The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

ADVANCEMENT OF CxIAN ANGELO. 73
Gian Angelo de' Medici, who've protector, Cardinal Alessandro
Farnese, had ascended the Papal throne on October 13th,
1534, now devoted all his powers to procuring the liberation
of his imprisoned brothers. The new Pope had already in the
first years of his reign entrusted the administration of Ascoli
Piceno in the Marches to the astute Lombard,^ and Gian
Angelo went to Citta di Castello in 1535, and to Parma in 1536
in the same capacity. His unwearied efforts for the liberation
of his imprisoned brothers, to which, among other documents,
a letter in his own hand of May 24th, 1537, still preserved in
the Vatican Archives, testifies,^ were at last to be crowned
with success. When the meeting of Paul III. and Charles V.
took place in the summer of 1538 at Nice, Gian Angelo also
went there, and by the Pope's intercession he succeeded in
inducing the Emperor to order his brothers to be set at liberty,
whereupon Gian Giacomo again joined the army of Charles V.,
and won his favour in an increasing degree.^
Gian Angelo, meanwhile, still filled the difficult yet by no
means exalted office of an official in the administration of the
States of the Church. He was Governor of Fano in 1539,
and in the following year filled the same office for a second
time in Parma. His faithful service at length resulted in his
being appointed in 1542 apostolic commissary to the troops
which Paul HI. sent to Hungary to assist King Ferdinand
against the Turks. Here he met his brother, Gian Giacomo,
who was commanding the Danube fleet, but who severely
criticized the policy of the commander-in-chief, the Elector
Joachim H. of Brandenburg, in a memorandum which, as the
complete failure of the enterprise proved, was fully justified.*
1 Concerning the slow promotion of Gian Angelo in the Curia
see Panvinius [cf. Appendix No. 37).
^ Susta (loc. cit. 24) was also the first to draw attention to this
document (Carte Fames. VI., Papal Secret Archives).
* See the letter of Charles V. to his brother in the Venetian
despatches, I., 475, n. 2. See also Navagero in Albert, I., i, 309.
* C/. Vol. XII. of this work, p. 144, and Susta, Pius IV., 25.
The reports of Gian Angelo are printed in the Mon. Hung, dipl.,
XVI., Budapesth, 1879.