Nicholas

Nicholas, the name of five popes and an antipope. NICHOLAS I. was born of a noble Roman family, and was elected as successor to Benedict III. in 858. He showed great persistence in his endeavours to assert the supremacy of the Roman curia, especially in his successful disputes with Archbishop Johannes of Ravenna, Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims, and the patriarch Photius of Constantinople. His latest triumph was the restoration to her rights of Thietberga, the unjustly divorced wife of the Emperor Ludwig’s younger brother, Lothaire, king of Lorraine. A synod of Metz in 862 had allowed the king to put her away and marry his mistress, but the pope reversed the judgment and deposed the too compliant Archbishops of Cologne and Treves. Nicholas died in 868.—NICHOLAS V. was originally called Thomas Parentucelli. Born at Pisa in 1398, he was educated at Florence and Bologna, and was named Bishop of Bologna by Eugenius IV. He showed such astuteness during the troubles of the Councils of Basel and Florence that he was chosen to succeed Eugenius IV. in 1447. He prevailed on the antipope, Felix V., to abdicate, and thus restored the peace of the church in 1449. He was a liberal patron of scholars, and despatched agents both to the East and West, to purchase or to copy important Greek and Latin manuscripts. The number collected is said to have exceeded 5000. He remodelled, and may almost be said to have founded, the Vatican Library. He invited to Rome the most eminent scholars of the world, and extended his especial patronage to those Greeks whom the troubles of their native country drove to seek a new home in the West. He endeavoured to arouse the Christian princes of Europe to the duty of succouring their brethren of the East; but the age of enthusiasm was past, and he was forced to look on inactive at the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Nicholas died in 1455, at the comparatively early age of fifty-seven. He must not be confounded with an antipope of the same name, Peter de Corbario, who was set up, in 1323, by Ludwig of Bavaria, in antagonism to John XXII. (q.v.). See also NICOLAS (ST).