Secret chamberlain to Eugenius IV, he became Bishop of Adria in 1444 and, the following year, Archbishop of Ravenna. Governor of Perugia (1448) and of Ascoli, he was sent by Nicholas V to Henry VI of England. Papal legate at Benevento, he intervened with great skill in the struggle between the Aragonese and the Angevins for the throne of Naples, succeeding in detaching the Duke of Taranto from the Angevin party and thus contributing to the reunification of the Kingdom under Ferdinand I (1462). Gifted with a sound humanistic culture and sincere piety, he was also an able politician in the posts entrusted to him, such as the reconquest of Viterbo, which the inhabitants had wrested from the Holy See. Pius II created him cardinal on 18 December 1461, with the title of S. Clemente. He subsequently governed the provinces of Umbria (1470) and the March of Ancona (1472).
Vittorio E. Giuntella