Spinelli, Niccolò

SPINELLI, NICCOLÒ. - Jurist, b. perhaps at Giovinazzo between 1320 and 1325, d. 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 1 to 23 Sept. 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 favored the restoration of the papal dominion in Bologna. From 1360 he collaborated with Albornoz and for a certain period 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 Joanna I of Anjou at the Pontiff in 1366. Following this last assignment he definitively closed his school at Bologna. In Febr. 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 obtain the support of Florence for the Pope, who intended to come to Italy, but he obtained no satisfactory results. Seneschal of Provence in 1370, captain general of Piedmont in 1372, plenipotentiary, first papal and then Angevin at the Congress of Sarzana (1378). On the occasion of the schism he supported the opponents of Urban VI, the supporters 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 the latter (1381). This marked the collapse of his fortune; the confiscation of his goods was followed by the bull of 4 Aug. 1383 by which he was declared to have forfeited certain vicariates in Romagna and the Marches. In Sept. 1383 he was free, at Taranto, in the company of 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.

Giuseppe Coniglio