Branda da Castiglione

On 6 June 1411 John XXIII named him a cardinal; he gave up his see of Piacenza^[7] and took for his titulus San Clemente, adding the cardinal's hat and tassels to his family arms. His position strengthened his relations with Sigismund, who made him Count of Veszprém (Hungary) in 1411 and at Branda's urging raised all the male members of the Castiglioni to the rank of count palatine in 1417,^[8] and with the new duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti.

The deadlock of the schism forced the convocation of another council, at Constance. Branda assisted at several sessions, working towards a compromise. On 11 November 1417 the conclave proclaimed Ottone Colonna, who assumed the papal name Martin V, recognized by the entire Church. Branda da Castiglione and the other eleven cardinals accompanied Martin to Milan, where he consecrated the high altar of the Duomo. In Rome, Martin gave Branda the use of the Palazzo S. Apollinare in Piazza Navona.^[9]

In 1421 Branda was at Castiglione Olona, where he announced his plans to rebuild the walled village of his birth. In March 1425 he consecrated the new collegial parish church at Castiglione Olona. The project was described, using the vocabulary of Vitruvius, by the humanist bishop of Pavia, Francesco Pizolpasso.^[10] In the same year he was sent as envoy to Bohemia with the mission, of which he was the galvanizing force, of stamping out the heretical movement of the followers of Jan Hus, in the name of Christian uniformity, employing Imperial forces headed by Filippo Scolari, called "Pippo Spano". He appointed Nikolaus von Dinkelsbühl the official preacher against the Hussites.

He moved on to Hungary once more, pursuing diplomatic objectives, and taking Masolino with him. His mission as papal legate took him to Bohemia and Moravia, Poland and Germany, often moving with the Imperial court.

He represented the Visconti in treaty negotiations at Florence, and participated in the conclave of 1431 that elected a successor to Martin V, Pope Eugenius IV. He participated in the Council of Florence, sitting at Ferrara and Florence, 1438 to 1442. In Florence he came to know the work of Masolino, occupied with the Brancacci Chapel; Branda convinced Masolino to accompany him to Hungary for three years (1425–28) and commissioned him to carry out frescoes for his Capella Castiglione in his titular church of San Clemente, Rome and decorative landscapes for Palazzo Branda in Castiglione Olona.^[11]

He returned to Castiglione Olona, where he became ill in December 1442 and died in early February 1443 in his Palazzo Branda, aged ninety-three. Leonardo Griffi composed the elogy at his funeral and Branda's secretary, Giovanni da Olmütz, deposited his vita on parchment in the stone sarcophagus.^[12]

He commissioned work from Masolino da Panicale, Lorenzo di Pietro, "il Vecchietta" and Paolo Schiavo, he rebuilt his family village of Castiglione Olona in the mould of a Renaissance ideal city of humanist culture, the first centre of Tuscan Renaissance culture in northern Lombardy.^[13] In the little town he rebuilt the palazzo of his ancestors and added another for his familia.

He built the Chiesa del Santissimo Corpo di Cristo and founded a school for the boys of the region, the Scuola di Canto e Grammatica di Castiglione Olona and a nunnery for the feminine members of the Humiliati and donated a library to the commune. In Pavia he founded a college in 1430 under the protection of Saint Augustine, now known as Collegio Castiglioni Brugnatelli.^[14][15]