Pope Nicholas V

Pope Nicholas V
Bishop of Rome
Fresco in the Niccoline Chapel depicting Pope Sixtus II with the physical features of Pope Nicholas V, St Lawrence Distributing Alms, by Fra Angelico, c. 1447–1450 Fresco in the Niccoline Chapel depicting Pope Sixtus II with the physical features of Pope Nicholas V, St Lawrence Distributing Alms, by Fra Angelico, c. 1447–1450
Church	Catholic Church
Papacy began	6 March 1447
Papacy ended	24 March 1455
Predecessor	Eugene IV
Successor	Callixtus III
Previous posts	Bishop of Bologna (1444–1447) Cardinal-Priest of Santa Susanna (1446–1447)
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 Sarzana, Republic of Genoa
Died	24 March 1455 (aged 57) Rome, Papal States
Other popes named Nicholas

Pope Nicholas V (Latin: Nicolaus V; Italian: Niccolò V; 15 November 1397 – 24 March 1455), born Tommaso Parentucelli, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 March 1447 until his death in March 1455. Pope Eugene IV made him a cardinal in 1446 after successful trips to Italy and Germany, and when Eugene died the next year, Parentucelli was elected in his place. He took his name Nicholas in memory of his obligations to Niccolò Albergati. He remains the most recent pope to take the pontifical name "Nicholas".

The pontificate of Nicholas saw the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks and the end of the Hundred Years' War. He responded by calling a crusade against the Ottomans, which never materialized. By the Concordat of Vienna he secured the recognition of papal rights over bishoprics and benefices. He also brought about the submission of the last of the antipopes, Felix V, and the dissolution of the Synod of Basel. A key figure in the Roman Renaissance, Nicholas sought to make Rome the home of literature and art. He strengthened fortifications, restored aqueducts, and rebuilt many churches. He ordered design plans for what would eventually be the Basilica of St. Peter.

Early life

Tommaso Parentucelli was born in Sarzana, an important town in Lunigiana, to the physician Bartolomeo Parentucelli and wife Andreola Bosi of Fivizzano. The Lunigiana region had long been fought over by competing Tuscan, Ligurian and Milanese forces. Three years before Parentucelli's birth, the town was captured 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 Renaissance humanist scholars.

Parentucelli studied at Bologna and Florence, gaining a degree in theology, in 1422. 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. 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.

Parentucelli attended the Council of Florence. In 1444, when his patron died, he was appointed Bishop of Bologna in his place. Civic disorders at Bologna were prolonged, so Pope Eugene IV soon named him as one of the legates sent to Frankfurt. He was to assist in negotiating an understanding between the Papal States and the Holy Roman Empire, regarding undercutting or at least containing the reforming decrees of the Council of Basel (1431–1439).

Papacy

Parentucelli's successful diplomacy gained him the reward, on his return to Rome, of the title Cardinal-Priest of Santa Susanna in December 1446. At the papal conclave of 1447 he was elected pope in succession to Eugene IV on 6 March. He took the name Nicholas in honour of his early benefactor, Niccolò Albergati.

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 Treaty of Lodi, secured peace with Charles VII of France, and concluded the Concordat of Vienna or Aschaffenburg (17 February 1448) with the German King, Frederick III, by which the decrees of the Council of Basel against papal annates and reservations were abrogated so far as Germany was concerned. In the following year he secured a still greater tactical triumph with the resignation of the Antipope Felix V on 7 April and his own recognition by the rump of the Council of Basel that assembled at Lausanne.

In 1450, Nicholas held a Jubilee at Rome, and the offerings of the numerous pilgrims who thronged to Rome gave him the means of furthering the cause of culture in Italy, which he had so much at heart. In March 1452 he crowned Frederick III as Holy Roman Emperor in St. Peter's, in what was the last imperial coronation held in Rome.

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. It was in recognition of this commitment to building that Leon Battista Alberti dedicated to Nicholas V his treatise De re aedificatoria.

He is the last pope to date to take the pontifical name "Nicholas".

Rebuilding Rome

His first care was practical, to reinforce the city's fortifications, cleaning and even paving some main streets and restoring the water supply. The end of ancient Rome is sometimes dated from the destruction of its magnificent array of aqueducts by 6th-century invaders. In the Middle Ages Romans depended on wells and cisterns for water, and the poor dipped their water from the yellow Tiber. The Aqua Virgo aqueduct, originally constructed by Agrippa, was restored by Nicholas and emptied into a simple basin that Alberti designed, the predecessor of the Trevi Fountain.

