A tale of three cities: Constantinople 1453, Belgrade 1456, Olomouc 1468
A tale of three cities: Constantinople 1453, Belgrade 1456, Olomouc 1468 In my essay ‘Giovanni da Capistrano and the crusade of 1456’, published in 2004 in Crusading in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Norman Housley, I briefly (pp. 112-13) made reference to a fresco in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Olomouc. The church, which […]
Two fifteenth-century prelates and crusading – Piccolomini and Cusa
Two fifteenth-century prelates and crusading – Piccolomini and Cusa The Church produced some outstanding figures in the fifteenth century and none more so than Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1405-64), who became pope in 1458 as Pius II, and Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64), who was made cardinal in 1448. They make for an interesting comparison. Piccolomini hailed […]
Unexpected consequences: expulsion and flight in fifteenth-century Europe.
Unexpected consequences: expulsion and flight in fifteenth-century Europe. We live in an age of enforced migration, as war, ethnic cleansing and religious conflict force vast numbers of innocent people to leave their homes and livelihoods and face an uncertain future. In the 1420s the populations of certain parts of […]
Seeing double: Pope John XXIII – Baldassare Cossa
Seeing double: Pope John XXIII – Baldassare Cossa – For anyone familiar with the history of the fifteenth century, Sunday’s (27th April 2014) canonization of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, or John XXIII, was somewhat surreal. For he was not the first pope to bear that name and number. Between 1410 and 1415 another Italian, Baldassare Cossa, […]
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