Lodovico Pontano (ca. 1409-1439): Eine Juristenkarriere an Universität, Fürstenhof, Kurie und Konzil (review)

When Lodovico Pontano died in Basel in 1439, he was little more than thirty years old. Despite his comparative youth, Pontano was a trained jurist who had taught at universities, served in the Roman Curia, and represented King Alphonso V of Aragon at the Council of Basel (1431-49). Pontanto emerges from this study as a talented young man whose services were in demand and who pursued his opportunities. He received his doctorate in Bologna and spent a few years in Florence (1428-31). Then he joined the Curia as an auditor of the Rota (1431-33) before removing to Siena (1433-36). In 1436 he was brought into the service of Alphonso. Pontano already had ties with the humanist Antonio Beccadellia (Panormita),who was in the king's service in Naples. Shortly thereafter, Alphonso sent him to Basel to work together with the canonist Nicolaus de Tudeschis (Panormitanus). They were not harmonious partners. Moreover, both found their support of the council against the pope constrained by Alphonso's unwillingness to back the deposition of Eugenius. Nonetheless, Pontano served the council on missions, especially when the assembly was resisting transfer by Pope Eugenius to the city of Ferrara to meet with the emperor (John VIII Paleologus) and the representatives of the Greek church. Pontano might have played a major role in Basel's further conflicts with Eugenius, but mortality overtook him. The jurist was reported to have stayed in Basel in hope of being made a cardinal by Felix V, the pope elected by the council to replace Eugenius IV (r. 1431-47). Instead, he died in an outbreak of plague. Pontano left behind a considerable body of legal writings and polemics addressing aspects of the struggle between pope and council. Although not the author of any new doctrines, Pontano was a capable jurist cut down in his prime.

Thomas Woelki has provided Pontano with a massive study of his career based on both printed and archival sources. The book includes editions of ten short works written between 1436 and 1438. These document the jurist's role at Basel and representing the council in Savoy, Cologne, and Burgundy. The texts make occasional references to the Bible and classical authors, but they mostly draw upon Roman and canon law. The book is buttressed with a thorough listing of Pontano's works in manuscript and print. The list of works includes commentaries, repetitiones (expositions of individual texts), singularia (brief expositions of particular points of law), tracts on legal topics, consilia (opinions about specific cases), speeches, and polemics. Pontano's Singularia were his best-known legal writings. The book makes use of these texts to find biographical details as well as for evidence of Pontano's teaching of law, his application of it to cases, and the positions taken by the jurist in the conciliar crisis of the mid-fifteenth century. Woelki has found manuscripts of Pontano's writings in repositories as far apart as Berkeley, Ghent, Cortona, and Berlin. The book also has an extensive bibliography of related literature. The resulting volume gives Pontano a thorough, relentless treatment from cradle to grave. Few medieval jurists have been as well served.