Nicholas V. "Da Sarzana." Born in 1398. Was elected pope in 1447 (the abdication of the anti-pope, two years later, bringing to an end the "Great Schism"), and defeated the conspiracy of Porcari in 1452. He was a great scholar, was chief founder of the Vatican library and of several Italian universities, and offered an asylum to the Greeks driven out of Constantinople. Died 1455.

---