Cardinal Pole in Italy
H. Ross Williamson profiles the life and career of Cardinal Reginald Pole: cousin to Henry VIII; once Papal candidate; ‘a humanist of European reputation’; Pole spent much of his life abroad, in an artistic and philosophical circle that included Michelangelo.
For a man who came very near to being King of England and very much nearer to being Pope, Reginald Pole has little fame among his fellow-countrymen in general. Royal in blood, a scholar and a humanist of European reputation and one of the most renowned and respected statesmen of his age, he was a greater man than scores whose names are more commonly known.’ So, in 1935, Harold Child started his essay on Cardinal Pole in The Great Tudors and in 1951 Philip Hughes in his second volume of The Reformation in England asserted truly that ‘a really good study of Pole’s career is still one of the great desiderata of English history.’
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