Giovanni Conti (died 1332)
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Giovanni dei Conti di Poli (died 1 August 1332), sometimes shortened to Giovanni Conti or anglicized John of Conti, was an Italian nobleman and Dominican friar who served successively as the archbishop of Pisa (1299–1312) and archbishop of Nicosia (1312–1332).
Born in the latter half of the 13th century, Giovanni was the third son of Pietro di Giovanni di Poli and Giacoma, daughter of Ottone Colonna. His parents belonged to two powerful families, his father to the Conti and his mother to the Colonna. He was a cousin of Cardinal Pietro Colonna. His eldest brother, Stefano, was the lord of Lunghezza and the senator of Rome under Popes Clement V and John XXII. He entered the Dominican Order and passed his novitiate in Viterbo. He studied at the University of Paris and was a lecturer at Orvieto and Siena. He was elected provincial of Rome in 1290, serving until 1297. During his tenure, the province of Naples was split off from Rome in 1296.[1]
Archbishop of Pisa
In 1299, Pope Boniface VIII appointed Giovanni archbishop of Pisa. He was consecrated in Rome by Cardinal Matteo d'Acquasparta and given the pallium by Cardinal Matteo Orsini. On 5 December 1299, Boniface granted him the authority to exempt the Republic of Pisa, up to a limit, from the rules on taxation of clergy laid out in the bull Clericis laicos. On 11 April 1300, Giovanni consecrated Ottone, the prior of the Dominicans of Pisa, as bishop of Terralba. Later that year, he asked the pope to return the provostry of San Pietro, which the pope had provided for his nephew, Benedetto Caetani. Instead, on 29 January 1301, Boniface granted the Camaldolese abbey of San Zenone to the archbishopric.[1]
Giovanni consolidated the archdiocese's holdings by exchanging property in other dioceses for lands closer to Pisa. In 1307, Pope Clement V ordered him to examine the Templars in the patriarchate of Aquileia.[1] In 1312, he welcomed the Emperor Henry VII to Pisa.[2]