Pedro González de Mendoza

Pedro González de Mendoza (1483)

Cardinal coat of arms

Pedro González de Mendoza (born May 3, 1428 in Guadalajara , Castile , Spain ; † January 11, 1495 ibid) was an important Spanish cardinal and statesman with the honorary title El gran cardenal de España . The unofficial name El Tercer Rey ("the third king") has also been handed down.

Life

Early days

Pedro de Mendoza was the fifth son of Iñigo López de Mendoza ; he was intended for a spiritual career and studied from 1446 to 1452 at the University of Salamanca , where he received his doctorate in law. At the age of 12 he was appointed Archdeacon of Guadalajara. After completing his studies, he was appointed chaplain to King John II of Castile . During this time he became the father of three illegitimate children.

Episcopal time

On October 28, 1453, Pedro was appointed Bishop of Calahorra . He was ordained bishop on Sunday, July 20, 1454, in Valladolid or in Segovia, Alfonso Carrillo , the Archbishop of Toledo ; Co- consecrators were Alonso de Fonseca I , Archbishop of Seville, Rodrigo de Luna , Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela , Pedro Castilla , Bishop of Palencia , and Lope de Barrientos OP , Bishop of Segovia . However, Pedro de Mendoza spent most of the time at the court of King Henry IV , where he was appointed Chancellor of the Kingdom of Castile and León . After the death of his father (1458) he became the new head of the family and took on the title of Marques de Santillana , which is why the crown of a margrave is placed above his coat of arms. On October 30, 1467, he was promoted to Bishop of Sigüenza - an office he held until his death. In 1472 he accompanied Cardinal Rodrigo de Borja, later Pope Alexander VI. , on his legation trip to Castile; a year later he negotiated with Princess Isabella about her successor as Queen of Castile after the death of her half-brother Henry IV.

Cardinal time

Pope Sixtus IV created Pedro de Mendoza on May 7, 1473 as a cardinal priest with the titular church of Santa Maria in Domnica . On May 9, 1474 he was made Archbishop of Seville . After the death of Henry IV on December 12 of the same year, he was his executor and since then has supported the new royal couple Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragón , who were already married and with their spouse's accession to the throne in Aragón (1479) the kingdom Spain established. In 1474, Isabella was officially granted the right to succeed her half-brother on the throne, but it was not until the Battle of Toro on March 17, 1476 that the decision was made, when Isabella's army brought the supporters of Henry's illegitimate daughter, the so-called Juana la Beltraneja , hit. Pedro kept his office as the current Grand Chancellor and remained the main adviser to the royal couple until his death. On July 6, 1478 he moved to the titular church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme , which he equipped with a cross particle . On November 13, 1482 he was made Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain and thus held the highest position in the Spanish church hierarchy, which he later bequeathed to his protégé Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros . On the same day he received the post of Titular Latin Patriarch of Alexandria . He was also a commendate abbot of several important abbeys in Spain and France. On January 2, 1492, he took the surrender of King Mohammed XII with Isabella and Ferdinand before Granada . from the Nasrid dynasty, with which the last small Islamic empire on Hispanic soil came to an end. A little later he founded the first Christian church in the city after centuries of Arab rule and built it as a legate a latere of Pope Alexander VI. on January 23, 1493 the new Metropolitan Archdiocese of Granada . With his consent, the Spanish Inquisition was set up in September 1480 and on March 31, 1492 the Sephardic Jews were forced to baptize or expelled from Spain. The honorary title El gran cardenal de España was already awarded to him by King Henry IV.

Cultural meaning

Beyond his political interests, Pedro de Mendoza promoted the development of a humanistic culture in Spain, translated classical authors into Spanish and was a patron of Petrus Martyr von Anghiera . In addition, through his intercession, the Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus was given the opportunity to carry out his expedition to discover the western sea route to India in 1492.

death

Cardinal Mendoza died on January 11, 1495 in his native Guadalajara. He was buried in a High Renaissance tomb on the left wall of the chapel of Toledo Cathedral. The very simple grave inscription names him as cardinal, patriarch and archbishop and is followed by a short two-line poem in the form of an elegiac distich in which his vigilance is addressed. His memoirs, the Cronaca , were published in 1569, a second edition of which appeared in 1625.

Trivia

The Spanish wine company Gebrüder Sanchez Romate in Jerez de la Frontera produces a brandy in the Solera Gran Reserva quality class , which bears the name Cardenal Mendoza .

literature

• Michael Ott:  Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza . In: Catholic Encyclopedia , Volume 10, Robert Appleton Company, New York 1911.
• Ramon La Cadena Marques de Brualla: El gran cardenal de España Don Pedro González de Mendoza. 2nd edition Madrid 1942.
• Antonio Herrera Casado: La huella viva del Cardenal Mendoza . Edición de AACHE, Guadalajara 1995 ( online [accessed March 30, 2017]).
• Ana Botella Sorribes: Summa de la vida del cardenal Don Pedro González de Mendoza de Francisco de Medina y Mendoza (XVIe siècle.) Étude et édition. Paris 2004 (microfiches).

Web links

Commons : Pedro González de Mendoza  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• González de Mendoza, Pedro. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website), accessed March 30, 2017.
• Entry on Pedro González de Mendoza on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on March 30, 2017.