Alberto III Pio, Prince of Carpi

They supervised his education and engaged as tutor Aldus Manutius, who was later to found the famed Aldine Press in Venice, which Alberto funded.

In 1508 he was one of the negotiators of the League of Cambrai, and in January 1510 he became the ambassador of Maximilian I, to the Papacy, but in 1520, with the ascendancy of Charles V, Alberto committed a fatal error by switching his allegiance to Francis I, King of France.

Alberto was a close friend of Pope Leo X and is known to have favored the election of Giulio de' Medici to the Papacy as Clement VII.

Alberto had been a defender of the Church since the earliest discussions about its reformation arose at the Fifth Lateran Council in December 1513, well before the publication of Luther's 95 theses in 1517.

By 1525 he had become embroiled in an extended dispute with Erasmus that continued for the remainder of his life and that was not concluded until two months after his death with the publication of his XXIII Libri.