[3] Suspected of trafficking in dispensations from publishing marriage banns, theft of a sword and of a florin, he left his position with the Vicar about 1467.
[7] He became a Protonotary Apostolic in February 1481/82, and was appointed Master of Ceremonies to Pope Sixtus IV on 29 November 1483, having bought the office for 450 ducats, with the assistance of Agostino Patrizi, whose colleague he became.
[8] He held it until his death on 16 May 1506, successively acting as Ceremoniere to Innocent VIII (1484–1492), Alexander VI (1492–1503), Pius III (1503) and during the early years of Julius II.
It was while he held the office of Praefectus fabricae that the decision was taken to rebuild the church of Santa Maria dell'Anima as part of the celebration of the Jubilee of 1500.
[15] Among the significant events organised by Burchard as Ceremoniere were: the visit of Don Federigo de Aragon to Rome (December 1493 to January 1494); the coronation of Alfonso II of Naples (May 1494); the reception of Charles VIII of France in Rome (November 1494 to February 1495); the Papal Embassy to the Emperor Maximilian in Milan (July–November 1496); the Proclamation of the Jubilee (Christmas 1499); the visit of Alexander VI to Piombino (January–March 1502); and obsequies of Pope Alexander VI (August 1503).
Burchard was promoted Bishop of the diocese of Orte and Cività Castellana on 3 October 1503 by Pope Pius III, in acknowledgment of more than twenty years of service as First Master of Ceremonies.
[4] Burchard's importance derives from his Liber Notarum, a form of official record of the more significant papal ceremonies with which he was involved.
The first volume of the first critical edition of this work was published by E. Celani in 1906 as Johannis Burckardi Liber Notarum ab anno MCCCCLXXXIII usque ad annum MDVI.
[22] Perhaps Burchard's most enduring publication was the Ordo Servandus per Sacerdotem in celebratione Missae, published under orders from Pope Alexander VI.
[25] Mandell Creighton accepts the story as basically true, and he cites the corroborative evidence of a dispatch of the Florentine Ambassador, Francesco Pepi.
And so I ask that at this beginning as I am recording and explaining the actions of so many prelates, ill-wishing detractors not laugh at my writings, especially my colleague Johannes Burchard, who is much more of an associate in my office than my friend in charity, of which there is none in him.
Among other details, he noted the use of polyphony in settings of the Passion, a practice apparently introduced from Spain, and the performance of the now-lost motet Gaude Roma vetus, written in honor of Pope Alexander VI to a text by Johannes Tinctoris.