NICCOLÒ SPINELLI. Jurist, born perhaps at Giovinazzo between 1320 and 1325, died at Pavia (?) after 1396.
He first taught at the University of Padua around 1350–1351, then at Bologna. He was sent by Giovanni d’Oleggio, lord of Bologna, to Cardinal Albornoz from 11 to 23 September 1355. In 1357 he went, on behalf of the city, to the Pope to obtain the revocation of the interdict. In 1360 he represented Joanna I of Anjou at Avignon. He supported the restoration of papal authority in Bologna. From 1360 he collaborated with Albornoz and for a time was his representative at Avignon. In reward for his services he received the castle of Montenovo. He was advocate of the Apostolic Camera around 1365 and agent of John I of Anjou before the Pope in 1366. Following this last assignment he definitively closed his school in Bologna. In February 1367 he appears in a document with the title of Grand Chancellor of the Kingdom of Naples. He was sent by Urban V to negotiate with the Florentines (1367) to secure Florence’s support for the Pope’s projected return to Italy, but without satisfactory results. Seneschal of Provence in 1370, captain-general of Piedmont in 1372, plenipotentiary first for the papacy and then for the Angevins at the Congress of Sarzana (1378). At the time of the schism he backed the opponents of Urban VI in favor of Clement VII. Captured by Charles of Durazzo when the latter imprisoned Joanna I of Anjou, he was held in Castel dell’Ovo together with her (1381). This marked the collapse of his fortunes; upon the confiscation of his goods, the bull of 4 August 1383 declared him deprived of certain vicariates in Romagna and the Marches. In September 1383 he was free at Taranto with Louis of Anjou; he then went to France (1384) and was there in the winter of 1394–95. Finally he left the Angevins and passed to the court of the Visconti, where he died.