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Early Modern European "Reject Aeneas, Accept Pius": Selected Letters of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II). Introduced and translated by Thomas M. Izbicki, Gerald Christianson, and Philip Krey. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. 2006. Pp. xvi, 435. $79.95. ISBN 978-0-813-21442-4.)
One of the most mysterious and meteoric religious conversions of the early Renaissance is that of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, author of a famous and scurrilous story of adulterous love (The Two Lovers), father of (at least) two illegitimate children, bishop, cardinal, and pope. Equally enigmatic were his political shifts from committed conciliarist at Basel and neutrality with Emperor Frederick III to reconciliation with the pope whom Basel had tried to dethrone and fervent opposition to conciliar authority over the papacy. This selection fromAeneas's Latin correspondence runs chronologically from 1432 and ends with two papal letters from 1459 and 1463. Each letter has a brief contextual note and short but helpful footnotes that resolve basic issues such as identities, dates, and historical and textual cruces. The excellent introduction provides a clear and well-documented account of Aeneas's life and career. Historians without...