Ildebrandino Conti
Ildebrandino Conti (c. 1280 – 2 November 1352) was a Roman nobleman and Catholic prelate who served as the bishop of Padua from 1319 until his death.
In the period of 1343–1347, he worked mainly as a papal diplomat, travelling to Perpignan, Genoa, Milan and Naples.
Their grandfather left their father extensive lands in Valmontone, Gavignano, Sacchi, Paliano, Ienne and Segni in 1287.
The three younger brothers all entered the church and moved to France, Ildebrandino becoming a canon in Sens, Pietro in Reims and Paolo in Chartres.
He reformed the Benedictine house of San Pietro Apostolo [it] and promulgated new regulations for the cathedral chapter.
He convoked a diocesan synod for April 1339 to reform the economic basis of the religious houses in Padua and to fight usury and simony.
[5] Later that year, Clement ordered Conti back to Genoa to prevent the republic from being drawn into an alliance with the Kingdom of Hungary.
On 15 June, Conti obtained from Clement a bull confirming the University of Padua as a studium generale.
[2] Clement sent him as nuncio to the Kingdom of Naples, since the legate, Cardinal Bertrand de Déaulx, was delayed.
When the cardinal arrived towards the end of the year, Conti requested to be allowed to return to Padua, which was granted on 21 April 1347.
[2] On his return trip to Padua, Conti stopped in Valmontone and in Rome, where he witnessed the uprising of Cola di Rienzo.
[2] From Valmontone he wrote a letter dated 29/30 July to his vicar, Leonardo di San Sepolcro, describing Cola and his government.
[2] On 26 November 1347, Conti obtained from the lord of Padua, Jacopo da Carrara, a judgement confirming the law professors' right to vote on candidates for graduation to the exclusion of the rectors of the university.
In the spring of 1348, he began a series of canonical visitations in his diocese, which were cut short in the summer by the arrival of the Black Death.
[9] Even while Conti was in Hungary, Petrarch sent him a letter, Nuper ab occeano, one of his metrical epistles (Epistolae metricae, III, 25).
[10] Conti may have been selected to accompany Guy on his Hungarian mission because of his prior experience with Neapolitan politics.
[12] As subdelegate, he issued five acts in September 1349, one in Buda and four in Esztergom, most of them dealing with legation's finances.
On 15 February 1350, in the presence of Guy of Boulogne and with Petrarch in attendance, the body of Saint Anthony of Padua was reburied in his basilica.
[2] In the fall of 1350, Clement VI dispatched Conti to negotiate an alliance between Padua, Ferrara and the Republic of Venice in order to dislodge Giovanni Visconti [it] as lord of Bologna.
