-33; C. Bescapé, Novara sacra, Novara 1878, pp. 403-405; Mathiae Corvini Hungariae regis epist. ad Romanos pontifices..., in Mon. Vatic. Hungariae, VI, Budapest 1891, pp. 127, 244; Pastor, III, V. indice. On the report, repeated by various authors, that Della P. was datary, cf. L. Celier, Les dataires du XVe siècle et les origines de la Datarie apostolique (Biblioth. des Ec. franç. d'Athènes et de Rome, 103), Paris 1910, V. indice.

Renata Orazi Ausenda