Pope Nicholas V
Callixtus III | |
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Orders | |
Ordination | 1422 by Niccolò Albergati |
Consecration | 17 March 1447 by Francesco Condulmer |
Created cardinal | 16 December 1446 by Eugene IV |
Personal details | |
Born | Tommaso Parentucelli 15 November 1397 |
Died | 24 March 1455 (aged 57) Rome, Papal States |
Previous post(s) |
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Coat of arms | |
Other popes named Nicholas |
Papal styles of Pope Nicholas V | |
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His Holiness | |
Spoken style | Your Holiness |
Religious style | Holy Father |
Posthumous style | None |
Pope Nicholas V (
The pontificate of Nicholas saw the
He is the last pope to date to take the pontifical name "Nicholas".
Early life
Tommaso Parentucelli was born to Andreola Bosi of Fivizzano and the physician Bartolomeo Parentucelli in Sarzana, an important town in Lunigiana.[3] The Lunigiana region had long been fought over by competing Tuscan, Ligurian and Milanese forces. Three years before Parentucelli's birth, the town was taken from the Florentines by the Genoese Republic. His father died while he was young. Parentucelli later became a tutor, in Florence, to the families of the Strozzi and Albizzi, where he met the leading humanist scholars.[4]
Parentucelli studied at Bologna and Florence, gaining a degree in theology in 1422.[5] Bishop Niccolò Albergati was so awestruck with his capabilities that he took him into his service and gave him the chance to pursue his studies further by sending him on a tour through Germany, France and England.[6] He was able to collect books, for which he had an intellectual's passion, wherever he went. Some of them survive with his marginal annotations.[4]
Parentucelli attended the
Papacy
Parentucelli's successful diplomacy gained him the reward, on his return to Rome, of the title
In only eight years, his pontificate delivered important achievements in the political, scientific, and literary history of the world. Politically, he needed to repair relationships which had broken down in the pontificate of Eugene IV. He called the congress which produced the
In 1450, Nicholas held a
Within the city of Rome, Nicholas introduced the fresh spirit of the Renaissance both intellectually and architecturally. His plans were of embellishing the city with new monuments worthy of the capital of the Christian world.[4] It was in recognition of this commitment to building that Leon Battista Alberti dedicated to Nicholas V his treatise De re aedificatoria.[9]
Rebuilding Rome
His first care was practical, to reinforce the city's fortifications,
He continued restoration of the major Roman basilicas, but also of many other Roman churches including
Arts patron
Nicholas V's major focus was on establishing the Vatican as the official residence of the Papacy, replacing the Lateran Palace. He added a substantial new wing including
The Pope's contemporaries criticised his lavish expenditure on building:
Under the generous patronage of Nicholas,
Nicholas, with assistance from Enoch of Ascoli and Giovanni Tortelli, founded a library of five thousand volumes, including manuscripts rescued from the Turks after the fall of Constantinople.[19] The Pope himself was a man of vast erudition, and his friend Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, said of him that "what he does not know is outside the range of human knowledge". A lifelong bibliophile, he treasured books: while the Vatican library was still being designed and planned, he kept the rarest books near to him in his bedroom, with the others in a room nearby. Often thinking fondly of his former work as a librarian, he once remarked, "I had more happiness in a day than now in a whole year."[20]
He was compelled, however, to add that the lustre of his pontificate would be forever dulled by the fall of Constantinople, which the Turks took in 1453. Unsuccessful in a campaign to unite Christian powers to come to the aid of Constantinople, just before that great citadel was conquered, Nicholas had ordered 10 papal ships to sail with ships from Genoa, Venice and Naples to defend the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. However, the ancient capital fell before the ships could offer any aid. The Pope bitterly felt this catastrophe as a double blow to Christendom and to Greek letters. "It is a second death", wrote Aeneas Silvius, "to Homer and Plato."[6]
Nicholas preached a
In undertaking these works, Nicholas was moved "to strengthen the weak faith of the populace by the greatness of that which it sees". The Roman populace, however, appreciated neither his motives nor their results, and in 1452 a formidable conspiracy for the overthrow of the papal government under the leadership of Stefano Porcari was discovered and crushed. This revelation of disaffection, together with the fall of Constantinople in 1453, darkened the last years of Pope Nicholas. "As Thomas of Sarzana", he said, "I had more happiness in a day than now in a whole year".[6]
Slavery
In late spring of 1452 Byzantine Emperor
Ownership of the Canary Islands continued to be a source of dispute between Spain and Portugal and Nicholas was asked to settle the matter, ultimately in favor of the Portuguese.[22] The geographical area of the concession given in the bull is not explicit, but historian Richard Raiswell finds that it clearly refers to the recently discovered lands along the coast of West Africa.[23] Portuguese ventures were intended to compete with the Muslim trans-Sahara caravans, which played a key role in the highly profitable Muslim slave trade and also held a monopoly on West African gold and ivory.[24]
The Portuguese claimed territorial rights along the African coast by virtue of having invested time and treasure in discovering it; the Castilian claim was based on their being the heirs of the
The papal bull Romanus Pontifex, issued on 8 January 1455, endorsed Portuguese possession of Cuerta (which they already held), and the exclusive right to trade, navigation, and fishing in the discovered lands, and reaffirmed the previous Dum Diversas.[26] It granted permission to Afonso and his heirs to "... make purchases and sales of any things and goods, and victuals whatsoever, as it may seem fit, with any Saracens and infidels in said regions; ... provided they be not iron instruments, wood used for construction, cordage, ships, and any kinds of armor."[27]
The bull conferred exclusive trading rights to the Portuguese between Morocco and the Indies with the rights to conquer and convert the inhabitants.[28] A significant concession given by Nicholas in a brief issued to King Alfonso in 1454 extended the rights granted to existing territories to all those that might be taken in the future.[29] Consistent with these broad aims, it allowed the Portuguese "to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery". However, together with a second reference to some who have already been enslaved, this has been used to suggest that Nicholas sanctioned the purchase of black slaves from "the infidel":[30] "... many Guineamen and other negroes, taken by force, and some by barter of unprohibited articles, or by other lawful contract of purchase, have been ... converted to the Catholic faith, and it is hoped, by the help of divine mercy, that if such progress be continued with them, either those peoples will be converted to the faith or at least the souls of many of them will be gained for Christ."[27]
It is on this basis that it has been argued that collectively the two bulls issued by Nicholas gave the Portuguese the rights to
See also
- Cardinals created by Nicholas V
- Ludwig von Pastor
- Sicut Dudum
References
Notes
- ^ "Nicholas V | Vatican Library & Dum Diversas | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
- ^ Filelfo & Robin (2009), p. 370.
