Giordano Orsini (1360/70 — 29 May 1438) was an Italian cardinal who enjoyed an extensive career in the early fifteenth century.
Orsini's status put him in a position to be a major patron of the arts,[2] and during the pontificate of Martin V (1417–31), the Cardinal of Santa Sabina, as he was called, became the center of an early circle of humanist culture that included Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, Leonardo Dati and Lorenzo Valla, who recalled[3] how the scholars would gather, dressed in antique robes, to discuss topics of human conduct in Classical and Christian terms.
His seat was the fortress-palazzo crowning "Monte Giordano", a small rise south-east of the Ponte Sant'Angelo, which had been built in the twelfth century by the Roncioni, and had been converted and extended into a palatial complex by the Orsini.
Such a grand scheme was beyond the powers of Roman painters, whose skills and workshops had diminished during the Avignon Papacy, when the sources of patronage were removed from Rome.
The humanist circle disbanded when Giordano Orsini followed Pope Eugenius IV into voluntary exile from Rome in 1434.