Council of Mantua (1459)

He opened the council on 1 June and waited in Mantua as the guest of Ludovico III Gonzaga until September for the various representatives to assemble.

The Venetian Cardinal Ludovico Trevisan, patriarch of Aquileia, met Pius in Siena, 16 March, and followed the pope to Mantua, although he opposed the aims of the Council.

One of the only European rulers to fully endorse the Crusade was Vlad III, though he was too preoccupied defending his native Wallachia to contribute troops.

Historians of the Tarot like Heinrich Brockhaus[5] have asserted that the so-called Tarocchi di Mantegna were devised and made during the sitting of this council.

[6] Long after the pope's death, the artist Pinturicchio painted the convocation of the council among the scene's from Pius' life on the walls of the Piccolomini Library in Siena Cathedral.