- ^ Gregorovius & Hamilton (1900), p. 106.
- ^ a b c d e f Scannell, Thomas Bartholomew (1911). "Pope Nicholas V". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- ^ Hay (1995), p. 164.
- ^ Hayes, Carlton Joseph Huntley (1911). Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. . In
- ^ Hollingsworth (1995), p. 238.
- ^ Terpstra (1995), p. 34.
- ^ Leon Battista Alberti at the Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ Cheetham (1983), p. 180.
- ^ Karmon, David (August 2005). "Restoring the Ancient Water Supply System in Renaissance Rome" (PDF). The Waters of Rome (3). University of Virginia: 4–6.
- ^ Hollingsworth (1995), p. 240.
- ^ Hollingsworth (1995), p. 241.
- ^ Manetti (1734).
- ^ Hollingsworth (1995), p. 243.
- ISBN 9780151010332
- ^ Duffy (1997), p. 181.
- ^ Sider (2005), p. 147.
- ISBN 0-684-84747-7
- ^ Murray, Stuart (2012). The Library: An Illustrated History. New York: Skyhorse Publishing. p. 85.
- ISBN 1-85984-454-5. p. 94.
- ^ Stogre (1992), p. 65.
- ISBN 9780874368857– via Google Books.
- ISBN 9780865548688– via Google Books.
- ISBN 978-0-312-61612-0.
- ^ a b Elliott, Mary; Hughes, Jazmine (19 August 2019). "A Brief History of Slavery That You Didn't Learn in School". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
- ^
- ^ The Historical Encyclopedia of world slavery", Richard Raiswell, p. 469
- ^ "Slavery and the Catholic Church", John Francis Maxwell, p. 55, Barry Rose Publishers, 1975
- ISBN 978-0521815826.
- ^ "The Historical Encyclopedia of world slavery", Richard Raiswell, p. 469, "Black Africans in Renaissance Europe", p. 281, Luis N. Rivera, 1992, p. 25
Bibliography
- Cheetham, Nicolas (1983). Keeper of the Keys: A History of the Popes from St. Peter to John Paul II. Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 978-0684178639.
- Duffy, Eamon (1997). Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes (2nd ed.). Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300073324.
- Filelfo, Francesco; Robin, Diana (2009). Odes. Harvard University Press. p. 370. ISBN 9780674035638.
- Gregorovius, Ferdinand; Hamilton, Annie (1900). History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press.
- Hay, Denys (1995). The Italian Renaissance in its historical background. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521291040.
- Hollingsworth, Mary (1995). Patronage in Renaissance Italy: From 1400 to the Early Sixteenth Century. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0801852879.
- Manetti, Giannozzo (1734). Vita Nicolai V, in Rerum Italicarum scriptores, vol 3, pt.2.
- Sider, Sandra (2005). Handbook to Life in Renaissance Europe. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0816056187.
- Stogre, Michael (1992). That the World may Believe: The Development of Papal Social Thought on Aboriginal Rights. Médiaspaul. ISBN 978-2-89039-549-7.
- Terpstra, Gregory (1995). Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521480925.
Further reading
- "A violent evangelism", Luis N. Rivera, Luis Rivera Pagán The Synod of the North East: 31st Racial Ethnic Convocation (October 5–6, 2007), Westminster John Knox Press, 1992, ISBN 0-664-25367-9
- Dokumente zur Geschichte der europäischen Expansion. hrsg. von Eberhard Schmitt, München (Beck), Bd.I Die mittelalterlichen Ursprünge der europäischen Expansion, hrsg. von Charles Verlinden und E. Schmitt, München (Beck) 1986, 450 S. hier: Dok. 40, Nikolaus V. überträgt in der Bulle „Romanus pontifex“ …, S. 218–231;
- Massimo Miglio: Niccolò V. In: Massimo Bray (ed.): Enciclopedia dei Papi. Volume 2: Niccolò I, santo, Sisto IV. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2000, pp. 644–658 (treccani.it).