In the 16th century, the Spanish historian Alfonso Chacón mistakenly assigned him to the noble Masca family from the Pisan commune, an error finally caught in 1844 by Domenico Barsocchini, who found a document from 1208 naming Pandolfo's father.
[1] Pandolfo commissioned several paintings from Tuscany on the orders of Callixtus II, for which he was made sub-deacon of the apostolic seat.
On arrival in Tuscany, Masca succeeded in uniting the towns under the flag of the anti-feudality and of keeping themselves distinct from imperial authority.
Innocent wrote immediately to Masca and another cardinal who accepted the League's agreements (Bernardo, canon of S. Frediano of Lucca), affirming that the alliance had his disapproval since signoria (overlordship) over the March of Tuscany formally belonged to the Church, and as such the Pope could not negotiate with those who were in fact his subjects.
[5] Owing to confusion with an earlier cardinal, Pandulf of Pisa, Pandolfo was thought to have been born in 1101 and thus died over the age of one hundred in or after 1201.