PIUS II. (ÆNEAS-SYLVIVS PICCOLOMINI), was born on the 18th of October 1405, at Corfignu in the Sieneſe, the name of which he afterwards changed into that of Pienza. His mother Victoria Porteguerra, when she was with child of him, dreamed that she should be delivered of a mitred infant; and as the way of degrading clergymen at that time was by crowning them with a paper mitre, she believed that Æneas would be a disgrace to his family. But what to her had the appearance of being a disgrace, was a preface of the greatest honours. Æneas was carefully educated, and made considerable proficiency in the belles lettres. After ha-
ving finished his studies at Siena, he went in 1431 to the council of Bale with Cardinal Capranica, furnished De Fermo, because he was entrusted with the government of that church. Aeneas was his secretary, and was then only 26 years of age. He afterwards acted in the same capacity to some other prelates, and to Cardinal Alberigati. The council of Bale honoured him with different commissions, in order to recompense him for the zeal with which he defended that assembly against Pope Eugene IV. He was afterwards secretary to Frederic III. who decreed to him the poetic crown, and sent him ambassador to Rome, Milan, Naples, Bohemia, and other places. Nicholas V. advanced him to the bishopric of Trieste, which he quitted some time after for that of Siena. At last, after having distinguished himself in various nunciatures, he was invested with the Roman purple by Calixtus III. whom he succeeded two years after, on the 27th of August 1458. Pius II. now advanced to the holy see, made good the proverb, Honores mutant mores. From the commencement of his pontificate, he appeared jealous of the papal prerogatives. In 1460 he issued a bull, "declaring appeals from the pope to a council to be null, erroneous, detestable, and contrary to the sacred canons." That bull, however, did not prevent the procurator-general of the parliament of Paris from appealing to a council in defence of the Pragmatic Sanction, which the pope had strenuously opposed. Pius was then at Mantua, whither he had gone in order to engage the Catholic princes to unite in a war against the Turks. The greater part of them had agreed to furnish troops or money; others refused both, particularly France, who from that moment incurred his holiness's aversion. That aversion abated under Louis XI. whom he persuaded in 1461 to abolish the Pragmatic Sanction, which the parliament of Paris had supported with so much vigour.
The following year 1462, was rendered famous by a controversy which took place between the Cordeliers and Dominicans, whether or not the blood of Jesus Christ was separated from his body while he lay in the grave. It was also made a question whether it was separated from his divinity. The Cordeliers affirmed that it was, but the Dominicans were of an opposite opinion. They called each other heretics; which obliged the pope to issue a bull, forbidding them under pain of censure to brand one another with such odious epithets. The bull which his holiness published on the 26th of April, retracting what he had written to the council of Bale when he was its secretary, did not redound much to his honour. "I am a man" (says he), and as a man I have erred. I am far from denying that a great many things which I have said and written may deserve condemnation. Like Paul, I have preached through deception, and I have persecuted the church of God through ignorance. I imitate the blessed Augustin, who having suffered some erroneous sentiments to creep into his works, retracted them. I do the same thing; I frankly acknowledge my ignorance, from a fear lest what I have written in my younger years should be the occasion of any error that might afterwards be prejudicial to the interests of the holy see. For if it be proper for any one to defend and support the eminence and glory of the first throne of the church, it is in a peculiar manner my duty, whom God, out of his mercy and goodness alone, without any merit on my part, has raised
to the dignity of vicar of Jesus Christ. For all these reasons, we exhort and admonish you in the Lord, not to give credit to those writings of ours which tend in any degree to hurt the authority of the apostolic see, and which establish opinions that are not received by the Roman church. If you find, then, any thing contrary to her doctrine, either in our dialogues, in our letters, or in other of our works, despise these opinions, reject them, and adopt our present sentiments. Believe me rather now that I am an old man, than when I addressed you in my earlier days. Esteem a sovereign pontiff more than a private person; except against Aeneas Sylvius, but receive Pius II." It might be objected to his holiness, that it was his dignity alone which had made him alter his opinion. He anticipates that objection, by giving a short account of his life and actions, with the whole history of the council of Bale, to which he went with Cardinal Capranica in 1431; "but (says he) I was then a young man, and without any experience, like a bird just come from its nest." In the mean time, the Turks were threatening Christendom. Pius, ever zealous in the defence of religion against the infidels, forms the resolution of fitting out a fleet at the expence of the church, and of passing over into Asia himself, in order to animate the Christian princes by his example. He repaired to Ancona with a design to embark; but he there fell sick with the fatigue of the journey, and died on the 16th of August 1464, aged 59 years. Pius was one of the most learned men of his time, and one of the most zealous pontiffs; but being of an ambitious and pliant disposition, he sometimes sacrificed to that ambition. His principal works are, 1. Memoirs of the council of Bale, from the suspension of Eugenius to the election of Felix. 2. The history of the Bohemians, from their origin to the year 1458. 3. Two books on cosmography. 4. The history of Frederic III. whose vice-chancellor he had been. This performance was published in 1785 in folio, and is believed to be pretty accurate and very particular. 5. A treatise on the education of children. 6. A poem upon the passion of Jesus Christ. 7. A collection of 432 letters, printed at Milan, 1473, in folio, in which are found some curious anecdotes. 8. The memoirs of his own life, published by John Gobelin Peronne his secretary, and printed at Rome in 4to in 1584. There is no doubt of this being the genuine production of that pontiff. 9. Historia rerum ubicumque gesserum, of which only the first part was published at Venice in 1477 in folio. His works were printed at Helmstadt in 1700, in folio, at the beginning of which we find his life. That verse of Virgil's Aeneid (lib. i. 382.) which begins thus,
Sum pius Aeneas,—
and the end of the following verse,
fama super aethera notus,
have been applied to him.