CHAPTER FOURTEEN A STUDY IN FAILURE. PIERO DA MONTE, PAPAL COLLECTOR AND NUNCIO IN ENGLAND 1435 TO 1440, AND THE BACKGROUND OF HIS ACTIVITY AS MIDDLEMAN BETWEEN GLOUCESTER AND ITALIAN HUMANISTS Alongside Zanone da Castiglione, Piero da Monte (c. 1404-1457), was the second important middleman between Gloucester and the humanist community in Italy. By contrast to Zanone, who acted as the duke's literary agent during his prolonged stays in Italy, da Monte emerged as Gloucester's cultural broker in the course of his sojourn in England between 1435 and 1440. His adaptations for the duke of original texts by Poggio Bracciolini have already been mentioned. ' Moreover, da Monte may have recommended Tito Livio Frulovisi and Antonio Beccaria for service in Gloucester's household. Him­ self a member of the duke's literary circle, da Monte requested the Florentine humanist Ambrogio Traversari to send his works to Glou­ cester and encouraged him to correspond with the English duke. Although Gloucester was the most prominent recipient of his liter­ ary favours, he was not the only English bibliophile whom da Monte cultivated during his stay in England; his correspondence with Nicholas Bildestone, William Wells, John Whethamstede and Thomas le Franc testifies to da Monte's literary contacts with men in the middling ranks of English government and in the environs of the English court. Like Zanone da Castiglione, da Monte was a man of the Church. After a brilliant career as a papal publicist at the Council of Basel, the trained jurist had been promoted to the papal protonotariat in 1435; simultaneously, he had been appointed papal collector and nuncio in England and Ireland. In the following five years, da Monte served as the most high-ranking permanent representative of papal interests in England. Emphasising particularly the diplomatic aspect of his assignment, the collector styled himself as defender of papal supremacy against pro-conciliar sympathies in the English government. 1 Above, Part One, chapter seven, pp. 88-93. A STUDY IN FAILURE 173 Da Monte's activity as papal diplomat and his role as middleman between Gloucester and the Italian humanists have tended to be considered in isolation, and the collector's literary pursuits in England have been interpreted as a gentlemanly pastime, in which he indulged during his hours of leisure.2 The present investigation integrates da Monte's activity as a mediator of contacts between Gloucester and the Italian humanists with his political action in England. The most important source for such an integrative reconstruction of da Monte's career is his voluminous epistolary, the autograph copy of which is today in the Vatican Library.3 The frequent inaccuracies, revisions and deliberate misrepresentations which characterise da Monte's let­ ters need not be detrimental to this investigation; on the contrary: critically correlated with modern studies of Anglo-Papal relations in the latter half of the 1430s; rather, the idiosyncrasies of da Monte's account provide a key to the understanding of the collector's self- image and thus to the motivation of his action.4 The examination takes as ist point of departure the hypothesis that da Monte's activity as literary agent formed part of his attempts to establish contacts with members of the English government. Such contacts were prerequisite for the realisation of da Monte's ambition to assume the position of central middleman between the English government and the papal court which, the collector hoped, would recommend him for further promotion at the Curia. As in the dis­ cussion of Zanone da Castiglione's role as Gloucester's middleman, the investigation focuses on the question of the advantages da Monte hoped to accrue from his cultural brokerage. Piero da Monte was born in Venice sometime between 1400 and 2 VICKERS, p. 372 observed: 'Two scholars [Gloucester and da Monte] with sim­ ilar tastes had struck up a friendship based on a strong intellectual sympathy, [. .] mercenary motives . were here absent. We can listen to the praise of da Monte without any nauseating suspicion of the reality of the sentiments expressed.' For similar assessments see SCHIRMER, pp. 37-41; WEISS, p. 24, p. 27; and J. Haller in his introduction to Piero da Monte. Ein Gelehrter und päpstlicher Beamter, pp. *83-4. 3 Vatican City, B.A.V., Vat.lat. 2964 (DA MONTE'S Epistolary) (cited from now on as DA MONTE, 'Epistolary'). The manuscript has been edited by Johannes Haller, Piero da Monte. Ein Gelehrter und päpstlicher Beamter des 15. Jahrhunderts. Seine Briefesammlung, ed. J. HALLER, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, xix (Rome, 1941). Since this edition is incomplete, the following investigation is based on the original manuscript. Wherever relevant passages have been edited by Haller, ref­ erence will be made both to the MS and to HALLER. 4 For the alleged shortcomings of the epistolary see HALLER, pp. *45~6, pp. *50-3; pp. *75-6; SCHOFIELD, p. 90. .