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.