He continued restoration of the major Roman basilicas, but also of many other Roman churches including Sant' Apostoli, Sant' Eusebio, San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, Santa Maria in Trastevere, Santa Prassede, San Salvatore, Santo Stefano Rotondo, San Teodoro, and especially San Celso. He rebuilt the Ponte Sant' Angelo which had collapsed in 1450, and supported the redevelopment of the surrounding area as a prestigious business and residential district.

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 a private chapel to the Vatican, and – according to Giannozzo Manetti, biographer of Nicholas – planned substantial changes to the Borgo district. He also laid up 2,522 cartloads of marble from the dilapidated Colosseum for use in the later constructions.

The Pope's contemporaries criticised his lavish expenditure on building: Manetti drew parallels with the wealth and expenditure of Solomon, suggesting that Papal wealth was acceptable so long as it was expended to the glory of God and the good of the Church. The decoration of the Niccoline Chapel by Fra Angelico demonstrated this message through its depictions of St Lawrence (martyred for refusing to hand to the Roman state the wealth of the Church) and St Stephen.

Under the generous patronage of Nicholas, Renaissance humanism made rapid strides as well. The new humanist learning had been hitherto looked on with suspicion in Rome, a possible source of schism and heresy from an unhealthy interest in paganism. For Nicholas, humanism became a tool for the cultural aggrandizement of the Christian capital, and he sent emissaries to the East to attract Greek scholars after the fall of Constantinople. The pope also employed Lorenzo Valla to translate Greek histories, pagan as well as Christian, into Latin. This industry, coming just before the dawn of printing, contributed enormously to the sudden expansion of the intellectual horizon.

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. 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."

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."

Nicholas preached a crusade and endeavoured to reconcile the mutual animosities of the Italian states, but without much success.

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".

Slavery

In late spring of 1452 Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI wrote to Pope Nicholas for help against the impending siege by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. Nicholas issued the bull Dum Diversas (18 June 1452) authorizing King Afonso V of Portugal to "attack, conquer, and subjugate Saracens, pagans and other enemies of Christ wherever they may be found". Issued less than a year before the fall of Constantinople, the bull may have been intended to begin another crusade against the Ottoman Empire.

Before the Treaty of Alcáçovas of 1479 and the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, 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. 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. 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.

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 Visigoths. In 1454 a fleet of caravels from Seville and Cádiz traded along the African coast and upon their return, were intercepted by a Portuguese squadron. Enrique IV of Castile threatened war. Afonso V appealed to the Pope for moral support of Portugal's right to a monopoly of trade in lands she discovered.

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. 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."

The bull conferred exclusive trading rights to the Portuguese between Morocco and the Indies with the rights to conquer and convert the inhabitants. 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. 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": "... 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."

It is on this basis that it has been argued that collectively the two bulls issued by Nicholas gave the Portuguese the rights to acquire slaves along the African coast by force or trade. By dealing with local African chieftains and Muslim slave traders, the Portuguese sought to become key European players in the lucrative slave trade. The concessions given were confirmed by bulls issued by Pope Callixtus III ( Inter Caetera quae in 1456), which recognized Portugal's trade rights in territories it had discovered along the West African coast. This confirmation of Romanus Pontifex also gave the Portuguese the military Order of Christ under Henry the Navigator. Other papal bulls would go on later to confirm territorial possessions and acquisitions of Spanish and Portugal such as Sixtus IV (Aeterni regis in 1481), Pope Alexander VI: Eximiae devotionis (3 May 1493), Inter Caetera (4 May 1493) and Dudum siquidem (23 September 1493).

