Del Monte, Pietro (c. 1400–1457)

Venetian cleric, author of papalist, legal, and humanist works. During the Council of Basel, he wrote in support of papal power. Pope Eugenius IV employed him as a diplomat, sending him to England 1435–40 and France 1442–45, and appointed him bishop of Brescia in 1442. In England, Del Monte dedicated to Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester a humanist dialogue, De Vitiorum Differencia (mainly copied from Poggio's De Avaritia). In his later years he produced a voluminous Repertorium of canon and civil law.