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Pope Paul II (Latin: Paulus II), born Pietro Barbo, was Pope from 30 August 1464 to his death in 1471.
Pope Paul rejected King George of Poděbrady of Bohemia because he upheld the conventions of the Council of Basel in favor of the Utraquists. In August 1465, Paul II summoned Poděbrady before his Roman tribunal. When the King failed to come, Paul allied himself with the insurgents in Bohemia and released the King's subjects from their oath of allegiance. In December 1466, he pronounced the ban of excommunication and sentence of deposition against Poděbrady. Poděbrady's apologist, Gregory of Heimberg, subsequently accused Paul of immorality, a move that resulted in Gregory's own excommunication.
Just when the King's goodwill disposed the Pope in favor of reconciliation, Paul died suddenly of a heart attack on 26 July 1471.
In statecraft, Paul II lacked eminence and achieved nothing of consequence for Italy. In the Papal States, however, in 1465 he eliminated the regime of the counts of Anguillara, a house that had played a consistent anti-papal role since the plot of Stefano Porcari and the unruly insurrection of Tiburzio di Maso in 1460. |