See also

• Cardinals created by Nicholas V
• Ludwig von Pastor
• Sicut Dudum

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Pope Nicholas V — (TOMMASO PARENTUCELLI)

A name never to be mentioned without reverence by every lover of letters, born at Sarzana in Liguria, 15 November, 1397; died in Rome, 24-5 March, 1455. While still a youth he lost his father, a poor but skilful physician, and was thereby prevented from completing his studies at Bologna. He became tutor in the families of the Strozzi and Albizzi at Florence, where he made the acquaintance of the leading Humanist scholars of the day. In 1419 he returned to Bologna, and three years later took his degree as master of theology. The saintly bishop of Bologna, Niccolò Albergati, now took him into his service. For more than twenty years Parentucelli was the bishop's factotum, and in that capacity was enabled to indulge his passion for building and that of collecting books. Unlike many bibliophiles he was as well acquainted with the matter contained within his volumes as with their bindings and value. Some of them are still preserved, and contain many marginal notes in his beautiful writing. His knowledge was of the encyclopedic character not unusual at a time when the learned undertook to argue de omni re scibili. His mind, however, was receptive rather than productive. Nevertheless, he could make good use of what he had studied, as was shown at the Council of Florence where his familiarity with Patristic and Scholastic theology gave him a prominent place in the discussions with the Greek bishops. He accompanied Albergati in various legatine missions, notably to France, and was always watchful for rare and beautiful books. Eugene IV wished to attach such a brilliant scholar to his own person; but Parentucelli remained faithful to his patron. On the death of the latter he was appointed to succeed him in the See of Bologna, but was unable to take possession owing to the troubled state of the city. This led to his being entrusted by Pope Eugene with important diplomatic missions in Italy and Germany, which he carried out with such success that he obtained as his reward a cardinal's hat (Dec., 1446). Early next year (23 Feb.) Eugene died, and Parentucelli was elected in his place, taking as his name Nicholas in memory of his obligations to Niccolò Albergati (6 March, 1447).

As soon as the new pontiff was firmly seated on his throne, it was felt that a new spirit had come into the papacy. Now that there was no longer any danger of a fresh outbreak of schism and the Council of Constance had lost all influence, Nicholas could devote himself to the accomplishment of objects which were the aim of his life and had been the means of raising him to his present exalted position. He designed to make Rome the site of splendid monuments, the home of literature and art, the bulwark of the papacy, and the worthy capital of the Christian world. His first care was to strengthen the fortifications, and restore the churches in which the stations were held. Next he took in hand the cleansing and paving of the streets. Rome, once famous for the number and magnificence of its aqueducts, had become almost entirely dependent for its water supply on the Tiber and on wells and cisterns. The "Aqua Virgo", originally constructed by Agrippa, was restored by Nicholas, and is to this day the most prized by the Romans, under the name of "Acqua Trevi". But the works on which he especially set his heart were the rebuilding of the Leonine City, the Vatican, and the Basilica of St. Peter. On this spot, as in a centre, the glories of the papacy were to be focused. We cannot here enter into a description of the noble designs which he entertained (see Pastor, "History of the Popes", II, 173 sqq., Eng. tr.). The basilica, the palace, and the fortress of the popes are not now what he would have made them; but their actual splendours are due in no small measure to the lofty aspirations of Nicholas V. He has been severely censured for pulling down a portion of the old St. Peter's and planning the destruction of the remainder. He defended his action on the ground that the buildings were on the verge of ruin (Müntz, "Les Arts à la Cour des Papes", p. 118); but the almost equally ancient Basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura was preserved by judicious restorations until it was destroyed by fire in 1823. The pontiff's veneration for antiquity may have yielded to his desire to construct an edifice more in harmony with the classical taste of the Renaissance school, of which he himself was so ardent an adherent. Nothing but praise, however, can be given to him for his work in the Vatican Palace. Indeed it was he who first made it the worthy residence of the popes. Some of his constructions still remain, notably the left side of the court of St. Damasus and the chapel of San Lorenzo, decorated with Fra Angelico's frescoes.

