page_title: Pope Nicholas V
section_title: Papacy
hierarchical_section_title: Pope Nicholas V / Papacy
caption_attribution_description: English: A complete lead papal bulla of Pope Nicholas V, born 1397, Pope 1447-1455. Measuring 32.6mm in length and 37.2mm in width it is flat and 4.8mm in thickness. The obverse reads, NICO/LAVS/PP.V, on the reverse there are the portraits of St Paul and St Peter with SPASPE, for each Saint respectively, above them. They are in beaded surrounds, and St Peter has a beaded beard, whereas St Pauls beard is grooved, there is a cross between them.
context_page_description: Pope Nicholas V, born Tommaso Parentucelli, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 March 1447 until his death. Pope Eugene 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.
  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.
context_section_description: 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.
caption: Papal bulla of Nicholas V
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