Cardinal legate and vicar general from 30 June 1353 to 1357, who led as condottiere Papal States mercenary armies in two campaigns to reconquer territory in Italy, and statesman.

He fought against a Marinid invasion from Morocco in 1340 at the Battle of Río Salado and led the armed levy of his archbishopric at the taking of Algeciras in 1344.

Leading a small mercenary army, he embarked on a series of successful campaigns against various rulers, ultimately expanding the territories of the Papal States.

During his time in Italy, Albornoz issued the Constitutiones Sanctæ Matris Ecclesiæ, which effectively regulated the Papal States and their division into provinces until 1816.

In 1364, he founded the College of Saint Clement in Bologna to benefit Castilian, Aragonese, and Portuguese students, providing them with a unique learning opportunity.

[4] At the battle of Río Salado he successfully fought against a Marinid invasion from Morocco in 1340, and at the taking of Algeciras in 1344 he led the armed levy of his archbishopric.

His military and diplomatic ability became known to the pope, who made him a cardinal-priest of S. Clemente in December of that year, at which point he resigned the archbishopric of Toledo.

[5][6] He was appointed grand penitentiary shortly after election of Pope Innocent VI in December 1352 and given the epithet "Angel of Peace", a title which quickly became an ironic misnomer given his future campaigns in the Papal States.

In 1353 Innocent VI sent him as a legate into Italy, with a view to the restoration of the papal authority in the states of the Church, at the head of a small mercenary army.

The Papal commander Rodolfo II da Varano, lord of Camerino, defeated Galeotto Malatesta, forcing his family to become a loyal ally of the Pope.

His sojourn there was to be short, however, as Giovanni di Vico and Francesco Ordelaffi (who had hired the famous condottiero Konrad von Landau's "Grand Company") were menacing the fragile balance of his last conquests.

He began by making use of Cola di Rienzo (former leader of the citizenship freedom in Rome), whose release from prison at Avignon he secured.