St. Nicholas V

When Tommaso Parentucelli was elected pope in 1447, he took the name Nicholas in honor of his patron, Nicolò Albergati. Tommaso, the son of a doctor, was born in 1397 at Sarzano, and when his parents died, he abandoned his studies at Bologna to become a tutor. He served as bishop of Bologna and papal legate before being named a cardinal. As pope, he negotiated a concordat with Emperor Frederick III in which the emperor recognized the right of the pope to fill vacant sees and other vacant high-profile clerical positions in Germany. After ending a schism with Antipope Felix V in 1449, the pope declared the following year one of jubilee. A plague broke out in 1450. Nicholas is sometimes considered the true founder of the Vatican library because he left it 1,200 Latin and Greek manuscripts when he died in 1455.