Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini: Literature as the art of mediation

The years of Enea Silvio Piccolomini’s cardinalate are among the most intense of his diplomatic activity. By analysing his letters from these years, many of which have remained unpublished, this chapter will shed light on the diplomatic and cultural strategies that Piccolomini followed in his work of mediating conflicts. The Cardinal of Siena sought, and in some cases succeeded, in finding compromise solutions between widely divergent economic, political or cultural positions. Piccolomini acted firstly through his extensive diplomatic network, built up during a period of difficult work first in the Emperor’s Secretariat and then in the service of Callixtus III. With the help of some little-known unpublished letters, this chapter will also try to show how the friendships that Piccolomini forged in those years were not only cemented by coincidental, economic or political interests, but, in some significant cases, by a shared cultural vision based on humanistic values. This cultural perspective made the intervention of the Cardinal of Siena more effective, thanks also to the rhetorical and communicative skills that came from the new linguistic and literary knowledge. In those years, Piccolomini’s literary and humanist approach was a kind of successful model for diplomatic mediation in political, religious and cultural crises.