Though a patron of art in all its branches, it was literature that obtained his highest favours. His lifelong love of books and his delight in the company of scholars could now be gratified to the full. His immediate predecessors had held the Humanists in suspicion; Nicholas welcomed them to the Vatican as friends. Carried away by his enthusiasm for the New Learning, he overlooked any irregularities in their morals or opinions. He accepted the dedication of a work by Poggio, in which Eugene was assailed as a hypocrite; Valla, the Voltaire of the Renaissance, was made an Apostolic notary. In spite of the demands on his resources for building purposes, he was always generous to deserving scholars. If any of them modestly declined his bounty, he would say: "Do not refuse; you will not always have a Nicholas among you." He set up a vast establishment in the Vatican for translating the Greek classics, so that all might become familiar with at least the matter of these masterpieces. "No department of literature owes so much to him as history. By him were introduced to the knowledge of western Europe two great and unrivalled models of historical composition, the work of Herodotus and the work of Thucydides. By him, too, our ancestors were first made acquainted with the graceful and lucid simplicity of Xenophon and with the manly good sense of Polybius" (Macaulay, Speech at Glasgow University). The crowning glory of his pontificate was the foundation of the Vatican Library. No lay sovereigns had such opportunities of collecting books as the popes. Nicholas's agents ransacked the monasteries and palaces of every country in Europe. Precious manuscripts, which would have been eaten by the moths or would have found their way to the furnace, were rescued from their ignorant owners and sumptuously housed in the Vatican. In this way he accumulated five thousand volumes at a cost of more than forty thousand scudi. "It was his greatest joy to walk about his library arranging the books and glancing through their pages, admiring the handsome bindings, and taking pleasure in contemplating his own arms stamped on those that had been dedicated to him, and dwelling in thought on the gratitude that future generations of scholars would entertain towards their benefactor. Thus he is to be seen depicted in one of the halls of the Vatican library, employed in settling his books" (Voigt, quoted by Pastor, II, 213).

His devotion to art and literature did not prevent him from the performance of his duties as Head of the Church. By the Concordat of Vienna (1448) he secured the recognition of the papal rights concerning bishoprics and benefices. He also brought about the submission of the last of the antipopes, Felix V, and the dissolution of the Synod of Basle (1449). In accordance with his general principle of impressing the popular mind by outward and visible signs, he proclaimed a Jubilee which was the fitting symbol of the cessation of the schism and the restoration of the authority of the popes (1450). Vast multitudes flocked to Rome in the first part of the year; but when the hot weather began, the plague which had been ravaging the countries north of the Alps wrought fearful havoc among the pilgrims. Nicholas was seized with a panic; he hurried away from the doomed city and fled from castle to castle in the hope of escaping infection. As soon as the pestilence abated he returned to Rome, and received the visits of many German princes and prelates who had long been upholders of the decrees of Constance and Basle. But another terrible calamity marred the general rejoicings. More than two hundred pilgrims lost their lives in a crush which occurred on the bridge of Sant' Angelo a few days before Christmas. Nicholas erected two chapels at the entrance of the bridge where Mass was to be said daily for the repose of the souls of the victims.

On this occasion, as in previous Jubilees, vast sums of money found their way into the treasury of the Church, thus enabling the pontiff to carry out his designs for the promotion of art and learning, and the support of the poor. As the Jubilee was the proof that Rome was the centre towards which all Christendom was drawn, so at its conclusion Nicholas sent forth his legates into the different countries to assert his authority and to bring about the reform of abuses. Cardinal D'Estouteville was sent to France; Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, one of the most devout and learned men of his day, was sent to North Germany and England; and the heroic Franciscan, St. John Capistran, to South Germany. They held provincial and other synods and assemblies of the regular clergy, in which wholesome decrees were made. Nicholas of Cusa and St. John preached the word in season and out of season, thereby producing wonderful conversions among both clergy and laity. If they did not succeed in destroying the germs of the Protestant revolt, they certainly postponed for a while the evil and narrowed the sphere of its influence. It should be noted that Cusa never reached England, and that D'Estouteville initiated the process for the rehabilitation of Bl. Joan of Arc. The restored authority of the Holy See was further manifested by the coronation of Frederick III as Sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire, the first of the House of Habsburg raised to that dignity, and the last of the emperors crowned in Rome (1452).

