Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini led a life of struggle, conflict, and, finally, disappointment. Born into an impoverished Sienese noble family, one of eighteen children of whom only three survived to adulthood, he rose to occupy the highest office in Christendom. He was raised in a rural backwater but became famed for his urbanity. He was so immersed in the literature of pagan antiquity that he likely chose the name Pius after Virgil's hero, "pius Aeneas", rather than the second century martyr St Pope Pius I, but he was also devout enough to walk ten miles barefoot through the snow while on pilgrimage in Scotland. He was a key player at the renegade Council of Basel but repudiated the conciliar theory long before he became Pope. He undertook to personally lead a crusade to liberate Constantinople despite the persistent illnesses that left him virtually crippled, only to see the project evaporate in the last months of his life.
The very human story told in The Laurels and the Tiara combines international intrigue, Renaissance culture, and high moral purpose, epitomized by a colorful College of Cardinals which included the notorious Rodrigo Borgia alongside famed scholars Basilios Bessarion and Nicholas of Cusa. The biographer's task is greatly eased by the fact that Pius II wrote an extensive autobiography, supplying him with an abundance of material including a number of amusing anecdotes and revealing trivialities. Throughout, Mitchell keeps his narrative moving briskly along, even when it might benefit from lingering, and unfortunately this ultimately results in the biography resembling a sketch more than a complete portrait.
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