Branda da Castiglione

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Cappella Brancacci
, Florence

Branda da Castiglione

Roman Catholic cardinal.[3]

Early career

He was born to a Milanese noble family related to Goffredo Castiglioni, Pope Celestine IV.[citation needed] Branda was the eldest son of Maffiolo da Castiglione and his wife Lucrezia Porro, of the family of the counts of Polenta.[4]

In 1374 he is documented as enrolled in the Collegio dei nobili Giureconsulti of Milan. He studied also at the recently founded University of Pavia, where he received a doctorate in civil and canon law in the academic year 1388/89 and then taught canon law at the University, supported by Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan.[5]

In 1389 Gian Galeazzo Visconti sent him to Rome to the papal court of

archdiocese of Milan and others beyond it. In 1419 he was made abbot in commendam of Tre Fontane Abbey
.

In 1401 Bonifacio charged him with a mission to Cologne and Flanders as

Sigismund of Luxemburg, King of Hungary, who was later Holy Roman Emperor
.

In August 1404 he was made

Baldassare Cossa, elected Pope John XXIII
, sent Branda as pontifical legate to Hungary.

As Cardinal

On 6 June 1411 John XXIII named him a

San Clemente, adding the cardinal's hat and tassels to his family arms. His position strengthened his relations with Sigismund, who made him Count of Veszprém (Hungary) in 1411 and at Branda's urging raised all the male members of the Castiglioni to the rank of count palatine in 1417,[8] and with the new duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti
.

The deadlock of the schism forced the convocation of another council, at Constance. Branda assisted at several sessions, working towards a compromise. On 11 November 1417 the conclave proclaimed Ottone Colonna, who assumed the papal name Martin V, recognized by the entire Church. Branda da Castiglione and the other eleven cardinals accompanied Martin to Milan, where he consecrated the high altar of the Duomo. In Rome, Martin gave Branda the use of the Palazzo S. Apollinare in Piazza Navona.[9]

In 1421 Branda was at Castiglione Olona, where he announced his plans to rebuild the walled village of his birth. In March 1425 he consecrated the new collegial parish church at

Filippo Scolari, called "Pippo Spano". He appointed Nikolaus von Dinkelsbühl
the official preacher against the Hussites.

He moved on to Hungary once more, pursuing diplomatic objectives, and taking Masolino with him. His mission as papal legate took him to Bohemia and Moravia, Poland and Germany, often moving with the Imperial court.

He represented the Visconti in treaty negotiations at Florence, and participated in the

Masolino, occupied with the Brancacci Chapel; Branda convinced Masolino to accompany him to Hungary for three years (1425–28) and commissioned him to carry out frescoes for his Capella Castiglione in his titular church of San Clemente, Rome and decorative landscapes for Palazzo Branda in Castiglione Olona.[11]

He returned to Castiglione Olona, where he became ill in December 1442 and died in early February 1443 in his Palazzo Branda, aged ninety-three. Leonardo Griffi composed the elogy at his funeral and Branda's secretary, Giovanni da Olmütz, deposited his vita on parchment in the stone sarcophagus.[12]

As patron

Pavia, Collegio Castiglioni Brugnatelli (1429).

Intimate with the powerful of his day, and renowned for the simplicity and modesty of his personal life, Branda was in touch with the literary and artistic movements that got under way in his lifetime, the

early Renaissance
.

He commissioned work from Masolino da Panicale, Lorenzo di Pietro, "il Vecchietta" and Paolo Schiavo, he rebuilt his family village of Castiglione Olona in the mould of a Renaissance ideal city of humanist culture, the first centre of Tuscan Renaissance culture in northern Lombardy.[13] In the little town he rebuilt the palazzo of his ancestors and added another for his familia. He built the Chiesa del Santissimo Corpo di Cristo and founded a school for the boys of the region, the Scuola di Canto e Grammatica di Castiglione Olona and a nunnery for the feminine members of the Humiliati and donated a library to the commune. In Pavia he founded a college in 1430 under the protection of Saint Augustine, now known as Collegio Castiglioni Brugnatelli.[14][15]

Notes

  1. ^ Also Branda Castiglioni.
  2. ^ Eubel, Conradus, ed. (1913). Hierarchia catholica (in Latin). Vol. Tomus 1 (second ed.). Münster: Libreria Regensbergiana. p. 33, no. 8. (in Latin)
  3. anti-pope
    .
  4. ^ He had three brothers and a sister.
  5. ^ Miranda.
  6. ^ Miranda.
  7. ^ He was called "Cardinal Piacenza" nevertheless.
  8. ^ Miranda.
  9. ^ Carroll William Westfall, "Alberti and the Vatican Palace Type", Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 33.2 (May 1974:101-121) p. 102 note 3.
  10. ^ Georgia Clarke, "Vitruvian Paradigms", Papers of the British School at Rome 70 (2002:319-346) p. 322, noting F. Foffano, "La costruzione di Castiglione Olona in un opuscolo inedito di Francesco Pizolpasso", Italian medievale e umanistica 3 (1960:173-87).
  11. ^ C. Bertelli, Masolino: gli affreschi del Battistero e della Collegiata a Castiglione Olona, 1997.
  12. ^ It was retrieved when the sarcophagus was opened in 1935, according to the Castiglione Olona website Archived July 15, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  13. ^ C. Soldi-Rondinini, "Branda Castiglioni nella Lombardia del suo tempo", Nuova Rivista Storica 1.2 (1986).
  14. ^ Noted by Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vite.
  15. ^ "History of the College". collegiocastiglionibrugnatelli.it. Collegio Castiglioni Brugnatelli. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
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