Meantime the pontiff's own subjects caused him great anxiety. Stefano Porcaro, an able scholar and politician, who had enjoyed the favour of Martin V and Eugene IV, made several attempts to set up a republic in Rome. Twice he was pardoned and pensioned by the generous Nicholas, who would not sacrifice such an ornament of the New Learning. At last he was seized on the eve of a third plot, and condemned to death (Jan., 1453). A deep gloom now settled down on the pontiff. His magnificent designs for the glory of Rome and his mild government of his subjects had not been able to quell the spirit of rebellion. He began to collect troops and never stirred abroad without a strong guard. His health, too, began to suffer seriously, though he was by no means an old man. And before the conspiracy was thoroughly stamped out a fresh blow struck him from which he never recovered. We have seen what a prominent part Parentucelli had taken in the Council of Florence. The submission of the Greek bishops had not been sincere. On their return to Constantinople most of them openly rejected the decrees of the council and declared for the continuance of the schism. Eugene IV vainly endeavoured to stir up the Western nations against the ever-advancing Turks. Some help was given by the Republics of Venice and Genoa; but Hungary and Poland, more nearly menaced, supplied the bulk of the forces. A victory at Nish (1443) had been followed by two terrible defeats (Varna, 1444, and Kosovo, 1449). The whole of the Balkan peninsula, except Constantinople, was now at the mercy of the infidels. The emperor, Constantine XII, sent messages to Rome imploring the pope to summon the Christian peoples to his aid. Nicholas sternly reminded him of the promises made at Florence, and insisted that the terms of the union should be observed. Nevertheless the fear that the Turks would attack Italy, if they succeeded in capturing the bulwark of the east, induced the pontiff to take some action - especially as the emperor professed his readiness to accept the decrees of the council. In May, 1452, Cardinal Isidore, an enthusiastic Greek patriot, was sent as legate to Constantinople. A solemn function in honour of the union was celebrated on 12 Dec., 1452, with prayers for the pope and for the patriarch, Gregorius. But the clergy and the populace cursed the Uniates and boasted that they would rather submit to the turban of the Turk than to the tiara of the Roman Pontiff. After many obstacles and delays a force of ten papal galleys and a number of vessels furnished by Naples, Genoa, and Venice set sail for the East, but before they reached their destination the imperial city had fallen and the Emperor Constantine was no more (29 May, 1453). Whatever may have been the dilatoriness of Nicholas up to this point - and it must be acknowledged that he had good reason for not helping the Greeks - he now lost no time. He addressed a Bull of Crusade to the whole of Christendom. Every sort of inducement, spiritual and temporal, was held out to those who should take part in the holy war. Princes were exhorted to sink their differences and to unite against the common foe. But the days of chivalry were gone: most of the nations took no notice of the appeal; some of them, such as Genoa and Venice, even solicited the friendship of the infidels.

The gloom which had settled upon Nicholas after Porcaro's conspiracy grew deeper as he realized that his warning voice had been unheeded. Gout, fever, and other maladies warned him that his end was at hand. Summoning the cardinals around him, he delivered to them the famous discourse in which he set before them the objects for which he had laboured, and enumerated with pardonable pride the noble works which he had accomplished (Pastor, II, 311). He died on the night between 24 and 25 of March, 1455, and was laid in St. Peter's by the side of Eugene IV. His splendid tomb was taken down by Paul V, and removed to the crypt, where some portions of it may still be seen. His epitaph, the last by which any pope was commemorated, was written by Æneas Sylvius, afterwards Pius II.

Nicholas was small in stature and weakly in constitution. His features were clear-cut; his complexion pale; his eyes dark and piercing. In disposition he was lively and impetuous. A scholar rather than a man of action, he underrated difficulties, and was impatient when he was not instantly understood and obeyed. At the same time he was obliging and cheerful, and readily granted audience to his subjects. He was a man of sincere piety, simple and temperate in his habits, He was entirely free from the bane of nepotism, and exercised great care in the choice of cardinals. We may truly say that the lofty aims, the scholarly and artistic tastes, and the noble generosity of Nicholas form one of the brightest pages in the history of the popes.

PLATINA, Lives of the Popes (English translation, London); VESPASIANO DA BISTICCI, Vite di uomini illustri del secolo XV (Rome, 1839); SFORZA, Ricerche su Niccolò V (Lucca, 1884); MÜNTZ, Les Arts à la cour des papes pendant le xv^e et le xvi^e siècle (Paris, 1878-9); PASTOR, History of the Popes, II, 1-314, very complete and well documented (Eng. tr., London, 1891); GREGOROVIUS, Gesch. der Stadt Rom (Stuttgart, 1894); REUMONT, Gesch, der Stadt Rom, III (Berlin, 1867-70); CREIGHTON, History of the Papacy, III (London, 1897); GUIRAUD, L'église romaine et les origines de la renaissance (Paris, 1904); MILMAN, History of Latin Christianity, VIII (London, 1867).

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).

External links

• Full text of his Papal Bull Pontifex Romanus in English translation